While spooky season isn’t always a treat for young children, there are still plenty of ways for your family to enjoy the smells, sounds and colors of fall.

In addition to the Jack-o-Lantern Spectacular at Roger Williams Park Zoo, various corn mazes and pumpkin patches in the area, here are some of our top choices for family-friendly Halloween and fall-themed fun:

Adams Farm, 495 Sumner Brown Road, Cumberland (adamsfarmri.com). The season’s one-stop shop has the state’s largest pumpkin patch for picking, farm animals for petting, hay and corn mazes, a hay mountain, tire playground with sawhorse ponies, games and, on weekends, hayrides. Treats are for sale in the farmstand. The farm is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays (general admission $15.48) and 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekends ($23.73 admission). Children 2 and under admitted free.

New England Witches Guild Parade and Festival (New England Witches Guild 2024 Halloween Parade & Festival | Facebook). Stepping off from Riverside Square, 3731 Pawtucket Ave., East Providence, at 11 a.m., Saturday, Oct. 19, the parade is a fun way to help kids embrace one of the season’s scariest characters. Proceeding to Crescent Park’s Loof Carousel, where the festival awaits, the parade includes colorful witches, dancing witch groups and the Providence Drum Troupe. The festival offers vendors, food trucks, live music and carousel rides. While kids enjoy the dress-up photo booth, witch hat crafting, bounce house and face painting – all free – parents can indulge at Moniker Brewery’s beer garden. The festival runs until 7 p.m.

More: North Kingstown house vying for scariest in America on HGTV. How to watch.

Coggeshall Halloween, 1 Colt Drive, Bristol (coggeshallfarm.org), Oct. 19, 20, 26 and 27, from 3 to 6 p.m. Don costumes (nothing too scary) if you like and visit this historic farm for themed trick-or-treat stations offering candy, carving apple and turnip heads, a magician and night hikes. Pre-registration is suggested. Non-member pricing is $20 for adults and $15 for ages 4 to 17. Members get a $3 discount.

Spooky Zoo, Roger Williams Park Zoo, Providence (rwpzoo.org/event/spookyzoo), Oct. 19, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Kids and parents can enjoy a day at the zoo along with free trick-or-treat bags, live music, costumed characters and much more. The event is included with zoo admission and is free for zoo members; non-members must purchase tickets online in advance. Rain date is Oct. 20.

Zoo Boo Spectacular, Capron Park Zoo, 1 County St., Attleboro, Massachusetts (capronparkzoo.com). On Oct. 25 from 5 to 9 p.m., the zoo offers its “not-so-scary” Halloween celebration. Come in costume if you wish and enjoy decorated animal exhibits as the kids collect treats, marvel at magicians and play carnival-style games. Tickets are $10 for adults and $7 for children ages 3 to 12.

Looking for fall fun in RI?: Here’s your 2024 bucket list: Pumpkins, pirates, ghosts and more

Halloween Party Cruise, Coastal Queen, 1 East Ferry Wharf, Jamestown (coastalqueencruises). Start the fun early with a holiday-themed jaunt on Narragansett Bay on Oct. 27, at 11 a.m. Take in the ocean views – inside is warm and weatherproof, just in case – while the kids enjoy a costume contest, treats, music and games. Tickets for the one-hour cruise are $35 for adults, $15 to $20 for children and $95 for a family.

Wheeler Cowperthwaite has been The Providence Journal’s growth and development reporter since 2022. He came to The Journal after working at The Patriot Ledger in Quincy, Massachusetts, and at the Cape Cod Times. Hailing from Northern Nevada, he brings a different perspective to the Ocean State. Before working on the East Coast, he worked for five years at an investigative weekly newspaper in New Mexico. Cowperthwaite has covered growth and development, including housing, business, transportation, the economy and real estate since 2012.

In today’s Providence Sunday Journal, Wheeler reports on the current state of hiring in Rhode Island and the struggles businesses are encountering to maintain a workforce that is ready to step in for those heading into retirement.

His recent stories include an interview with Jennifer Hawkins, who recently left her role as the CEO of One Neighborhood Builders; the state’s current real estate situation and all the ways you can eat around the world without leaving Rhode Island’s borders, as part of our Ultimate Dining Guide series.

Let’s hear from Wheeler in his own words.

What do you find most interesting about covering Rhode Island’s businesses?

I love the minutiae, from how a construction site operates to the flow of a distribution center. The pure variety of businesses, mostly small, in Rhode Island is always intriguing. 

What are the kinds of stories – business or otherwise – you love covering the most, and why?

Increasingly, I find myself drawn to stories about zoning, because of its importance in dealing with the housing crisis, although it’s a hard topic to make interesting enough for people to care.

What do you see as your biggest challenge when it comes to covering Rhode Island’s businesses? Why?

Just getting people to talk has become increasingly hard over the last few years, a phenomenon that I first noticed covering weekend parades and festivals, that has permeated the culture. 

What are some things you want readers in Rhode Island to know about you?

I’m a mediocre German speaker and a proud cat dad to the 14-year-old diabetic Norbit.

PROVIDENCE – Little Roady, a six-seat self-driving shuttle bus, began making rounds from the Providence railroad station to Olneyville and back in 2019, as part of a one-year pilot program to test out their suitability as a transit alternative for Rhode Island.

After testing the vehicle out for three months on less busy roads in Quonset Point, the Rhode Island Department of Transportation offered the service free to riders on the Providence route beginning in May. Less sophisticated than driverless vehicles today, Little Roady stuck to a fixed route, mapped out for it.

The service got around the legal prohibition of autonomous vehicles on Rhode Island roads because it wasn’t fully autonomous; a human attendant sat in the driver’s seat and took control when the self-driving vehicle couldn’t handle a situation.

In the first nine months of the pilot, Little Roady gave more than 33,000 rides. During that period, the shuttles were involved in 11 “incidents” with other vehicles or objects, according to the DOT. All of those happened when a human attendant was operating the vehicle, and none involved injuries.

Although there had been talk of extending the pilot for a second year, the program came to an end in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic and wasn’t renewed.

“What it taught us is the technology was not ready for the roads,” DOT spokesman Charles St. Martin told The Journal last month. The attendant had to take the wheel too often for left turns, he said.

The pilot program, operated by May Mobility, was paid for with $500,000 in Volkswagen emissions scandal settlement money, $580,000 in federal research funds and $145,000 in state dollars.