Ideas for Autumn fun with your family

When the pumpkins are so yellow

And the vines with grapes abound,

When the melons are so mellow

And the nuts fall to the ground;

When persimmons lose their bitters,

And the apples are so red;

When we love to eat corn fritters

Since the roasting ears have fled;

When vacation days are over

And the children go to school,

They no longer play in clover,

But much learn "Arithmos-rule,"

When weird Hallowe'en's most naughty elves

With gnomes and sprites appear,

While fat Thanksgiving fills the shelves - 

'Tis AUTUMN, QUEEN OF YEAR.

I love autumn, it is truly my favorite time of the year and always has been.  Finally the horrible heat and dust of summer is over, the leaves burst into glorious color, it is cool enough to cook stews and soups and casseroles and actually want to eat them.  Wood smoke from chimneys scent the air.  Geese call overhead and I feel the relief of summers end, food put up and done for winter.

I unfortunately have lived most of my life in desert like areas where summers heat made life almost unbearable.   No rain for months on end was and is to me an absolutely normal thing.  Only now with this horrible drought throughout our country do I realize that , duh, not everywhere goes through such dry summers.

I also just love fall crafts and holidays and always do lots of fun things with my children to celebrate 

I have been doing preschool activities for 13 years so every autumn our house is decorated with leaf projects, fall coloring pages, and crafts.   I like nice simple projects that even children with short attention spans can enjoy and that uses items I have on hand.

One of my other ideas is to create activity books for my children for when school is out for thanksgiving.  These are simply pages I have printed off for free from the Internet that include mazes, crosswords, coloring pages, simple crafts, and poems.  I staple them together for the kids to do if they are restless on thanksgiving day while I am preparing dinner.

Here is a great craft to bring the autumn beauty into your home.   Children of all ages and even adults will enjoy this.  It's easy, cheap, and your toddlers will be able to do it without lots of stress. Follow the link to the site below to follow the very easy instructions.



http://artfulparent.typepad.com/artfulparent/2011/10/autumn-leaves-stained-glass.html