Are you ready for some fall family fun? Quality time with family is important, and so is making the time to commit to it around everyone’s busy schedules.
As seasons change, new activities provide fun opportunities for everyone to try something different. Challenge yourself and your family to spend time together with a focus on health. Find ways to get moving and enjoy tasty and nutrition foods. Activities you do today can affect your child’s health and wellbeing tomorrow.
Ideas for Fall Family Fun
Apple Adventures
- Apple Picking: Apples are packed with vitamins, minerals, and fiber. Walking around in an orchard is the perfect recipe for family fun!
- Apple Tasting: There are so many varieties of apples — Ginger Gold, Jonathan, Fuji, and Honeycrisp, just to name a few. They all have different tastes and textures. Try as many as you can and ask your family to vote for their favorite. Did you know that different apples have different health benefits? For example, red apples have polyphenols that are found in dark red fruits. Polyphenols may help prevent cancer and heart disease.
- Cooking with Apples: You can make homemade applesauce, apple muffins, or oatmeal with apples. They also go great in savory dishes such as baked chicken and porkchops.
Fun on the Farm
- Visit a Pumpkin Patch: Find the perfect pumpkin at your local patch and support local small businesses. Lots of pumpkin patches have tractor rides, a petting zoo with farm animals, and corn mazes.
- Fall Flowers: Your local home improvement store or plant nursery should have plenty of fall flowers to pick from. Mums are a popular choice every year for decorating the home. Let your family pick out a variety and have a flower arranging contest.
Outside Fun
- Move More: As the temperatures drop, it may be easier to get active outside. Outdoor hikes, cornhole, and football are classic fun fall activities.
- Night Time Adventures: Outdoor campfires, flashlight tag, and scary stories are great ways to spend a fun evening outdoors.
- Outside Chores: Fall cleanup can be hard work, but it can also be fun! One big fall job includes raking leaves. Make it fun by piling up the leaves and jumping in!
For Colder Days
- Turn off the TV: Make a list of new books to read or fine-tune your writing skills by purchasing a new journal to write in. Think of new activities such as knitting, scrapbooking, painting, or doing puzzles. Expand your horizons!
- Try Group Activities: How about a good old-fashioned game night? Pull out the board games and cards or try something like charades.
- Get Cooking: Have a fall food challenge. Ask your family to look for new recipes like pumpkin chili, winter squash, or apple muffins.
Family Time Can be Fun and Healthy
Quality family time is important, but it can also be challenging. Health, nutrition, and physical activity can all sometimes feel that way, too. It’s worthwhile to find creative ways to make family time fun, engaging, and healthy. Adding in a few healthy habits and experiences here and there will be well worth it in the end. Fall is the perfect season to try something new!
