Autumn is a great season to spend time in the woods with children at the weekends or after school, they just love playing games amongst the fallen leaves. Other fun things to do are:

1. Collect leaves, acorns, conkers, pinecones, feathers and other natural material from the garden or woods to make a nature table indoors. We make one every year and use a windowsill in the kitchen to display. When the children bring home their autumn art from school or make their own at home, it has an instant home amongst the display.
2. Create a picture or collage from fallen leaves or make a model from twigs, leaves and stones found on the forest floor.
3. Press leaves and put them in a book and help your children to identify which type of tree they have fallen from.
4. See who can catch the most falling leaves in five minutes before they land on the ground.
5. Make a list for each child and enjoy a woodland treasure hunt asking them to find things like a leaf from an Oak tree, a white feather, a snail shell, a special stone.
6. Draw pictures of the small insects, birds, squirrels or other creatures that you see during a woodland walk.
7. Build a den in the woods choosing a spot where there are already some small logs and plenty of branches. You can use a tree to lean the logs against and weave sticks in between. There are a few tepee type structures in our local woods built by previous adventurers which are still good to play in.
8. Find a magical staff in the woods. My son found his special staff about three years ago and he always leaves it amongst a small group of trees who look after it for him until we return for our next walk.
9. See who can find the most unusual coloured or shaped leaf.
10. Take time to be silent in the wood and listen to the sounds. This isn’t easy with children but is a magical experience when they do it. Have a competition to see who can keep quiet the longest. Then listen to the birdsong and try and help your children identify birds from their song.
11. Hang nuts and seeds out for the birds in your garden. My son has a growing list of the birds he has identified in our garden from robins through to a heron who was trying to eat the fish in our pond! Over the last year he has spotted 42 different birds with three birds he has heard but not spotted which are an Owl, a Cuckoo and a Green Spotted Woodpecker. This simple game has built an enthusiasm for his self learning about birds and nature through books and the internet. He is the family expert now!
12. Identify a tree where the fairies live and leave special leaves, small crystals and stones as gifts.