Things to do with the family during the autumn

Don’t leave a leaf unturned!

Have you noticed how the grand-kids just can’t stop themselves from picking up those crunchy red and brown leaves when you take them on a walk during autumn? Then you get home and they refuse to relinquish said leaves to the outdoors and insist on carrying them round the house?

Well, don’t leave those leaves to go to waste! There are plenty of great autumn crafts that can be done with crisp fallen leaves. It’s a great way of keeping your grandchildren happy and keeping those leaves from reappearing down the back of a sofa in six months’ time!

1. For the brave, you could use PVA glue and glitter to decorate the leaves ready for use on a card or to be put in a frame decoration
2. Again, for those braving mess, how about using the leaves with paint to create a great printing tool for your grandkid’s next work of art?
3. A bunch of leaves, a length of cardboard stapled into a circle that fits your grandchild’s head, and PVA to decorate it with leaves and you have yourself an autumnal crown!

Walk through autumn

Now this is great, because while you’re on that walk you can either collect the leaves for the above activities, or you can go on the search for conkers. The BBC has recently highlighted the plight of horse chestnut trees in the UK and although we want them to be around forever, let’s make the most of them now!

There’s nothing like searching beneath the bows of a leaf shedding tree looking for that perfect conker! You can help your grandchildren find them and then open the green spikey shell excitedly together to reveal that shiny brown conker. These are great not only if you want to collect them for an autumnal decoration in your home, but also if you want to teach your grandchildren the tradition of conker wars by making a hole with a skewer and threading string through the conker ready for battle!

Autumnal baking

There are some brilliant autumnal recipes you can try with the grandchildren. If you are with them for the morning then why not make a pumpkin soup together ready for lunch? There are some lovely recipes for sweet and comforting autumnal loaves such as this Easy Apple Tea Loaf Cake or you could even get ready for bonfire night and Halloween with some wonderfully traditional Toffee Apples.

If you have very young grandchildren then you can avoid anything too complicated and just go for the fun and simple idea of decorating biscuits. If you follow a simple biscuit recipe and bake them before your grandchildren arrive they will be cool enough to ice and if you want it easy then you can even buy ready made decorative icing to use!

Attend autumn events

There are lots of lovely autumnal events which you can attend with the grandchildren. Whether it’s harvesting apples and pumpkins, enjoying food demonstrations and festivals, there’s a lot on. The National Trust has a superb list of activities which you can pick from whilst Dorset, the home of our upcoming Monterey property, is hosting the Dorset Food Fortnight 2016 over the following two weeks. Dorset is well known for its mouth-watering local food and drink and this fortnight celebrates it: 22nd October – 6th November 2016. It’s a collaboration of local producers to showcase the best local, seasonal fresh food and drink.

There’s so much to enjoy this autumn as a family and we here at Platinum Skies want all our residents to make the most of it and create some great memories. For more information on what Platinum Skies Retirement could offer you, contact us today online or phone us on: 01202 471461.