Naptime Creations
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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Cut the pieces out. And piece it together for a trial run.
- Put together the main house piece.
- Now the wings with windows.
- The tower
- The moon and ghost ( add eyes with left over black foam)
- Add the magnets.
- Play !!
Books!
Wake the Dead
Ghosts in the House! 
The Costume Copycat
This craft uses scrap paper to make a wonderfully colorful tree. Whether you punch all the holes now or save them up over time the results are awesome .
- Gather your materials. You will need a piece of white paper, one full piece of construction paper of your choice, a whole bunch of scrap coloured paper, a brown marker, glue and a hole punch.
- Start by punching out tons of holes, keep them all. You can do this over a week , allowing your child to work out their little hands with the hole punch or having them choose the color of the paper and you can punch the holes if they can’t. You need a lot !
- Draw a tree trunk with your brown marker.
- Add a lot of glue at the top of the trunk.
- Add your punched out holes.
- Let dry and glue onto the full size piece of paper for a frame. You can use a piece of paper that has something on the back already for the frame. No one will know and you will save paper.
- Gather your materials. You will need a composition book, a few sheets of fun card stock/ paper, fine tipped markers, teacher/school themed stickers, double stick tape and scissors.
- Start by making your front page. I layered some card stock and wrote a title noting the date and grade.
- Now it’s the fun part for the first page I wrote out some basics, like School and teacher names, and what they liked and do not like about school.
- The other pages were devoted to different subjects- I matched stickers to the themes like reading, math and phys. Ed. I only wrote on the right hand side leaving plenty of space for writing.
- Use open ended questions often but having fun true or false questionnaires included is fun too. Remember that this is supposed to be fun, and a tool to talk about your child’s day so don’t make it work. If they have a favorite subject, devote a little more time on that so that there is a lot of positivity, but don’t shy away from asking why they don’t like something else, what they need to work on or about the social aspects of school too.
- Do not forget to add pages that ask your child to share something they are proud of.
- Keep it somewhere accessible, if it goes to their bedroom it may never come back.
Books
“Miss Mingo and the First Day of School” by Jamie Harper is a delightful book. Miss Mingo is a flamingo and teacher who wants to know about her students on the first day of school. She starts the exercise by sharing some fun facts about being a flamingo , like why she is pink, and before you know it the whole class of different animals are sharing. This book not only shows kids that it’s okay to share about themselves but it is full of fun facts about animals in the fine print. I learned something I never knew about a Narwhal! It is a bit long for a toddler but each page highlights new animals and it’s easy to skip a few for those that aren’t ready for a book of this length. This is going on my buy list!
“The Kissing Hand” by Audry Penn is an absolute favorite . Chester is a raccoon who like most of us doesn’t like change. In his case it’s starting school. He wants to stay home with his mama and play with the friends he already has instead of going to school away from her and his friends. So his mama explains to him the magic of the kissing hand . The real magic is the message that we have to do things that scare us sometimes but that the love of our family is always with us to help us through. Go get this book.
- Gather your materials. You will need 3 pieces of construction paper ( blue, brown and green) large scrap pieces would be great for the brown and green. You will also need bow tie pasta, markers and glue.
- Start by ripping your brown paper to make a branch. Lay it out on the blue paper before you glue it down.Glue it down.
- Rip your green paper into little leaves.
Glue on. 
- Color your pasta with the markers.
I like the challenge of drawing on something so tiny, it’s a great fine motor builder. That said if this is too frustrating dye the pasta before hand or simply leave them plain.
- Add glue to your branch.
- Add your pasta
- Add your antennae with a marker. Let dry.
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This is not a craft for little hands, although my son enjoys playing dress up with this ring, it’s really not one for the little ones. We are a 3 types of milk family so these little plugs accumulate quickly. I had my beads out for another craft when I thought, hmm maybe I could do this… and it worked. These little rings really hold up well and I am so pleased I finally have something to do with them.
- Gather your materials. You will need some milk carton plugs, hot glue gun, hot glue, seed beads, and a small dish that won’t stick to the glue. I used a 2nd dish for the ring to cool in but that was just my preference.
- Pour a mixture of seed beads into a small dish. You don’t want to use too big a dish because you want the beads to be close together .
- Turn the plug inside out , so when you slide it on your finger the solid part stands up against your finger.
- Add hot glue to the solid part that will be facing out. You want a lot of glue.
- Quickly dip it into the beads, gently press it into them.
- Let dry! It’s that easy. Just remember to let it dry completely before wearing it.
