Just because Autumn is here, doesn't mean trips to the beach have to stop. In fact, some of us prefer to go to the beach in the cooler months when the sun isn't so strong and the beaches are not so busy.
When you have children in tow, a trip to the beach in Autumn can be much easier as you won't have to take so much stuff with you and won't have to apply sunscreen every five minutes. Put the sunscreen on at home, grab a hat, rashie and water bottle and you are ready to go!
There are plenty of beaches along the WA coast, all of them stunning, so instead of a visit to a park or playground, have a change this weekend and have a trip to the beach. Here are some ideas to keep everyone busy:
1) Look for animal tracks. On a recent trip to the beach we found pelican, gull and dog tracks. Get the kids really involved and ask them what the animals could have been doing. Maybe the pelicans were sunbathing and the dogs were chasing the gulls. Burn some energy off by asking them to act out the scenarios. If you have time for a little planning before your beach trip, make your own animal tracks by transforming a pair of thongs into animal track shoes using craft foam and glue.
Click here to find out how.

Animal tracks in the sand
2) Draw pictures in the sand. Find a stick or use your fingers. Everyone take it in turns to guess what the drawer is drawing and the person who guesses right, gets to draw next.

Draw in the sand
3) Get everyone to write their name fairly close to each other in the sand, add the date, where you are and all put footprints/handprints around the names to frame it. Then take a photo (don't forget to take a photo like I did!)
4) Look for wildlife. There could be rock pools at low tide and we found crabs, starfish, hermit crabs and an assortment of animals in their shells in the shallows of the water and rock pools. It was fascinating.

Rock pools are full of life
5) Make shadows fun. Make shapes with your hands (learn some simple hand shadows before you go if you want to impress your children) or draw some simple faces in the sand (smiley, sad etc) and then get the shadow of your face on the sand face for some amusing fun.

Make shadows
6) Biggest/smallest shell competition. The old ones are sometimes the best!
7) Unusual beach combing but only pick up things that are unusual. Give everyone ten minutes to collect their bits and then all check out what everyone managed to find.
8) Beach combing but only collect bits of crabs. We recently done this and then made a picture on the sand of a crab habitat. We had lots of claws and heads and my daughter took great delight in making some mutant crabs out of all the bits we found.

Our crab habitat
9) Beach scavenger hunt. Make a list of 10 objects for each child to find/sight e.g. a piece of litter, 3 different shells, seaweed, crab leg/claw, feather, something smooth, something rough, spot a boat/gull/dog etc. They can work together or alone, whatever fits your situation best.
10) Play a game of noughts and crosses in the sand. Use your fingers or find a stick to draw the grid and play, or to add interest to the game, ask each child to find 5 shells and 5 pieces of seaweed or driftwood etc and use those as counters to play.

So many deserted beaches along the WA coast
You could take some bubbles, a kite, build a cubby with some sticks and a beach towel, the list is endless. Remember to take a bucket or something similar so they have something to put the collections of things in. We took photos of all things we found as it's important to only take memories and only leave footprints.