Halloween
I love the simplicity of this Halloween Craft. Many parents comment that they could never do a craft with treats without their child loosing focus and eating up the whole bowl. I have done many of these kids activities over the years with my son and other children and never had that problem. The tick is that you have to allow some to be eaten but make deals. With my son he had to put 10, then 15, then 20 marshmallows on the ghost before he was allowed to eat just one single marshmallow. When the ghost was completed he had another. 4 in total, not bad. If you simply can not use treats try cotton balls or packing peanuts instead. Another bonus is that your child is using fine motor skills the whole time, something essential to literacy!
- Gather your materials. You will need some glue, mini marshmallows, and black construction paper.
- Start by making an outline of a ghost in glue on your paper. I tried, no begged my son to do this step but he didn’t want to. He wants things to be perfect and well – we are working on doing things himself and not needing things to be so particular. I’ll keep you posted!
- Next start adding the mini marshmallows. I love the system we use with a treat after counting, because he loves to count and has fun doing it. Even if you are using a non edible item give your child numbers to use as mini goals when adding on items like this. You can even make predictions about how many it will take to complete the ghost.
- Add glue for the eyes. I was pleased when he wanted to do this, and even more so when he added 3 eyes !
- Add the marshmallows , three if you want!
- Let dry. The marshmallows will dry but not mold.
Halloween Books
The Perfectly Horrible Halloween 
10 Trick-or-Treaters
Mouse’s First Halloween 
8 Comments »
Even kids who are not the sit and do art at the table type many love to paint rocks. If the weather is nice take this craft outside and enjoy the sun before it’s gone for the winter. If you want to make them water proof you will need to spray the finished rock with clear varnish . I skipped the step because I personally dislike the smell of varnish enough not to bother, but you can find it at any hardware/ craft store.
- Gather your materials, you will need some large rocks, painters tape, orange paint, a jar, white glue and a paint brush.
- Tape off a cool face for each- press the painters tape down carefully so there are no bubbles. * Edited to add this is an adult job if you want it precise, tape is frustrating to cut and even I was having a hard time. I offered one rock to my son but he declined. Have extras on hand if they want to do it themselves but you think they will be disapointed or frustrated if they don’t make one look like a jack-o-lantern.
- Mix you paint with white glue. I am mixing them together to stop the washable paint from “dusting” off the rock. In the past washable kids paint has all but fallen off the rocks. If you are varnishing them skip this. The glue does not make it water proof, so don’t pop it in your garden.
- Start painting!
- Let dry for a few minutes and add another coat.
- Let dry and peel off the tape. I used a paring knife to carefully peel it off.
Halloween Books !
Mouse’s Halloween Party 
Halloween Day
Moonlight: The Halloween Cat
15 Comments »
This month will be filled with Fall and Halloween crafts and themed activities . I had to post this one now so that all of you Target shoppers can get to the dollar spot to buy these Halloween erasers before they are gobbled up. I love using themed mini erasers for learning activities especially as math manipulatives.
Halloween Graphing
Using manipulatives is a great way to introduce children to graphing. Explain that graphs help us see the answers to questions . Also take the time to make predictions before graphing , such as which row will have the most , which will have the least?Ask them why? I am always fascinated by the reasons why my son makes certain predictions.
- Gather your materials. You will need a large piece of white paper, a ruler, markers, some fun Halloween manipulatives, and a plastic jack-o-lantern container. I think when you try to make everything themed kids get more excited and learn more.
- Start by making an easy graph. I used pictures and words to represent our manipulatives, my son is interested in the words but not yet ready to rely only on them.
- Grab the manipulatives you are using . I made sure to have 3 different amounts . Pop them in your jack-0-lantern.
- Invite your child(costume optional) to the table to start. My son dumped the erasers but taking them out one at a time is great too!
- Ask your child to make a prediction – which of the three designs do they think will have the most? Least? Why?
- Place them on the graph.
- Keep going!
- Just by looking at them which has the most? Least?
- Count them to check.
Halloween Patterns
Patterning was one of my favorite preschool math activities to teach. I have found that if you sing song the pattern children have an easier time recognizing the pattern and start using that device themselves when encountered with a pattern they need to continue.
- Gather your materials. 2-3 different manipulatives like these Halloween themed erasers in a container, some sentence strips are optional but I like them because they give my son a frame for the pattern. When I simply place the erasers on the table it looks like I expect him to keep the pattern going to the edge of the table and the task seems much more daunting.
- Make some simple patterns .
- Provide a container and ask your child to keep the pattern going.
- If they need help try labeling the pattern out loud . For example saying ” Pumpkin, Bat, Pumpkin, Bat… what comes next?
- Keep going, if they are frustrated with the more difficult patterns scrap them and make multiple simpler ones. The goal is success and if it’s too challenging for them they will get frustrated and learning will be minimal.
17 Comments »
Free Art Friday !
Free Art or Open Ended Art is crucial! Kids need to be able to have no boundaries and simply create. I get asked often how I schedule my son’s learning and really I don’t have a strict schedule. We play and the learning comes from that most of the time- I throw in crafts every second day or so and we read all the time. Crayons, markers, paper and stickers are always available for easy creations. Today we didn’t make a craft we made the materials, recycled crayons. It’s easy and fun. You may notice a change in my son from the making to the using, we popped out and got a hair cut, and sucker !
- Gather your materials. You need orange crayons, a single black crayon, muffin tin and non stick spray.
- Pre-heat your oven to 250.
- Peel the paper off your crayons.
- Break your orange crayons into little pieces, easily the favorite step for my son.
- Pop them into the greased muffin tin.
- Into the oven it took about 10 minutes to melt. While it melts, peel and break the black crayon into small bits.
- Add small bits of the black crayons to the orange. I tried to make a face but it didn’t work- you could use shavings and place them as the crayons are cooling.
- Pop back into the oven for a few minutes.
- Swirl the wax and let cool.
- Tip if the crayons aren’t releasing from the muffin tin , put them in the freezer for a few minutes and they will pop right off.
- Now it’s time for fun – use the crayons for some free art! My son was excited to use the crayons HE made !
- If you can’t tell that is a pumpkin and goblin eating a string cheese. As per my son’s explanation! Have fun !
12 Comments »
Paper Plate Jack-o-lantern
This is a classic Halloween craft, the addition of cutting is a great way to get some fine motor and hand eye coordination hidden into the crafty fun. My son loved the cutting so much he said ” You do the sticky tape” when it came time to add the crepe paper to the craft. He was having fun , who am I to interrupt that? This easy Halloween craft can be adapted for tiny ones as well, simply have them finger paint! After the craft don’t miss the simple fun game we played, and played and played!
- Gather your materials. You will need a paper plate, a marker, some orange paint, scissors, black party streamers or tissue paper, double stick tape, and some green paper.
- Start by drawing a jack-o-lantern face on your plate.
- Paint! I like using a foam brush because it covers well!
- Keep painting! Let dry.
- While it’s drying, have your child cut some black streamers . Like I said this was my son’s favorite part, he cut and cut and cut!
- Cut out the eyes and mouth.
- Add double stick tape around the mouth and eyes.
- Add the child cut streamers.
- Do it yourself if your child is still cutting streamers, like mine.
- Add your green stem and you are good to go.
Pumpkin Drop
Using a holiday item like a pumpkin bucket is a great way to make a game like this novel . At my son’s preschool today they were throwing bean bags into a similar bucket so I adapted it a little ! My son was nuts about this game .
- Gather your materials. You will need some blocks with numbers ( or different colors, letters etc..) , a chair and a pumpkin bucket.
- Set your child on the chair so they are kneeling. Make sure they are safe to sit like this, you can always just sit normally if they are tippy.
- Hand your child blocks one or two at a time and ask them to identify the number on it, or the color, shape etc.. if they get it right they drop it in the bucket.
- If they miss the bucket they try again.
- My son shook the bucket full of wooden blocks once he dropped them all in, this was a high light ( for him) it’s really really loud.
- Have fun!
Favorite Halloween Books
I was in a conference call yesterday and one of the questions asked was what Halloween books stood out for me this year. The following books are the books I think all families should have for Halloween!
Where Is Baby’s Pumpkin?
Ghosts in the House! 
Goodnight Goon: A Petrifying Parody
Edited to Add my review : We loved this book, as big Goodnight Moon
