October Theme
Oct 1st, 2011 | By Wendy | Category: Family TimeKeep It Fresh With Themes
It can be a challenge to come up with ideas for fun activities to engage your child in learning. Let’s face it, some days you just don’t want to pick up another flash card! Having a theme for each month can help to keep your activities current with the world around you. If it sounds like too much work to come up with monthly themes, that’s okay – use ours!
October Theme:
Color – Orange
Shape – Circle
Focus – Autumn
- Play with orange Play-Doh.
- Look for things that are orange.
- Draw a picture of things that are orange.
- Scavenge for acorns.
- Go on a walk and look for woolly bear caterpillars.
- Collect and compare leaves that have fallen. Try to guess which type of tree they are from, and take note of the different sizes and textures.
- Show your child how to mix red and yellow to create orange.
- Cut out different sizes of circles and glue them on a piece of cardstock to create a circle collage. (Hint: To make it easy to cut circles, first trace items like-coins, lids, small plates, cup bottoms.)
- Go on a circle hunt. How many things can you find inside your house that is a circle shape? Look for things like-coins, clocks, tables, rings, bracelets, etc. Don’t forget to look inside the pantry and the refrigerator!
- Coin sorting is a great way for your child to recognize that circles can be different sizes. While you are sorting, you can discuss the value of each type of coin and the person depicted to expand the learning opportunity.
Festivals, Farms and Family Traditions
Autumn is a great time to experience the outdoors. Don’t forget to take advantage of all of the fall festivals in your town. Schools, churches, libraries and other nonprofit groups are a great resource for fun fall time outdoor activities.
Visit a farm. Autumn is a busy time at local farms and many host harvest time activities. You can go for a hayride, pick out a pumpkin, go apple picking and watch apples being made into apple sauce and cider. Many farms also have a farmers market which makes the visit a great opportunity to pick up fresh produce and maybe a baked good or two. Plus, don’t pass up a chance to visit the animals!
Start some Halloween or Autumn family traditions:
- If there is a Halloween Parade in your town, dress up and go watch it!
- Read books related to this time of the year.
- Make and decorate pumpkin shaped cut out cookies.
- Wrap up in blankets, drink hot apple cider and tell spooky stories.
- Visit a state park or local hiking trail for an autumn nature hike.
- Check out your local recreation department to see if they offer any fall time day trips.
Host a Halloween or Harvest Party
Game and Activity ideas
Play musical pumpkin:
Assign one person to be in charge of the music; instruct everyone else to sit in a circle. Once the music starts, pass around a small pumpkin. Continue to pass the pumpkin until the music is stopped; whoever is left holding the pumpkin is out. Continue to play until one person is left, that person is the winner.
Have a pumpkin hunt:
Hide small pumpkins in your yard (enough for one for each guest) and send everyone outside to find a pumpkin.
Pumpkin decorating:
Since carving pumpkins at a party can be a bit tricky, an alternative is to decorate the pumpkins. You can use markers, yarn for hair, wiggle eyes, etc.
Candy corn toss:
Divide up into teams and see who can toss the most pieces of candy corn into a plastic pumpkin. To make it an even bigger challenge, start with large plastic pumpkins for the first round and then uses smaller ones for the next rounds.
Refreshments:
Turn an ordinary cupcake into a Halloween cupcake just by using food coloring to change white frosting to orange. Add a few drops of yellow food coloring to your white frosting and stir thoroughly. Follow by adding 2-3 drops of red food coloring. (Very important: make sure to add the yellow food coloring first, if you add red food coloring to white frosting, you will get pink!) Place a couple of pieces of candy corn or a marshmallow pumpkin on top to complete the festive look.
