Take a walk...

I am a big fan of hiking and walking and anything that involves being outdoors, so naturally I encourage my son to hike and walk as well. After a long summer, where we have done all our outdoor activities during the day, the days are getting shorter and the sun actually sets before his bed-time. So last night, we finished dinner and he was about to continue in his nighttime routine of a little bit of play, bath and then bed-time-cuddles,when we went ahead and surprised him with an evening walk. He had so much fun!
I encourage you to take a half hour to 45 minutes out of your evening and take the kids out walking.
There are fun things to discover like:

- different shapes throw different shadows

- trees make shadows that can look like...let your imagination run free

- one of our favorites is watching stars. Have your kids try to count them...if they are older , see if they can find constellations. You can prepare that by going online and looking at what the different constellations look like:
http://www.fcps.edu/DIS/OHSICS/planet/constell/constell.htm

- Take a flashlight with you and every time you see something a little further away
that is a little harder to recognize, go ahead and have everyone guess what it could be and then find out by shining the light on it.