Posts Tagged ‘autumn’

Fun Autumn Activities for Children

Saturday, November 5th, 2011

fun-autumn-activities-for-children

Here are some fun autumn activities for children, including crafts, baking, and field trips:

Arts and Crafts
Autumn Stained Glass Leaves
Squash Creatures
Autumn Leaf Rubbings
Autumn Mobile
Making a Scarecrow
Twig Art
Grain Art
Thankfulness Tree
Autumn Table Decorations
Thankful Cards

Baking and Food
Turkey and Rice Casserole
Apple Crisp
Maple Leaf Cookies
Nut Identification
Spice Chart
Vegetable Creatures
Flavored Popcorn

Autumn Exercise
Climbing Trees
Jumping in the Leaves

Field Trips
Going to the State Fair
Visiting a Farm

Autumn Videos
Splashing in Puddles
Decorating Walking Sticks

Apple Crisp

Friday, November 26th, 2010

apple-crisp

I love to make easy, delicious food. A few weeks ago, someone gave us two huge bags of apples. The green ones especially needed to be baked into something, since they were too sour to eat raw. Being tired, I decided to make apple crisp first.

Peel and chop the apples. Grease a baking dish. Throw the chopped apples in and sprinkle with the following ingredients:

1/3 cup margarine stick

1/2 cup oats

1/2 cup flour

2/3 cup brown sugar

3/4 teaspoon cinnamon

It doesn’t matter how many apples you chop. I stop whenever I’m tired of chopping. For this picture, I used 10 tiny apples. Other times I’ve used 2 apples, and I just shook a little bit of those ingredients on top. Either you can melt the margarine in the microwave before stirring it all together, or you can cut the cold margarine with a table knife, and just sort of mix it in a bowl with your bare hands. Other times, like I said, I just throw the ingredients on top of the apples without mixing it because it’s one less dish to wash.

apple-crisp-2

If you sit down while you are chopping, you will end up being more cheerful as you chop apples, especially if you don’t particularly like doing it. Don’t watch TV, or you’ll chop your hand off.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

Mixed berry crisp is even easier. Defrost the mixed berries the day before. Throw them into a greased dish and put the topping on. Serve with ice cream. (Good enough for company!) Apple crisp is also good with ice cream, I forgot to say.

Cherry crisp is easiest of all. Dump a can of cherry pie filling into a greased dish. Throw the topping on. Yum! This is my favorite. No, wait. Blueberry pie filling is my favorite. Double the recipe for a rectangular dish. Then dig in and enjoy! (Plus, your dessert counts as a serving of fruit. How cool is that?)

Linked to Love Bakes Good Cakes

Nut Identification

Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010

nut-identification

Nut identification can be a fun and educational activity to do with children. In the fall (and into Christmastime), grocery stores carry assorted nuts to crack with a nut cracker. I always enjoyed chatting with family members as I snacked on these nutritious nuts.

One day years ago when my children were younger, I realized that I wasn’t sure what each nut was. So I looked up “nuts” in the encyclopedia. There were pictures with labels next to them. I had my children sort the nuts into different piles. I made labels for each pile of nuts. Then we cracked each one and tasted them, commenting as to whether one was sweeter or more bitter than another. One child said that the Brazil nut tasted like dirt. Everyone chose what their favorite nut was, and they learned how to crack nuts.

Another activity you can do is to put the uncracked nuts into a paper bag and see if your children can put their hand into the bag and identify the nut just based on the shape.

You could also do a taste-testing, having the children eat a nut while being blindfolded, to see if they can identify the nut based on taste. You could even bake recipes using the various nuts!

Jumping in the Leaves

Friday, October 22nd, 2010

Here are some fun pictures of my children jumping in the leaves.
jumping-in-the-leavesjumping-in-the-leaves-2jumping-in-the-leaves-3jumping-in-the-leaves-4jumping-in-the-leaves-5jumping-in-the-leaves-6jumping-in-the-leaves-7

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