​Support, advice and information for Home Educators in the UK.
Covering all areas of the UK and all styles of Home Education
Autumn crafts
Gather fallen leaves and twigs at your local park and create an autumn collage. You can do this on a piece of paper, or even on the ground when you are out and about.
Seasonal crafts
By Kate Broadley
Geocaching
Geocaching is the real-world treasure hunt that's happening right now, all around you. There are 2,170,289 active geocaches and over 6 million geocachers worldwide.
Nature Detectives
Loads of fun seasonal ideas for kids. There are plenty of print outs available on their website for free; or you can join up, for a yearly fee, and you receive fun ideas in the post and access to their Friday Challenges.
Decorate your house with seasonal bunting. Tie leaves, twigs, and ferns (either fallen from a tree, or made out of paper) to a length of string, and then hang in your home.
When you are out and about locally, pick a tree and take a photograph of it. Go back every day and take a new photo of the same tree. At the end of a week/fortnight/month look through the photos and talk about how the tree has changed.
It might also be fun to figure out the age of the tree. To do this measure around the trunk, about a metre and half up, in centimetres; then divide this measurement by 2.5. The result is the age of the tree in years.
You could create an autumn diary of your garden or local green area. On the first day write down what you notice about your garden. Notice how plants look. What colours can you see? What animals/birds/mini-beasts can you see?
Come back regularly, perhaps weekly, and see what has changed.
With Halloween just around the corner, you could research the origins of Halloween. And there are plenty of Halloween themed craft ideas you can try out:
Have a go at pumpkin carving (save the seeds for baking!).
Make your own Halloween costumes.
Scary monster masks.
Make hanging Halloween decorations, such as spiders and bats.
Make up your own scary stories. For slightly older children they could have a go at writing a sentence, then passing the paper to you, or a sibling, to write a sentence. Keep passing the paper back and forward until you are finished. You should have a very interesting story by the end.
Because the weather is getting colder it’s the perfect time to learn to knit or crochet. Then you can all make your own hats for the colder months ahead.
Birds tend to get forgotten about as the year gets older, but they are still there. You could make bird feeding balls to hang in your garden. There are plenty of instructions to do this online......
http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-fat-ball-bird-feeders/
Food glorious food
Try baking, and cooking, with seasonal foods. Early autumn seasonal food includes: apples, pears, rhubarb, pumpkins, plums, tomatoes, figs, aubergines, leeks, kale, mushrooms, parsnips, celery, potatoes, and swede. There are many recipes to try out there. An example might be to make your own apple juice.
http://www.motherearthnews.com/real-food/how-to-make-homemade-apple-juice.aspx#axzz2csFrRkvy
