31 Days of Halloween Fun

October 31, 2018 /

Join us here everyday as we share a new halloween activity for the whole month of October! While my three under two will be testing all the activities I’ll also share on how to adjust them from tummy time all the way through elementary school (and maybe beyond if you are young at heart) so the whole family can get involved!

 

To make things easier I’ve included links to some of the supplies we’ve used. While not endorsed by these companies I may receive a payment if you make a qualifying purchase through my affiliate links. These help me keep the blog up and running at no extra cost to you. Many of these items may already be in your home or can also be found at your neighborhood stores as well.

 

Halloween

You made it! Halloween is all about seeing friends, dressing up, handing out candy and going trick or treating! We do some fun Halloween themed snacks and try to relax and enjoy the day! Go to a Halloween Party, watch a spooky movie, read one of our favorite Halloween Books or just go out and observe all the kids going around. There’s plenty of activities to go around – see one of our months worth if you need some other ideas!


Pinecone Ghosts

My babies just love pinecones! They get so excited when they see them and love collecting them whenever we go for a walk! So we decided to have some fun with them and turn them into little pinecone monsters and ghost with some paint and googly eyes! Such a simple project but they were so excited about it! You could even do pumpkins and make them orange as well but we didn’t get quite that far. This one pictured done by my one year old says pretty much anyone can handle this activity. If you don’t have pinecones near you leaves or large/short sticks would also be perfect for this – it may be fun just to experiment anyways and see which ones turn out the best! For older kids forget the googly eyes and let them paint their ghost/monster faces or add whatever decorations they see fit!  We had so much fun trying to paint something that wasn’t a flat surface (although I will admit I used paper plates to contain them slightly) and working on using both hands on the task! They make great decorations or are pretty durable for playing with if you pick out the right ones.

 

Invisible Ink/Magic Water Painting

We created these awesome pictures by using white crayons on white paper. Then we had the kids paint them with our homemade water colors – a few drops of food coloring in water – in our cauldrons for some extra Halloween fun! They were completely in awe as the “magic potion” revealed the hidden pictures and we were able to create lots of little Halloween scenes! A perfect activity for babies who are just going to paint all over the paper anyways, but still fun and engaging for older kids who are into secrets, magic or spies! Just spin it to adapt to your kids interests. I also love this one because unlike paints I wasn’t too worried when my youngest stuck the paint brush in her mouth – but it was great practice for using paint on the paper and not as food!

This spider was a particular favorite because they all chimed in with a chorus of Itsy Bitsy as they revealed it!

 

Mini Pumpkin Painting

This was such a fun way to explore some new textures and patterns while painting! We used our mini pumpkins as stamps – the perfect size for baby hands! And worked on stamping paint on the paper. We also rolled them on their sides to see what kind of cool textures and patterns we could create with our paint!

Super simple to set up I just put a few colors of paint on a plate and gave each kid a sheet of paper to actually paint on. Once we were done with our paintings I put out some paint brushes and we then decorated the pumpkins so we could display them in our house! This kept my babies well entertained but you could also cut one in half and see what kind of designs you could make by stamping the inner parts of the pumpkin! For less than a dollar a piece these pumpkins kept them busy for quite some time and were a bit more manageable for their height at the tablethan trying to paint a carving pumpkin.

 

Pumpkin Bread

It wouldn’t be Halloween or October without some Pumpkin treats so on this cold and rainy morning the kids and I are baking some Pumpkin Bread! Recipe courtesy of my second grade teacher – which means its easy to make and get the kids involved in. Plus it comes out so good we kept it around all these years.

I may not be ready for the babies to crack eggs yet but they are good for pouring from the measuring cup or spoon into the bowl, scooping the pumpkin out of the can (while I hold the can) and turning the mixer on and off! Plus they just love helping so they will take stuff out of the pantry – the younger two with some help, but my oldest is starting to recognize the difference between the salt, baking soda, flour etc and can bring it over to the mixer independently and then put it back once we are done measuring.

For older kids start teaching them how to measure (a great math, science and life skill) or have them practice cracking the eggs into a separate bowl (just in case) and then pour them in.

Here it is in all its simplicity! It’s great plain as a snack, but my favorite is warmed up with some butter on it!

 

Preheat the Oven to 350°

Mix wet ingredients:

1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
1/3 cup water
1 cup canned pumpkin

Gradually add in dry ingredients:

1 3/4 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cinnamon 
1 1/2 cup sugar


Grease & flour a 9x5 loaf pan and pour it in. Bake for about an hour until top springs back or knife comes out clean!

Halloween Songs

My kids LOVE music and we have so much fun singing that we couldn’t help but do a day of Halloween songs! Of course our “Skin and Bones” song board (see below) is always a big hit but sometimes coming up with a new holiday favorite is as simple as changing the lyrics i.e. five little monsters instead of five little monkeys! We also have a few that we adapted from library songs such as “Hello Little Pumpkin” “Trick or Treat” and “Three Little Pumpkins” which are below!

 

Hello little pumpkin how are you? (Each kid can give a response – at the library they use their names and “I’m fine”)
Hello little pumpkin how are you?
We’re so glad you’re here today!
It’s Halloween Let’s Play!
Hello Little pumpkin how are you!

 

Trick or treat smell my feet
Give me something good to eat
If you don’t, I don’t care
I pooop in my underwear (A particular laugh for this one from the 5 year old boy crowd)

 

Three little pumpkins went out one day
Faces gleaming on their way
Halloween is coming soon
Three little pumpkins shout at the moon!

BOO!

 

There are so many popular Halloween Songs about pumpkins but we’ve also been enjoying some others like Raffi’s “Spider on the Floor” and the “Black Cat” song just to mix it up a little!

 

Black Cat, Black Cat looking for a witch
Black cat, black cat on a night like this
You can’t see because your eyes are green
Black cat, black cat this is Halloween!

 

Five Little Pumpkin Races

 

My kids have just been loving all the Halloween books this year! It’s nice for me to have something new to read too. From Little Blue Truck’s Halloween to Spooky Pookie we just can’t get enough! One of the favorites is Five Little Pumpkins – which has been so loved it’s got several book and song versions, but we decided to take our favorite page and make our own little pumpkin game!

 

“Oooo went the wind and out went the light. And five little pumpkins rolled out of sight”

 

I set up five orange pom-poms to be our pumpkins (one had been whisked away by the time I got around to filming) and then showed the kids how to blow to be the wind! We tried individually and it was quite a challenge to get all five pumpkins rolling! We also tried blowing through straws which made our wind much stronger (and a great way to work on that lung capacity) and blew all of them away! The kids had so much fun pretending to be the ghost and chasing their pom-poms down the hall! A great motor activity amongst all the arts and crafts we’ve been doing for Halloween.

Even the littlest ones can get involved in this and will find great joy if you put them in your hand and gently blow them at baby – keep trying to teach them to blow too you might be surprised how fast they pick up on imitating your facial expressions. For older kids try having pumpkin races and see whose pumpkin can cross the finish line first! Or set up a little obstacle course for them to blow their pumpkins around. Think through paper towel tubes, around a block, over a paper bridge etc. See what they can think up to create their course with and do some time trials! Great fun for all ages!

I just found out there is a Five Little Pumpkins sequel too – can’t wait to get my hands on that!

 

 

Witches and Broomsticks

 

Per our OT’s instructions we need to do a little more fine motor work around threading/lacing so of course we found a fun Halloween way by making our own broomsticks and witches! I cut a paper towel tube down the middle and rolled it up slightly smaller. Gave it a little tape so it would stay and hole punched around the bottom. Then the kids took pipe cleaners and threaded them through the holes to create little broomsticks! They had so much fun flying these around the house once we finished talking about how witches broomsticks weren’t really for cleaning like our brooms!

For my youngest I just made a little witch out of felt but the older two painted a bunch of paper green & black and I used these to cut out witches parts (dress, face, hat etc.) which they glued together and added some googly eyes to create their own witch! They didn’t stay on the broomsticks well but they had fun holding them on and flying – and of course doing a little sweeping of the table. I’m still thinking they would make some fun hanging decorations with a little bit of tape and string!

 

 

 

Ghosts

This is such a simple and fun one! I just can’t resist these tiny baby hands and knowing they are all growing so fast I want to keep some memories of them! You could do this one a few different ways – paint their hand to create a little stamp, or trace them with markers, crayons, pastels etc. We decided to try chalk today though for something a little different! It’s sidewalk chalk so easy to grasp and scribble away even for my one year old! It’s also a fun way to use up the last bits of chalk left over from summer. Give them different faces, color them in or make a whole ghost scene if you want something a little more advanced, but this was perfectly simple for us!

 

 

“Skin and Bones” Felt Board

 

I love a good song board. It’s something I used to use a lot at work for a variety of communication purposes which could be a whole article in itself, but something I’d never tried at home with my own kids yet. They’ve been really into our Halloween songs and I just got these awesome new felt squares in so decided to give it a try! It was such a hit – see the little stop motion video we made of it below!

 

 

The felt acts as a reusable sticker so they are able to put the pieces onto the board as we sing and adjust the scene as many times as they want – totally reusable over and over which is good when you’ve got three babies who all want a turn with the “old lady.”

We did our newest favorite “Skin and Bones” by Raffi – which is one I used to sing in elementary school. The kids are ghost obsessed right now and love hiding and saying “boo” so it’s an awesome one to sing and play along to. Plus an easy one for the littlest to sing along to since she can do “ooooo” which is about half the song! Hear it below if you don’t know it already.

 

For the board I simply cut out and glued shapes to create the pieces and then glued the green felt onto a piece of cardboard to make it easier to hold up. The different pieces you make will stick to the felt, but not the cardboard. To make the closet I cut the first layer of cardboard back on one side and glued the ghost/broom inside. You could also just glue a piece of felt down one side to make a little flap door! The kids could then play out the song as we sang – I set out all the pieces and ask them to bring up whichever one we needed next.

First Verse: Old Lady
Second Verse: House/Graveyard
Third Verse: Walking the Old Lady
Fourth Verse: Bones
Fifth Verse: Closet

 

This is such a great Halloween song no matter where we are – singing along at the table, in the car, in the tub. This just added another layer of play and recognition of some Halloween words they wouldn’t otherwise have any experience/context with yet!

 

 

“Trick Or Treat”

Maybe your kids are too young yet or it’s their first year trick or treating, or maybe they just love to play pretend but it never hurts to practice this game! We decorated some old tv boxes (any big box will do) and cut doors on the front to turn them into our own little neighborhood. Originally we were going to go all out with one and make windows and shrubbery and doorbells, but the kids had so much fun decorating and were so excited to play we never really got around to it. It didn’t really matter but the decorating was a great activity in and of itself. Drawing on them with markers, crayons, paint, stickers decorate however you like! We got lots of scribbles but for older kids you’ll see more details and houses come to life. Hubby and I then ducked inside and let the kids knock on the doors and say “trick or treat” handing out little snacks as they came back and forth! We had so much fun and they really got a better understanding of what trick or treating actually is! This kind of practice is huge for kids who are a little anxious or have a hard time with changes in your usual routine (who may not find Halloween night as fun as you hoped) – plus we were able to sneak in a little work on those manners which never hurts before the sugar fest! After a little while we let them go inside and we knocked/trick or treated while they pushed fingers in our faces going “candy candy” – all in all we had a great time.

While we probably won’t do too much real life trick or treating until they are a little bigger this was a great game for them and as a bonus they’ve been playing hide and seek and lots of pretend games in the houses on their own so these boxes are definitely getting a lot of use!

 

Painting Pumpkins

This is a great one to do with your regular pumpkins – especially if you don’t trust your toddler with a carving knife, but all the more fun as we made these little keepsake/centerpiece pumpkins by painting ones we found in the craft section! I found mine in store but these are similar ones from Amazon. We did some color mixing so the kids were learning a little about colors as they went and tried it with paint brushes, sponges and qtips to get some different effects! It was also good practice in using two hands as they had to hold the pumpkins so they wouldn’t roll away! Something we’ve been working on a lot with our oldest. About half way through we added a piece of tape to the bottom to make things a little easier (and so we weren’t chasing wet paint down the hall). 

For older kids paint it orange and then paint on a pumpkin face or use your imagination here – go tye dye, paint a spooky scene – anything goes! We simply did orange on ours, but they are looking great on the table. May even turn into our thanksgiving decor!

 

Inverse Skeleton Painting

 

I’ve been really racking my brain to find a skeleton activity to do with the babies as they are really into bones right now – between all their Halloween books and our new favorite bone songs, but skeletons are a hard concept for the under two crowd. They’re detailed, full of small parts and maybe a little too spooky. We finally figured it out with this fun inverse painting activity. The first one was just a clip art tapped to the paper (which ended up being mostly tape and kind of frustrating) so I figured if I’m going to use all this tape anyway – why not make my own tape skeleton! 

The second one is just left over brown packing tape that I cut up into skeleton shapes. Once the kids were up from nap I gave them the paper and let them paint the whole thing black! They really went at it and kept asking for more and more black paint. We let all the paint dry while we had dinner and then peeled it off to reveal our skeletons. I think they came out great and the babies are so proud of their artwork!

As a bonus my kids learned lots of new body parts that we probably wouldn’t have otherwise talked much about this young like elbow, ribs, neck etc. so could be a fun one to reinforce some of what those older kids are learning in science class! We kept our skeletons really simple but go all the more detailed with the older ones too!

 

 

Spooky Coffee Filter Paintings

We created these awesome little coffee filter paintings for Halloween! The thing about doing them on coffee filters instead of paper is that the filters are just translucent enough that when the light shines behind them it almost shines through the colors creating a really fun effect! For the little ones the hubby and I drew pictures in permanent marker and let them paint over them with our new favorite easy clean up paints! Once they were dry we shined flashlights behind them or put them in our windows so that when the lights were on they shined through on the outside! Coffee filters were a nice change for the babies as they had to practice painting a little more gently so that they didn’t rip as opposed to the hard pumpkins which they could just jab with paint! A great skill to work on as we introduce them to more and more friends!

For an older kid have them draw the scene themselves or try doing more than one color of paint to make a cool looking sky or an even spookier picture! If you have time and want a smoother look you could also press the filters to get some of the crinkles out too – that makes them even more eye catching!

 

Potions

Today’s activity is part spooky, part science but lots of fun! We took an age old science experiment – the vinegar and baking soda explosion (with a few drops of food coloring) to make some bubbling potions in our little cauldrons! I put the baking soda in and then gave each of the kids an old medicine syringe filled with vinegar for them to squirt in – see the picture for set up. I’d recommend putting it on a big tray or plate if you can as once it starts bubbling it will almost certainly bubble over but all in all pretty easy to clean up regardless!

You could also use a cup or pitcher to allow them pouring practice but we decided to try and contain some of the mess! They still had a blast and got to practice some fine motor skills to get the plungers working and the bubbles going – plus they could stir it all up in the pot to get a little extra chemical reaction! For older kids explain how the reaction works or add some other spooky witches treats like little eyeballs or spider rings to give a little extra flair (see what gets pushed up by the bubbling and what sinks) – but this is pretty fun and food safe for all ages and abilities!

 

 

 

Pumpkin Time

We finally got around to scooping out our cleaned pumpkins from the other day! We dug in with spoons and our hands and worked to separate the seeds from the goop while we played. We learned lots of new sensory words like squishy, slimey, gooey, slippery and action words like squeeze, pull, & scoop.

My oldest loved the sensory play and getting a little messy – listening to the sounds as he squeezed the goop and “plopped” it into the bowl. My daughter wasn’t so into the messy sensory part but loved scooping out the seeds with her spoon and stirring them around in a bowl.

She got really upset about being slimey so we decided to create some “safer” (less messy) sensory play so that she could still enjoy the activity and get a little sensory exposure! We made a sensory bag with some of the slime and seeds so she could play without getting messy (a great activity to get the littlest ones involved) and also baked some of our seeds, used an old bottle and made our own little shaker!

For the sensory bag – just scoop some of the pumpkin innards into a ziploc bag and seal it with some strong tape (I used duct tape). For an older kid the obvious next step is some pumpkin carving! Try having them draw it out on their pumpkin using dry erase markers first – easily comes off and they can try several different pumpkin faces before deciding which one to carve! The shaker could also be turned into an awesome little prop for a play kitchen!

 

Spider Handprints

We did some finger painting today and decided to make our very own spider handprints! I’m going to try to come up with a creative handprint for every season this year and create a little scrap book to remember just how tiny their little hands were and how much they grew each time! For the hand prints I just painted each of their hands black with my new favorite paint (it’s so easily washable it comes off with a baby wipe!) and then stuck them on the paper in opposite directions. Once the paint dried we added our googly eyes and that was it – easy spider handprints! That kids of any age can do! Even if your kid is a bit older this would be fun to create and compare it to some of those preschool handprint activities you may have lying around to show them just how big they have gotten!

 

Mr. Potato Bat

I love ideas of crafts we can make with simple things we already have at home – like recycling those toilet paper rolls, but I wanted something my kids could reuse in play by themselves so came up with our own little recycled “Mr Potato Head” style bat. All the parts are removable so they can put them on and take them off and work on those fine motor skills and hand/eye coordination as much as they want! The eyes are little peg holes – I dipped q-tips in a little bit of food coloring & vinegar to get the green then cut off the end to create a natural peg. The mouth is just a popsicle stick painted red and cut in half – with a small slit in the tube to push it into. The wings are sliders made from thin cardboard – i just cut slits in so they had to gently slide them down the paper towel tube then had the kids help me paint it all black! Lots of fun and a craft they can play with over and over again!

For an older kid – see what kinds of different wing designs they can come up with or help them create different faces they can swap out!

 

Pumpkin Cleaning

We had been having such gorgeous weather here we decided to drive the kids out to the farm and let them pick out their own pumpkins!  This meant our pumpkins came home with quite a bit of dirt still on them, but it was a great excuse to do some pumpkin washing. We took our pumpkins into the shower to contain the mess along with a couple of bowls of soapy water, a cut up sponge, spray bottle full of warm water and an old bottle brush (use whatever you’ve got in the house) and they each spent time cleaning, scrubbing and washing their own pumpkin. A great sensory play/water play project which gave them a chance to learn some valuable cleaning skills for later on in life! Since we did it in the shower we could easily wash away the mess, but on a nicer day this would be a great outdoor project as well!

 

Black Cat Masks

We had so much fun finger painting and creating our masks! I let my kids really go at it with this washable paint – it came off completely with a baby wipe! They really enjoyed the feeling of squishing it between their fingers, drawing lines in the paint, and feeling the bumpy edges as they ran their fingers around the plate. We used the wet paint as glue to attach our ears which I cut out of construction paper as well as a pom-pom for the nose. I helped them glue the string (leftover from our spider webs) down for whiskers and the popsicle sticks to hold the mask!  We thought about adding a mouth too but they were pretty done with being messy by this point so we left them as is and just love them! Peeking through and saying “I see you” is the new favorite pastime!

For babies just let them finger paint away but watch them closely to avoid putting any paint in their mouths and have a big surface that you don’t mind getting a little messy (this comes out so easily a machine washable sheet would do the trick). For older kids they could do more features in paint or cut the ears/nose/whiskers themselves if they are okay with scissors and do all the gluing themselves too. Maybe it will even inspire them to create masks for one of their (never ending) performances! Mask making is a fun activity at pretty much any age and a perfect Halloween tradition.

 

Pumpkin Patches

Inspired by our newest library book Where’s The Pumpkin? we decided to make our own pumpkin patches just like those on the farm. We had so much fun with this little art project! We did a layer of green paint first using some sponge painting to make our “grass” then added some orange dot art for the pumpkins. Once all the paint was dry the kids decided they wanted to add some pumpkin stickers as well. We did some foam and some wood stickers found in the dollar section to add a little bit more sensory play, but any pumpkin stickers you’ve got would be great!

 

My youngest missed the beginning as she’s a late sleeper but still enjoyed doing her orange dot pumpkins! Older kids could add the artistic challenge of adding stems to their pumpkin dots, creating pumpkins on vines or even adding in some math by doing a pumpkin patch with a certain number of pumpkins in each row!

 

Monsters and Mummies

If you’re looking for a cheap and easy (no mess) Halloween project to do with the little ones look no further! I saved a couple toilet paper/paper towel rolls and taped one end of a strand of crepe paper (party streamers work great here) to the roll. I let my kids wrap it around which was actually a bit of a challenge for the little ones and then taped the other end on. It took them a little while to master the wrapping so I let them have a few tries, but they really focused while they were trying to figure it out. Once both ends of their string were taped on I let them add some googly eyes and that was it!  Mummies created, my oldest started asking to make a monster and brought me some green painters tape that I had lying around so we went for it. The tape was trickier (having to make sure not to get it stuck everywhere else and to itself) but added a great sensory component and they were very excited to make some monsters as that’s a popular theme for them right now!

 

Felt Pumpkins

These are pretty similar to the Ladybugs we made for our Spring themed activities, but we made them into pumpkins instead. It’s so easy to do we just used sticky black felt to make the eyes, mouth and nose and orange felt for the pumpkins. Since my little ones don’t do scissors I cut out a few shapes for them and gave them choices for what they wanted and then let them stick everything together. This was a great way for us to talk about the parts of our faces and things like how many eyes do you have, is your mouth on the top or bottom of your face etc. All in all I thought they came out pretty great! We even hung them in their play area as decorations so they could admire them throughout the Halloween season.

For an older kid who can use scissors themselves let them do all the prep work (they could even trace it out first) and they’ll probably enjoy making different designs and practicing their ideas for when they are ready to carve their pumpkin!

 

Witches Gloop

A fun sensory activity for kids of all ages! I found these little cauldrons in our dollar section and thought they would be such a fun container to do some messy “potions” with, but any container, bowl or plate works just fine for this one! I mixed up a little bit of gloop –  also called goop or oobleck depending on where you’re from. It’s simply corn starch and water with some food coloring – just pour it in and adjust as needed. Part sensory play, part science experiment when you stir it or move it around it becomes a solid almost clay like, but the second you let it rest it turns back to a liquid! This is definitely a messier one but we just sat them at the table with a plate under it and it was mostly contained. So much to experiment with it’s really fun for older kids to try to figure it out. Plus it’s totally taste safe so I feel comfortable letting my youngest (mouther) get involved. For added fun use different colors and experiment with some color mixing! Or if you are feeling really spooky add some plastic eyeballs, spiders and other witchy concoctions.

 

 

Witches Hat Puzzle

You could really do this with any picture you want – in fact we’ve made a couple of my kids faces that they get a real kick out of! Lots of shouting “that’s me” over and over! But since we are working on our Halloween theme we created some witches hats!               

This one is so easy to make just take a few large popsicle sticks, push them together and glue a picture on top. Then just cut along each popsicle stick to separate them! That’s it! This is a great first jigsaw puzzle for the babies! Keep the sticks in order for a kid whose not used to jig saw puzzles yet so they get the idea of matching pieces of a picture, but if you are looking for more of a challenge try mixing them up instead. For an older kiddo you could try with smaller popsicle sticks so that there is more rearranging or you can even create more complex “puzzle” pieces by cutting the popsicle sticks up too.

 

 

“Pumpkin Shapes”

 

This one was inspired by a cute dollar section find all about different shapes and faces on pumpkins! I created some shapes by cutting up a cardboard diaper box and giving each of the kids a small plate of orange dried rice (plain white rice, vinegar and a few drops of red/yellow food coloring). They were able to use the shapes to create different faces for their pumpkins. We hit on so many different subjects as the kids worked – sensory play, emotions and facial expressions (which are helpful for social cues), shapes and even counting (using 3 triangles to make a mouth). They also enjoyed hiding the eyes by burying them in the rice and playing peekaboo as they searched/found them.

 

 

You could try putting the shapes and rice in a baggy to make a sensory bag for babies to try and find the shapes or for an older kid they could create different face designs and cut them out themselves or paint them different colors! Also, for a bigger kid this would bea great use for those shape tiles that they have in elementary school – I really wanted to use these but the ones I saw were just too small for babies which is why I created my own in sizes I felt more comfortable with.

 

 

 

Ghosts

 

We made these awesome ghosts out of yogurt slime and blueberries. The yogurt slime is so easy to make and such a great taste safe sensory activity for my three little ones! It’s just yogurt and corn starch – I did about double the amount of yogurt to corn starch which gave it a great consistency – think bread dough, although next time I’d definitely add more corn starch because it got sticky pretty much as soon as we really started playing with it. So not mess free, but we had a great time getting “slimey,” creating different animals and shapes like snakes, snails, balls, squares, triangles, ducks basically whatever my kids could request – and finished off by adding some blueberries to make our ghost friends. My oldest had a great time and really got into playing with the slime, while my youngest mostly ate it which I wasn’t super excited about but at least I know what’s in it? My 18 month old did a good mix of both although in hindsight adding the berries may have confused the issue.

This is a great activity for any age. Since it’s taste safe you can feel comfortable playing it with young babies (as long as they are ok with yogurt) but it’s also fun for any kid who is into creating sculptures out of clay. This is also a good one for those picky eaters or sensory sensitive kids to help get them comfortable with different textures and levels of messiness. If they aren’t into the feel of it you can give them some tools, plastic dinos/animals or cars to play with it and eventually as they become more comfortable they’ll start getting their hands in there as well.

 

Spider Webs

This was a great little lacing game to help work on some fine motor skills and maybe get them ready to start tying their own shoes (eventually)! It was so simple to make I just cut out the middle of an old paper plate and used a hole punch around the outside – my two year old wanted to help with this so he even did a couple of punches with me. Then we took some string and I showed them how to lace it through the holes before giving them a turn – it was just enough of a challenge to keep them entertained without being frustrated. I tied a spider ring to one end but a simple knot would do too to stop them from pulling the string all the way out. I also used yarn which my kids kept trying to pull apart – so might try a ribbon next time, but even the yarn was easy to fix.  I just sealed the ends by dipping them in a little tea candle wax and let them cool/harden which actually made putting the string through the hole a bit easier. Such an easy project to set up and it could double as a great halloween decoration if you wanted! Even pairing it with the spiders we did earlier in the month!

If you wanted to make it more of a challenge for an older kiddo you could write a small number on the top of each hole and have them try to follow the holes in number order. For the younger kids just make the hole a little bigger or like we did for our one year old – do it together so I’d help her feed the string in or I’d just put it through the hole and then she’d pull all the string through which she thought was a riot!

 

 

Halloween Memory

My kids have been working on color matching as of late so I wanted to try this little Halloween Matching game to extend their understanding of same/different concepts. This was such an easy game to set up for them – I drew some pictures on index cards (spider, bat, pumpkin, witches hat, ghost) on our way home from shopping (don’t worry Hubby was driving!) and then simply photocopied them to create a matching set. I also added some construction paper and H’s to the back to make them a little cuter but definitely not necessary. They haven’t quite mastered the idea of remembering where they’d seen something although this is a great way to start working on that – but they had so much fun with the Halloween images which they are starting to learn and recognize through our Halloween activities and books. They were able to name them and search for a specific picture i.e. “where’d the spider go?” and with a few reminders did a pretty decent job of taking turns.

I’d say you could start playing this as an actual game around 18 months and actually have strategy and more game play (aka winners) with your older kiddos. For the younger ones though it is a great way to learn object permanence (flip the card and the image is still there) and work on their language recognition or pointing skills (i.e. “which one is the hat?”) – they would even work as tummy time contrast images if you want to have some Halloween fun with the littlest members of your family!

If you are really hesitating because of the drawing part feel free to submit the form to contact us or send an email – I’d be more than happy to share a printable version of my bad art if you want to try it.

 

 

Frankenstein Sensory Bags

We received some adorable Halloween erasers, but erasing is not a concept we’ve hit yet and I was a bit worried they’d be a choking hazard for the babies. So I found a couple of fun ways to enjoy them in a safer controlled environment.

The first one was a sensory bag – so much fun for my youngest to mash around and try to find each eraser, plus counting and matching for the oldest and I spy/can you show me games for the 18 month old!

I used hair gel because I wanted to get rid of it, but paint or colored water would also be super fun for this! Pour it in a ziploc bag, add a few erasers  and seal the bag with some duct tape (or any strong tape you’ve got) to make sure the kids can’t open it up! I used a little extra duct tape off the sides to give it the frankenstein head look just for fun.

The kids were having such a good time with this I decided to make a car safe version in an empty water bottle (they can’t bite through or rip it) for our long drive the other day. Just don’t forget to glue the top on so they can’t open it up. It really kept them entertained for our trip!

This is a great one for really young babies to keep them entertained during tummy time (BE SMART – don’t leave your baby alone with a plastic bag) and would be a fun craft for an older child to create! Thinking ahead here if you wanted a different themed one it would make a great present for an older kid to make for a younger sibling! Even my husband had fun squishing it around at the breakfast table so really all ages here!

 

 

Spiders!

This was my 18 month olds first attempt at using glue! Depending on the age of your kid this one involves different amounts of prep – for mine who are all so little I cut out the circles and legs and folded the legs (accordion style) for them. Then let them glue everything together and add the eyes. If you fold it in half I was able to cut two spiders out of a single piece of construction paper in under 2 minutes. You can make eight individual legs for more activity or four longer ones that go all the way across the back for easier gluing.

If your kid is a little bigger and has more of a knack for directions try teaching them how to fold the paper back and forth to make the legs themselves!  Or if they are working on scissors try having them cut the circle themselves – the great thing is spiders come in all kinds of funky shapes so it doesn’t have to be a perfect circle. Just adjust to the age and ability of your kiddo! I’ve done this with babies as young as nine months and as old as five – though I’m sure older kids would enjoy it too I just haven’t had the chance yet. 🙂

 

I love these crafts because they also double as our Halloween decorations we just add a little string or yarn and hang them!  Here’s last years spiders hanging in our old living room!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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