While our kids are back in classrooms, we parents are easing back into our own school year routines — car pool, homework, PTA, and so on. Maybe even juggling a career outside the home on top of it all. Though our schedules continue to pick up speed, the changing foliage and cooler evenings reminds us that the arrival of autumn is imminent. It’s time to slow down a bit, it’s also the perfect occasion for a creative fall celebration either at home or school.
Invitations
Make unforgettable invites with mini bales of hay available at craft stores and attach invitations to them with a bow. For a school fall carnival, pick up some inexpensive faux fall leaves found at many dollar stores and glue them to your festival promotional posters.
Food & Beverage
Caramel and Candy Apples have been fall favorites for generations. Update this tradition with a make-your-own candy apple bar, providing melted coatings for kids to dip apples into and roll in chocolate chips, nuts, mini marshmallows, M&Ms, and other sweets.
Games & Entertainment
For a classic game of Bobbing for Apples all that’s needed is a small tub of galvanized metal filled with water and apples. Kids, either blind folded or not, take turns trying to take a bite into a floating apple with their hands behind their backs. Another apple-themed game is one that I remember playing as a teen called Pass the Apple, where kids form a circle and then pass an apple to one another using only their chin, no hands allowed.
Decorations
Make cool decorations with inexpensive basic materials like construction paper, scissors, tape, and glue and even recycle household stuff. Paper chains made with colorful paper can’t be beat as a decoration kids can make together. Another idea for ambiance is to light the way to the party with luminaries — outdoor lanterns easily made from plain brown paper lunch sacks, sand, and votive candles in fire-safe containers.
These fun ideas, along with the magnificent leaf displays and a change of weather, are just a few of the reasons to usher in the season with ardor. Fall will make a grand entrance soon: We all should be there waiting to welcome it with style.
By Janis Brett Elspas
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