How to Teach Your Toddler About Autumn

The air is crisp, the leaves are turning brilliant colors and falling to the ground, and neighbors are decorating their yards with corn stalks and pumpkins. Teach your child about autumn using the numerous examples in your yard, neighborhood and community.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Elmer's Glue-All
• Thanksgiving Decorations
• Pumpkins
• Children's Scissors
• Colored Construction Paper

1. Walk outside. Let your toddler experience firsthand the feelings and sights of fall. Point out that it is getting colder, and it is getting dark sooner. Emphasize the need for warmer clothes.
2. Talk about the trees and the different colors they are turning. Collect leaves and tell your child in simple terms why they are falling off. Play in the leaves.
3. Tell your toddler that the trees and animals are getting ready for winter. Notice any acorns or other seeds falling from trees, and point out the squirrels gathering them for winter. Pretend you are squirrels and collect seeds.
4. Decorate your house with fall colors and objects. Use construction paper and glue to make a variety of decorations. Make a pumpkin patch using orange, yellow and green construction paper. Use brown, red, yellow and orange paper to cut out leaf shapes. Tape the leaves on windows or glue them onto sheets of paper for a leaf collage.
5. Visit a farm. Arrange to go on a tour or hayride ahead of time. Ask the farmer to tell your toddler about the foods being harvested, the machines used to harvest them and where the food goes. Request samples of the food to eat during lunch.
6. Talk about Thanksgiving and how people have been celebrating harvest time with a big feast for a long time. Talk about what you will do for Thanksgiving.
7. Visit a pumpkin patch or apple orchard. Many farms have seasonal events that you can attend at this time of year.

Tips & Warnings

• Spread activities and events over several days and weeks. Toddlers learn best in small amounts and through repetition.
• Toddlers learn through play. Don't expect your child to sit and listen to a lesson. Interaction is a toddler's best lesson.
• Plan a hayride for your neighborhood. You can rent the equipment from a local farm store.
• Lie down on the ground where leaf cover is heaviest and make angels in the same way you make snow angels. Cover each other with leaves and play peek-a-boo.
• Mix equal amounts of flour and water with a little salt to make hardening dough. Divide and roll the dough into small balls and flatten them to about an 1/8-inch thick. Press the leaves into the dough, poke a hole through the top and let harden. Then paint them fall colors and string yarn through the holes. Hang them in your home or give them as gifts.
• Avoid encouraging your child to feed or touch squirrels. Some species carry rabies. Teach respect for animals in their environment and home.