October ushered in cooler weather that means autumn is really, truly heading our way. We get teased on occasion here in South Georgia that fall actually exists, but the heat index taunts and convinces us otherwise. But that just makes us appreciate crisp, cool mornings even more!
Enjoy an awesome autumn with the ones you love with lots of outside activities, pumpkin sightings, football games, and more. Try out some of these wild, but real holidays and create some unique family ones, too. Happy fall, y’all!
➤ Pumpkin Month — Try out this fun pumpkin craft to welcome the season. Have your child paint a lacy, white paper doily with orange paint. While the paint dries, cut a strip of green construction paper, 4 inches by 8 inches. Show your child how to make snips across the long end of the green paper, forming blades of grass, and make sure the child doesn’t cut all the way through. Glue the strip of “grass” across the bottom of a sheet of white construction paper. Tuck the bottom of the pumpkin behind the snipped blades of grass and glue into place. Paint a brown pumpkin stem on top. Help your child curl a green chenille stem into the shape of a vine and glue it in place under the pumpkin top and next to the stem.
➤ Hug A Sheep Day —Enjoy some good sheep books as a family and have a blaaaaast reading together! Look for and read some of these books: Sheep in a Jeep by Nancy E. Shaw; No Sleep for the Sheep by Karen Beaumont; Moo, Baa, La La La! by Sharon Boynton; Sheep Dog and Sheep Sheep by Eric Barclay, and Looking for the Lost Sheep by Tim Ladwig.
➤ Bandana Day — Put together these bandana bean bags for fun, gross motor skill practice. And, obviously, if you have little ones, be careful of the dried beans you use, as they could be a choking hazard. Let your child scoop dried beans from a bowl and place the beans in the center of a bandana. You can use different amounts, from a 1/2 cup to a cup of beans to make different sizes of bean bags. Then, carefully pick up the bandana, enclosing the beans in the center, and twist the edges of the bandana tight and closed. Wrap a rubber band around the tight, closed end of the bandana, wrapping over and over until the bandana is securely closed. The edges of the bandana will hang loose. Use the bandana bean bags for tossing games, catching games and even scavenger hunt games of hiding the bean bags.
➤ World Pasta Day — Work together to make this delicious recipe for dinner. Let your child pick out a favorite shape of pasta to use in the recipe. Prepare 8 ounces of the pasta according to the box directions. Rinse and set aside. Melt 1/4 cup of butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir in 1/4 cup of all-purpose flour, 1/2 teaspoon garlic salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper until smooth. Slowly pour 2 cups of milk into the butter and flour mixture and whisk continuously until smooth and bubbling. After about five minutes of whisking, add 2 cups of cheddar cheese and stir with a spoon until the cheese melts. Fold in the cooked pasta and stir until coated. Enjoy!
➤ Count Your Buttons Day — Spend an evening counting buttons together as a family. Start in one family member’s closet and count the buttons on the shirts hanging there. Check out another family member’s closet to see who has the most buttons in the family! Use this time to give thanks for the provisions of food and shelter and clothing and other material possessions, and then talk about non-tangible blessings in your family, like love and care and affection and appreciation and support and anything else you can think of. Then plan a shopping trip for another day to purchase several new, buttoned-items of clothing to donate to a women’s shelter, homeless shelter or church clothing closet.
Make it an awesome autumn with the ones you love. Enjoy the beauty of the season and share lots of memory-making moments with the family. You’ll be so glad you shared and stored up those special minutes, long after the seasons change yet again. Happy fall to all!
Statesboro native Julie Lavender is celebrating this October with the release of her parenting book, 365 Ways To Love Your Child: Turning Little Moments Into Lasting Memories. She hopes you’ll check it out and make lots of memories with your family!