37 Best Fall Indoor Activities for the Whole Family

The leaves are changing colors, the pumpkins are in season and Halloween is just around the corner. What does this mean? Fall has arrived! And while many of us celebrate this change in seasons by going outside for a hike or to enjoy some apple picking, we also know that sometimes it’s not possible to get out and explore nature. These Fall Indoor Activities will bring the joy of this lovely season inside.

That doesn’t mean you have to sit inside all day though— there are plenty of indoor activities for fall that your family can do together without ever having to leave the house! Below we’ve compiled 36 ideas for ways you can spend time with your kids indoors during fall.

Fall Indoor Activities

Hopefully, these will help inspire you to plan an activity-filled weekend with your little ones. Happy fall, everyone!

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Educational Indoor Fall Activities for Kids

Pumpkin Volcano

Our pumpkin volcano is sure to be a big hit with the kids! It’s your classic baking soda and vinegar experiment inside a pumpkin. Adding food dye to the vinegar makes this experiment as colorful as it is bubbly. Fizzy fun is perfect for a chilly fall day!

Potato Stamping Pumpkin Activity

Your preschoolers will love making these adorable potato-stamped pumpkins (and older kids love it, too). They’re so easy, and you can make a bunch in just a few minutes. They’ll need an adult to carve the face into the potato—try a couple of different designs! This pumpkin art would make a fantastic backdrop if done on large sections of craft paper.

Fall Sensory Bin

Let your preschoolers dig into this colorful, fun fall sensory bin packed with popcorn kernels, mini pumpkins, leaves, acorns, and other fall items. Cinnamon sticks are a great sensory addition to a fall sensory bin, too; they smell fantastic!

Pumpkin Activities for Kids

We have plenty of educational pumpkin activities for kids, including a pumpkin life cycle, a sink or float experiment, suggestions for pumpkin-themed books, and so much more!

Fall Beginning Letter Sounds

These beginning letter sound clip cards are perfect for an autumn day. They feature gorgeous pictures of things like acorns, squirrels, corn, and leaves—all the things you love about fall! Clipping the clothespin onto the cards is great fine motor practice for kids, and of course, identifying beginning letter sounds is important for literacy.

Autumn Drawing Challenge

If your little ones love to draw, our fall drawing challenge is a fantastic way to et in a little creative time every day. Prompts include things like pumpkins in a pumpkin patch, fall trees, something you’re thankful for, a Halloween scene, and much more. The whole family can join in on the fun!

Fall Montessori Preschool Activities

Our fall Montessori pack is perfect for preschoolers who love hands-on activities like leaf threading, counting cards, and practicing their letters. We also include a movement cube that kids can roll and then perform the movements listed. It’s great for gross motor skills and getting the wiggles out when you’re spending time indoors.

Fall Slime

This beautiful fall slime is sure to get lots of hours of play. Plus, it’s fun to make! It’s stretchy, sparkly, and full of fall leaf confetti, which is perfect for autumn.

Apple Life Cycle

Learn about the life cycle of apples in fun and engaging ways! We have lots of creative ideas plus a printable pack with 11 pages of life cycle activities, apple tree life cycle cards, and more.

Pumpkin Salt Painting

Being creative during fall is so much fun and this Halloween Pumpkin Salt Painting is a simple and creative activity for your child. Plus, it makes a great decoration to hang up.

Fun Indoor Activities for Fall

Fall Leaf Alphabet Matching from littleladoo.com: Practice letter identification with beautiful fall leaves! This activity is easy to set up using cardboard, fall leaves (real or fake), and a Sharpie. You could also do the same with numbers.

Fall Tree Fine Motor Threading from taminglittlemonsters.com: If you’re looking for fine motor activities, look no further than these creative fine motor trees made with pipe cleaners and pony beads. Use beads in fall colors like reds, oranges, yellows, and browns, or let kids be as colorful as they’d like.

Dyed Pumpkin Seeds from messylittlemonster.com: After carving your pumpkins, try dying some pumpkin seeds to use in your math, crafts, or sensory activities this fall. Sort them by color, use them to count, create fun mosaics with them, and so much more.

Building with Candy Pumpkins from lemonlimeadventures.com: Candy can be educational and a yummy occasional treat. Here, candy pumpkins are used to build structures. They’re connected with toothpicks, and you can build structures in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Kids of all ages will enjoy this activity.

Fall Activities for Kids

Printable Fall Game from rockyourhomeschool.net: Print this game to play together as a family or individually! You have everything you need except the board markers included in the printable. For markers, you could use acrylic leaves, coins, small pebbles, or pieces from one of your board games.

Salt Crystal Leaves from steamsational.com: Conduct a science experiment with the kids. Learn how crystals form with this salt crystal technique on faux leaves.

Thanksgiving Charades from moneywisemoms.com: Your family will have a blast with this printable Thanksgiving Charades game. Act out clues like raking leaves, apple picking, scarecrow, and other fun fall objects and activities.

Five Senses Fall Playdough Ideas from onetimethrough.com: Set up this incredible sensory experiment for your toddler or preschooler. Three types of colorful playdough are scented with pumpkin pie spice, cinnamon, and nutmeg. The texture is added with the “three sisters” crops: corn, beans, and squash.

Fall Writing Prompts from intheplayroom.co.uk: Kids who enjoy journaling and writing will appreciate these fall writing prompts to encourage them to think about what they enjoy during the autumn season.

Leaf Painting from growingfamily.co.uk: Go into your backyard or on a nature walk with the kids to gather leaves for this neat leaf painting activity. Kids can paint the leaves and then create gorgeous prints on paper. Wouldn’t this be gorgeous turned into greeting cards or wrapping paper?

Indoor Fall Activities

Ice Cream Cone Teepees from frugalcouponliving.com: Playing with your food can be lots of fun! Use ice cream cones to create these adorable teepees using candy melts, fall leaf sprinkles, and pretzel sticks. Who wouldn’t love an edible craft?

Fall Leaf Chromatography from steamsational.com: Find out just how many colors are in the beautiful fall leaves you see every year. This chromatography experiment uses a solvent to pull the color out of the leaves, which is really cool to see.

Spicy Scented Sensory Paint from onetimethrough.com: Make your own spicy scented paints using egg yolks and spices! The paints have a gritty texture and look and will smell quite nice as you paint—nutmeg for brown, ginger for yellow, etc.

Sticky Fall Tree Light Table Activity from andnextcomesl.com: Toddlers and preschoolers will be captivated with this stick fall tree activity! Pair contact paper with acrylic leaves, and let them get to work adding leaves to a sketched tree.

Paper Leaf Stick Puppets from barleyandbirch.com: Make some paper leaf puppets to go along with your favorite fall stories or to make up a story of your own! Kids will love playing with these friendly and funny leaf puppets!

Fun Fall Activities

Fall Art Mixed Media Activity from simplybessy.com: Trying different forms of media in artwork is always fun. This fall mixed media art has children working with watercolors, colored pencils, crayons, and paper.

Apple Counting Activity from messylittlemonster.com: Bring out the playdough for this fun invitation to play! Kids roll the dice to find out how many (and which color) apples to put on the apple tree.

Printable Fall Memory Game from jugglingactmama.com: Here’s a memory game that’s perfect for little ones! Playing memory is great for improving focus, concentration, and visual recognition.

Counting Pumpkin Seeds Sensory Bin from taminglittlemonsters.com: Grab a pound of pumpkin seeds, and make some cute egg carton pumpkins to put in this fun fall sensory bin for toddlers and preschoolers. It’s such a fun way to practice counting, but kids can also practice scooping, pouring, and grasping, too.

Fall Activities for Preschoolers

Fall Printable Puzzles from simplybessy.com: These fall puzzles are perfect for a rainy day when the kids are stuck inside. Print them out, glue them to cardboard to make them sturdier, and then cut out the pieces for the kids to put together.

Mixed Media Leaf Art Collage from barleyandbirch.com: A mixed media art collage is a fun project for young and older kids alike. Even your tween or teen will want to get in on the fun! Use real leaves (or photocopies if you want them to last), tissue paper, colored cardstock, scrapbook paper, or whatever you’d like to create a colorful collage.

Fall Leaves Number Matching Game from steamsational.com: Help your preschooler or kindergartener with number matching by making this fun game that matches fall leaves with dots to the craft sticks with numbers.

Bobbing for Apples from fantasticfunandlearning.com: Decorative apples, a bowl full of water, and some tongs are all you need to set up this delightful activity for your toddler or preschooler. Using tongs is great for building those important fine motor skills.

Leaf Bowls from redtedart.com: Make some leaf bowls to hold your keys, change, or trinkets! These leaf bowls make fantastic kid-made gifts to give to family and friends for the holidays.

Fall Activities

Fall Leaf Sensory Soup from andnextcomesl.com: Stir up a sensory soup using acrylic leaves and dyed water! Kids will easily spend loads of time stirring up the soup, ladling it, and pouring it into bowls or cups. Try it with real leaves or flowers if you don’t have the acrylic ones!

Salt Crystal Pumpkins from steamsational.com: There’s nothing like a fun science experiment to bust boredom. Make sparkly pumpkins with this interesting salt crystal experiment. It’ll take a few days to see the results, but kids will love seeing the sparkly pumpkins at the end!

Pumpkin Sensory Bag from messylittlemonster.com: Babies and toddlers love exploring the world through touch, but sometimes they create a mess! This mess-free sensory activity is the perfect way to explore a fall classic—pumpkin pulp and seeds! Plus, it’s a fun way to make use of the “pumpkin guts” you get after carving your pumpkins.

Fun Things to do in Fall

We hope you enjoy this round-up of 36 indoor activities for fall. If you need more ideas, feel free to explore our blog!

And don’t forget to pin this post (or share it on social media) for all your friends who might be looking for new ways to keep their kids entertained indoors during these shorter days. Happy Fall, everyone!