• Walk a leafy labyrinth. When leaves cover the lawn, rake a twist­ing path­way through them
• Find a lol­lipop. Hide a wrapped lol­lipop under a leaf pile. The first one to find it keeps it.

• Stuff a scare­crow. Break out an old shirt and over­alls and stuff until firm. Com­plete with a pump­kin head.

• Make a sun catcher. Using a low set­ting, iron a leaf between two pieces of waxed paper with a sheet of plain paper on top. Hang in a sunny window.

• Pre­serve a leaf. Bring a mix­ture of 2 parts water and 1 part glyc­erin (avail­able in most phar­ma­cies) to a boil in a saucepan (adults only). Pour the solu­tion into a heat-proof con­tainer. Drop in a few brightly-colored leaves and gen­tly sub­merge with a wooden spoon. Keep the con­tainer in a cool, dark place until there is a slight change in the leaves’ tints. Then remove them and blot dry with a paper towel. Instead of turn­ing brown and crumbly, the leaves will retain their bril­liant hues.

• Play name that leaf. Go out into the neigh­bor­hood or local park and have play­ers col­lect five unusual leaves. Back home, try to iden­tify the trees they came from using guidebooks.

• Rake them into a huge pile and jump in!