Craving a pumpkin with a toddler is not my idea of fun , especially without another adult handy for supervising the littles when you are doing the actual carving. I will leave the slimy insides ( that make my son gag – also not fun) and sharp knives for the weekend when my husband is handy, but that doesn’t mean we can’t decorate a pumpkin! I was just going to do this with my daughter who is 16 months old but my son came running to the playroom asking to join in. They had a great time and my foyer is all blinged out for halloween now!

1. Gather your materials. You will want a drop cloth for this, white glue, glitter, paint brushes, a plate and a small stool, box or something else you don’t mind getting glitter on to hold the pumpkin at your toddler’s level so they can stand and move around as they create.
2. Pour the glue onto a plate.
3. Paint on the glue.
4. “Wait for me I want to do it too Mom!” <— music to my ears!
5. Shake the glitter on.
6. Change glitter colors and keep shaking.
7. Let dry overnight, gently shake any loose glitter off.
8. Display!

I have a slight obsession with dry erase these days. It makes sense though, dry erase projects allow children independence and a less frustrating experience if they are unhappy with what the’ve written or drawn. For our house this is a godsend. My son is a reluctant drawer and writer. He will look at me and say ” I’ll just do abstract!” and part of that is because he is also a perfectionist and it’s frustrating when things aren’t as neat as he wants them to be. The dry erase helps him explore in abstract or not.

1. Gather your materials. You will need some orange and green card stock, a hard piece of cardboard or canvas , scissors and some clear contact paper.



2. Start by drawing a basic pumpkin shape on your orange paper. 
3. Cut it and a green stem out and place on your canvas. cardboard.
4. Cover with clear contact paper.
5. Create!  I made the faces to show readers all the possibilities for teaching about emotion with this craft .
6. My son just created , ths tricky thing about dry erase is his creations were gone before I could get pictures!

Halloween Books

Pumpkin Eye by Denise Fleming is a wonderful Halloween book for kids who are old enough to feel like Halloween is a spooky night, but still too young for anything graphically frightening.  The text is short but rhymes beautifully and grabs your child’s attention almost as effectivly as the illustrations do. The story is all about Halloween night and the sights and sounds on one street as the night goes on. Both my kids have been grabbing for this book off our shelf when I ask which book they want to read . If it can be a favorite for an almost 5 year old boy and a 15 month old girl I say it will probably be a hit at your house too.

Big Pumpkin by Erica Silverman is a staple in most preschool classrooms. It’s a cute story about a witch who is desperate for pumpkin pie but her giant pumpkin is too big for her to pick up! Luckily she enlists the help of a ghost, vampire, mummy and bat and with a little teamwork they save the night! The rhyming text is almost like a song and kids love it! It’s possibly my son’s favorite Halloween book and I love that it’s the smallest creature who uses it’s brain not brawn to solve the problem.

Patty’s Pumpkin Patch  by Teri Sloat is a great alphabet book and story in one. Readers follow a pumpkin patch from planting the seeds until after Halloween when they gather the seeds for the next planting.  I really like how this book combines an alphabet book with both upper and lowercase letters corresponding to some animal or insect in the story . I also like the easy rhythm of the rhyming text and the engaging and detailed illustrations . All in all I think this is a great fall book!

It may not technically be fall yet… but fall themed learning has taken over at our house. This Pumpkin Patch Letter Match is such a fun way to dive into a new season of learning and playing with letters. It can me easily adapted to shapes or numbers too. This is a fun circle time activity for a group of children too!

1. Gather your materials. You will need craft paper ( or the underside of wrapping paper),painter’s tape,  a green marker, a permenant marker, an orange pool noodle , a bread knife and cutting board. I also used a canvas bag to put the pumkins in.



2. Cut your pool noodle into 26 “pumpkins”



3. Add the lower case letters to the pool noodle pumpkins using a permenant marker. I found all other markers ran too much.



4. Put your craft paper on a table or floor and secure it with tape.  Draw your pumpkin patch. I made vines, leaves… don’t forget to add your uppercase letters too! Mix them around for a challenge or put them in order. * I obviously did this first, I had to wait for someone to wrangle my little one before I could go downstairs to cut the noodle.



5. Time to play.



6. Match the lowercase letters on the pumpkin with the uppercase letters on the patch.

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!

Sandpaper Pumpkin

This craft was inspired by a follower on twitter, her son has a visual disability and she asked me if I have any crafts for children who had similar disabilities. I was embarrassed to have to say no.  I started gathering supplies , brushing up on my  early childhood special education and brainstorming crafts. I will be including more crafts and activities specifically geared towards children with special needs in the coming months. I would love to hear from other parents with requests! When a child has lost some or all of their vision the importance of other senses becomes heightened. Today we focused on touch but also sound with this Halloween craft.

1. Gather your materials. You will need 2 sheets of sand paper, we used one very fine sheet and the other was large and rough. Orange and green paint, a black marker, scissors and glue.
2. Start by drawing or having your child draw a pumpkin on the sandpaper. We made a separate stem but you don’t need to.
3. Finger paint the pumpkin. My son was shocked to feel the sandpaper. ” This weird paper mama, it tickles.” You can imagine my happiness hearing that , that was the point. To feel , describe it and explore.
4. While they finger paint draw the jack-o-lantern face on the 2nd piece of sandpaper.
5. Hand your child the black marker and have them color the face . My son did not like this at all, it wasn’t easy to color on the sand paper and it’s roughness jiggled his hand.
6. Cut the face pieces out.
7. Cut out the pumpkin.
8. Add glue
9. Spread the massive amount of glue wher eyou need it! Pop on the stem on the pumpkin
10. Glue the eyes , nose and mouth on.
11. Let dry.

Reader  Book Reviews !

“Shy Mama’s Halloween” by Anne Broyles sent in my Lynn. This book tells the beautiful story of a Russian family that recently settled in the United States and experiences its first Halloween. The mother, a naturally shy woman, speaks little English and is understandably hesitant about the idea of mingling with goblins and ghosts. She helps to make her children’s costumes, but leaves the task of trick-or-treating to her husband and the children. When her husband is too ill to take the children, Mama leaves her fears behind and takes the children out… read the complete review.

“Ten Timid Ghosts” by Jennifer O’Connell  sent in by Janelle . The favorite Halloween book this year at our house is definitely Ten Timid Ghosts by Jennifer O’Connell. Seriously, I’ve read the book so many times, I can recite it by memory. Everything Halloween is included in this read: A haunted house, ghosts, a witch, skeleton, bat, ghoul, cat, owl, vampire, monster, spider, rat, mummy and trick-or-treating. Really, you can’t ask for more! But wait, there is more… read the complete review.

Thank you Lynn from Chronicles of an Infant Bibliophile and Janelle from Brimful Curiosities for sending in these reviews and allowing me to share them with my readers. If you haven’t seen their blogs, please pop over they are two of my favorite for books!

]]> http://www.notimeforflashcards.com/2009/10/touch-and-feel-halloween-craft.html/feed 12