Looking for ideas to keep your kids entertained this weekend? Keep reading for some easy and FREE activities to try. These activity ideas can be done for free at home or around the Edmonton Alberta communities. If you live somewhere else, you can definitely adapt these activities to where you live! We are speech-language pathologists so all of our activity ideas will also help your child with their speech and language development! Why not help them talk more and talk better while also having fun?
Try these 3 Free Fall Activities for Kids In Edmonton
Free Fruit Picking Activity in Edmonton and Homemade Apple Crumble with Your Kids (Outdoor Activities)
Edmonton is home to lots of trees with edible fruits. You may even have some in your backyard! If you don't have any fruit trees in your backyard, check out this handy website with a map of all the fruit trees in Edmonton. The city welcomes everyone to harvest and pick fruit from these trees! Edmonton has Apple, Cherry, Chokecherry, Pear, Plum and Saskatoon trees.
After you collect all the fruits, enjoy eating them together! Do an apple taste test! Talk about the different flavours, shapes, colours, textures, smells and crunch of each fruit. Check out our free printable here for all the different describing words we can use to talk about apples!
Try to think of as many different words as you can. For example, "sour" can also be: tangy, tart, acidic, vinegary, and stinging. Helping your child increase their descriptive vocabulary will help enhance the richness of their vocabulary. This will positively impact their speaking and writing skills!
Then, find a recipe online and turn your fruit into something delicious. An easy recipe to try together is to make apple crumble. Apple crumble is great because you only need to toss together a few pantry staples and it goes straight into the oven! Check out some of these websites for different apple crumble recipes you can do with your kids.
Fall Vocabulary Scavenger Hunt Activity for Kids in Edmonton (Outside or Indoor)
If the weather is nice, take this scavenger hunt sheet outside! Go on a nature walk and see how many items you can find that match the description. If you have two kids, turn it into a friendly competition! Or you can even do this activity while you are grocery shopping or at the mall! There will be lots of halloween and fall decorations and items to look at. This would be a great activity to keep your child occupied while you're running errands.
Our scavenger hunt sheet includes describing words and fall fringe vocabulary. In addition to knowing the names of things (nouns), children also need describing words (adjectives and adverbs) to communicate their thoughts and form complex sentences. We can also help our kids by introducing them to fringe vocabulary. Fringe vocabulary refers to specific words that are relevant to our current environment and surroundings. Fringe words are words that come up less frequently in general, however are very common during a specific situation or time. During fall and halloween, fringe words like witch, pumpkin, scary, glowing, or haunted will be frequently used. Describing and fringe words are important for your child to know so they can have conversations and participate in all the fall and halloween activities during this season. Doing this activity will expose them to the meaning of words so that they are more comfortable using this rich vocabulary! This will also give them good opportunities to practice thinking and making associations about the words.
Click here to save and download our free mobile-friendly fall scavenger hunt for kids!
Go on a nature walk or go to the store with halloween or fall decorations.
When your child finds an item, use the "markup" function on your phone to cross it out. Your child will LOVE scribbling out the circles.
Help your child think of other words to describe the item. Here are some other fall describing words: breezy, dancing, crumbling, brisk, changing, moist, scattered, rustling, eerie, haunted, gruesome, spooky.
Where to go in Edmonton this Weekend with your Kids
Here are some ideas for where to go in Edmonton with your family this weekend! These places are perfect to do the fall scavenger hunt!
1. Take a fall nature walk in the Edmonton River Valley with your kids
The river valley is the perfect location to do a scavenger hunt. There are easily accessible walking trails in many communities. There are so many different nature items and sights that you can use to practice describing!
2. Go to the annual fall Edmonton Corn Maze with your kids
Bring your fall scavenger hunt list and wander the Edmonton Corn Maze together! See how many different crunchy, dry, rustling, moist items you can find.
3. Go on a halloween neighbourhood walk in Summerside (Grande Boulevard SW, between 88th Street and 70th Street) with your kids
For another free family activity in Edmonton, go to Grande Boulevard in Summerside. Similar to Candy Cane Lane, residents decorate their houses with different halloween decorations! Go when the sun has set to see all the glowing and lit up decorations. This is another great place to bring the fall scavenger hunt and talk about all the different animals, creatures and halloween themed things that you see! Go a few weeks before halloween to avoid the crowds.
Halloween Monster Guessing Game (Indoor Activities)
Our next activity is a spin on 20 questions or "Guess Who?" but with fun halloween monsters! This activity takes minimal prep - just print the pages, cut them out and you have your own easy "board game". Take this board game to restaurants when you need to keep your children occupied, or take it out when you have a lazy weekend day at home.
This Monster Guessing game also involves describing and negation! In this activity, your child will start thinking identifying, labelling and describing attributes of their monster. They will also develop skills around categorization and grouping monsters that have similarities. They will need to ask questions about different categories of descriptors. For example, they will first need to ask about colours, then each of the facial features, and then what the monster is doing.
Click here to save and download the free printable. Follow the instructions to print and prepare the activity.
Give each player a game board, and some tokens/game chips.
Place the guessing cards upside down.
Each player will draw a guessing card. This is the monster the other play has to guess.
The first player will start by asking a "yes" or "no" question about the other person's monster.
e.g., Is your monster red? Does your monster have sharp teeth?
The first player will listen to the answers to their question and use the game chips to eliminate the monsters on the game board.
e.g., if the first player asked "Is your monster red?" and the other player's answer was "no" then the first player will use the game chips to cover all the red monsters on the game board.
Both players will take turns asking questions to guess the other person's monster.
When one player feels confident they know the other player's monster, they can try to guess!
Our printable also includes a visual support guide for children who might need some help with knowing what questions to ask. The visual support guide separates out descriptors in the different categories to help them organize attributes.
Do Fun Fall Activities in Edmonton this Weekend with your Kids
There are so many different free and easy free fall activities you can try with your kids in Edmonton this weekend. We believe the best learning happens when everyone is having a great time. These activities are fun but help your child develop their language skills at the same time. Helping your child increase their vocabulary will set them up for success when they start reading or writing about more complex ideas. It's easy to support language development within activities that you're already doing or planning to do!
Let us know if you have any fall or halloween activities that are part of your family's tradition! Find us on instagram @chattytherapy to get more speech and language resources.
Chatty Therapy is based in Edmonton, AB. We have wonderful speech-language pathologists who can give you more specific ideas on how to work with your child to develop their language skills and tailor it to your daily routine. Speech-language pathologists specialize in helping children understand others and express themselves better. Click here to learn more about our services or book a free 15-minute consultation.