Archive for the ‘Halloween’ Category

Here is our full list of Halloween crafts for kids we have done this year and last.

Candy Corn Magnet

Bat
Candy Corn
Halloween Silhouette
Easy Halloween Hair Tie
Frankenstein
Ghosts
Halloween Magnets
Haunted House
Pumpkin Collage
Pumpkin Luminaries
Pumpkin Play Dough
Pumpkin Prints
Pumpkin Stencils
Sandpaper Pumpkin
Spider Cookies
Spider S

I hope his list, which can also be found on our drop down menu under Crafts by Theme , will come in handy in the next week!

Easy As Pumpkin Pie !

I love play dough but until last year hated making it. I had a play dough cook off and this was my favorite recipe that was submitted by Jana from This and That I added pumpkin pie spice to it and it was perfect!  It was a nice calm activity for my little man on a very rainy day!

2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup salt
3 Tbs. oil
1 Tbs. alum
2 cups boiling water
food coloring

Here is how I had my little man help me make it today!

1. Gather your materials. You will need the ingredients – separated into individual bowls, pumpkin pie spice, food color is you want, a cutting board, and fall cookie cutters for playing after!
2. Start by pouring your flour into a large bowl, I don’t suggest having it at kid level until you are ready to mix… my camera batteries died and in the 2 minutes it took to get new ones there was a nice dusting of flour all over.
3. Pour in the salt.
4. The alum
5. The oil
6. The pumpkin pie spice – my son added so much but it turned out great.
7. Pour the boiling water in ( adults only please- the water needs to be boiling not just hot)
8. Mix.
9. Pop onto the cutting board and knead, add food color if you want.
10. Let cool a few minutes.
11. Play! The addition of seasonal cookie cutters make all the difference for us. Plain old playdough becomes extra fun with these $1 cookie cutters!  You can store it in the fridge for months in a sealed ziplock.

Toddler Halloween Books

Clifford’s First Halloween (Clifford the Small Red Puppy) by Norman Birdwell is a Halloween book that my son adores, I read it 4 times this afternoon alone. In all honesty I am sick of it but the person that matters still wants more. The story is about the big red dog’s very first Halloween as a puppy. Clifford and Emily Elizabeth find costumes, they trick or treat and try candy apples too. I think what my son relates to is that at almost 3 he doesn’t remember too much of Halloween , even though he knows what it is this year will be the first time he gets to do so many things. Like little Clifford, he is often too little for things, makes messes and has bigger people step in and fix it for him. He doesn’t know it yet but one day he will be more like the big Clifford than he knows.  This book doesn’t jump at me as a must read but I can’t ignore my son’s love when writing this review!

Peek-a-Boooo! by Marie Torres Cimarusti is a perfect toddler Halloween book. The premise is simple, each page has a well known Halloween character including a witch, skeleton, Frankenstein all hiding behind their hands playing peek-a-boo with the readers. The characters hands are flaps and when you lift them they reveal the character’s face – which is always sweet and happy , never scary.  At the end of the book there are more flaps to lift to reveal trick or treaters and the same Halloween characters hiding in their haunted house. My son loves this book too and  I think it’s a great completely gentle way to read about Halloween with toddlers.

Where Is Baby’s Pumpkin? by Karen Katz. This lift and flap book is the newest addition to our Karen Katz collection. My son adores these books. I read this in the check out line 3 times and he was asking for more before I could get my groceries in the fridge. I like this book because it’s a cute and gentle introduction to Halloween and all the creatures that go along with it. Also there are fun textures to many of the illustrations which help keep little hands busy! I love the sparkly ghost and the shiny bats are my son’s favorites!

Sun Print

The blue is really all one color- my reflection is wrecking a perfect picture!

My son is fighting the flu, and although his fever is gone he hasn’t asked to do any projects and I haven’t pushed. He has been watching far too much TV though which if the fever is still gone tomorrow will be ending. So today while he sat on the couch enjoying my lax rules about TV when we are sequestered in our house , I made this. I was so impressed with the results. My mom bought me this paper and I think she paid $7 for the pack of 12 in Canada, I would bet it’s cheaper in the states! This is not a craft for little ones but you can grab leaves or other flat objects and use sun print paper with young kids.  Here’s what I did:

1. Gather your materials. You will need sun print paper kit, some construction paper of any color, a pen or fine tip felt , fine tip scissors and patience !
2. Start by reading the instructions in your sun print paper kit. Pull out the frame that is included to make sure your paper cut out will fit. I did not do this and had to adjust later on.
3. Draw a spooky scene that can be cut out, I drew way too much but edited it down to a tree with an owl.
4. Check on your sick child who is overjoyed to be watching a 2nd episode of Dora.
5. Start cutting out your picture. It may take a while… I was thankful Dora was keeping my normally clingy sick son happy, cutting this was not easy.
6. Place the cut out in the frame provided before you open the sealed pouch of light sensitive paper.
7. Take the paper out, close the frame and place in sunlight.
8. You will see that we had a foggy foggy morning , I specifically wanted to try it on a day like today to see how it would work in overcast conditions.
9. It worked but  it took longer than the 2-3 minutes of sunlight suggested ( about 10) .
10. Rinse in a dish of water for a minute.
11. Let dry- colors get darker as it dries.
12. Frame and add some classy touches to your Halloween display!

Note to Readers

I am putting together an educational toy guide for the holidays and would love to include some reader suggested toys or games. My rules are : No characters, no weapons and keep the reviews short . I am aiming to have it done by the end of the month and up shortly after. I will as always link back to your blog in the post. If you are interested send me an email with  “Gift Guide” in the subject.

allie@notimeforflashcards.com

Earth Friendly Monster !

My son is almost 3 and not only very into Frankenstein , he is also in the bathroom all the time. Potty training has been pretty painless but it seems like we are always in the potty, so naturally I came up with a Halloween craft using a toilet paper roll!  You could use paint for better coverage, we are out of black paint so we used markers. What I love about this is that when you are done Frankenstein can stand all on his own !

1. Gather your materials. You will need a toilet paper roll, a black marker and/or  paint, green marker or paint, googly eyes, glue , 2 golf tees and scissors.
2. Start by drawing a line on the roll to mark where the hair will start.
3. Color the top part black , a trick I did with my son so he stayed in the lines , was to have him hold the other side and cover it with his hand while he colored. Worked great!
4. Color the other half green.
5. Add a mouth  with black marker.
6. Add glue for the eyes.
7. Add the googly eyes.
8. Poke  holes in the side for the golf tees. 
9. Have your child put the tees in.
10. Cut the black part with scissors, multiple times for make hair. This is a good chance for cutting practice since there is no need to be exact, simply make cute into the roll.
11. 
12. We added stitches along the smile after cutting with the black marker.  Enjoy!

Build Your Own Haunted House!

I have been itching to do another magnetic build your own craft after the huge response to the Build Your Own Robot . This seemed like the perfect opportunity since the foam pieces can be used like blocks to build a custom haunted house in time for Halloween.  I made this  craft, my son did none of it. Actually I lie, he cheered me on “Nice window mama!” while eating his morning oatmeal. He did how ever play with it, a lot!  This would make a fun independent  Halloween craft for a school age child too.

1. Gather you materials. You will need some sparkly sticky back foam in black, red and silver, magnets ( mine are also stick back), scissors , a marker and a cookie sheet or magnetic fridge.  ** Word about magnets. Magnets are not toys and should not be played with my little people who could swallow them. If you have a little person who eats things ( or could) please be sure to use large flat magnetic tape not these round magnets. I would be devestated if anyone was ever hurt from one of my crafts, especially a child.
2. Draw the shapes you will be using for the house on the backing of the foam. On the black I made a large rectangle for the house, 2 smaller squares for the 2 wings of the house, a small rectangle for the tower and a triangle for the roof. I made 2  slanted red squares for windows , a door and 2 tiny squares for the tower windows. I drew two long strips of silver, a ghost and a moon. Do not worry about making mistakes drawing, no one will ever see it.
3. Cut the pieces out. And piece it together for a trial run.
4. Put together the main house piece.
5. Now the wings with windows.
6. The tower
7. The moon and ghost ( add eyes with left over black foam)
8. Add the magnets.
9. Play !!

Books!

Wake the Dead by Monica A Harris is a fantastically “pun”ny book!  Based around the old saying ” You are going to wake the dead” this book takes that saying and runs with it.  Henry is a loud kid and is warned over and over that his noise will wake the dead.  Not going to happen right? Wrong! In this book the dead do wake and explore every bad pun around the word “dead” you can think of.  The thing is , it’s done is a fun and effective way. My son is too young for this book but an older child  could go hog wild looking up the origins of all these sayings, thinking up their own and using the context to try to figure out any they are unfamiliar with.  The illustrations by Susan Estelle Kwas are surprisingly expressive considering most of the subjects are skelletons, I love the clothes the “dead” are wearing too! Very cute and useful book!

Ghosts in the House! by Kazuno Kohara is on my must buy list! A little girl moves into house and soon finds out it is haunted. Luckily she is a witch and knows just what to do. The ghosts in the story seem mischievous but never scary and even when she washes them in the washing machine, they are still smiling! My son loved this book, the text was the perfect length for a 3 year old, short but still descriptive.  I loved the simple  black and orange colors and had to look at the copywrite twice because I was certain this was written sometime in the 30s, nope 2008. The simplicity of the book and colors is balanced so well with the little details like the litt;e girl’s constant companion , a white cat that puts on a black costume when the little witch pops on her hat. This detail had my son in stitches, “Cats don’t wear clothes , silly cat!” .  Absolutely a perfect Halloween book for children not yet ready to be scared for fun!

The Costume Copycat by Maryann MacDonald is more about sibling rivalry than Halloween but brilliant none the less.  There are two sisters and each Halloween something happens to thrust the older sister into the spotlight leaving her little sister in her shadow feeling jealous and frustrated. Never is the older sister boastful or mean , it’s mostly just luck, or rather the younger sister’s bad luck that keeps her from shining. It’s hard to be the little sister ( trust me) especially when your older sibling is good at everything, and this book manages to get to the root of that emotion.  When the younger sister finally does feel like the spotlight is on her she remembers how she felt and shares her bounty with her sister.  Sweet book.