Halloween Archives - Page 2 of 3

Halloween Crafts and Activities for Kids

September 27, 2014 By Deirdre

You are going to love this round up of 100+ Halloween crafts and activities for kids. This post has the best Halloween ideas for kids you have ever seen. Oh! There are probably others out there, but these ideas shared on The Sunday Showcase link up last week are really awesome! I hope you will take a minute to check each of the them out. Please pin or share the ones you love with your friends!

When you have finished, looking these over please take a moment and link up your amazingly wonderful posts of the week that relate to kid’s crafts, creations or activities. I would love to come check them out.

Halloween Crafts and Activities

Tutus and Teaparties have created the cutest glitter spider. It would look so cool on your fridge or classroom wall.

If you don’t feel comfortable crafting a spider craft like this with your toddlers, Craftulate has created a step by step video tutorial on how to create some super cute Halloween crafts with spiders.

Capri+3 has to collect really amazing Halloween crafts and activities that feature ghosts, spiders, and pumpkins! You are going to want to check each of them out.

Fall Leaf Activities are featured in a wonderful post from Gift of Curiosity! I think they would be great for Halloween too.

Fun-A-Day took on the mission to find super owl related Halloween crafts and fall activities. They are all something to hoot about!

Halloween hand and foot print crafts are such fun! I just love the ones share in this post from Fun Handprint Art.

These no fuss Halloween crafts from Tutus and Teaparties are super cute and lots of fun. It looks like they like Tutus and Teaparties’ spider too.

A Little Pinch of Perfect has searched out and found 33 Halloween sensory play activities! They sure bring out the eerie coolness of Halloween.

We created a milk jug skeleton a few years ago. He has hung in a tree in our yard on Halloween night ever since then.

Some of the posts shared above are a part of the mega giveaway that I am also participating in. The giveaway is for over $2,000. Four winners will each win $500. If you would like to enter, here is more information on the mega giveaway.

The Sunday Showcase is hosted on the following blogs:

JDaniel4′s Mom

Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas

Here Come the Girls

Inspiration Laboratories

We each feature different posts that have linked up, so be sure to check everyone out! We’ll also be pinning our favorites to our Pinterest board.

If you are here for the first time please read this informational post on Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas’ site for the full details. Anything kid friendly and/or child centered is welcome! You are welcome to share more than one post, but we don’t accept links for giveaways, shops, ordownloads for purchase, etc. They will be deleted.

An InLinkz Link-up

Halloween Craft- Button Pumpkin Face

October 25, 2013 By Deirdre

How Big Could Your Pumpkin Grow? out of the library. From the book’s cover I really didn’t know if it would be about two boys growing a big pumpkin or something else. I asked JDaniel to predict what the book was going to be about based on the cover. He thought it could be about growing pumpkins too. After we read the book, we did a Halloween craft I know you will love.

When we started the book, we found that book shares various places in the United States big pumpkins could visit. We traveled to a hot air balloon festival in New Mexico, to Vermont to see pumpkin boat races, and to Mount Rushmore to name a few. It was fun to see giant pumpkins side by side monuments and landmarks.

There is an area in the back of the book that shares a couple of facts about each place. We haven’t taken out a map to find each state and where the landmark is in each state yet, but I think we will.

What did we do to explore the book?

Halloween Craft

We made a button pumpkin face. Last year I bought a bag of colored buttons. (We have used them over and over again for learning games and crafts.) We sorted through the bag to find all the green buttons. The green buttons would be used to create the pumpkin face.

Then I pulled out come pipe cleaners and some orange grid circles. ( I found the orange circles at a dollar store in the houseware area. I think they were supposed to be coasters)

We tried arranging the button in various ways on the circle to create different eye, nose and mouth designs. Different sized buttons created very different looks.

When JDaniel found a face that he liked, we worked at adding one facial at a time. A section of pipe cleaner was threaded through two of each button holes. The ends of the pipe cleaner were then poked through the holes in the grid. Threading the pipe cleaner into the button holes wasn’t easy. It ended up being a tricky fine motor activity.

When the pipe cleaner was through the holes, the circle was turned over and the ends of the pipe cleaner were twisted and flattened. The eyes and nose buttons were put in place using this technique.

For the mouth several buttons were placed on a pipe cleaner. The pipe cleaner started at the bottom of the first button and continued being pushed up and down through the buttons’ holes until several buttons were on the pipe cleaner. Both ends of the pipe cleaner were pushed through the holes nearest them when we placed the mouth on top of the circle. JDaniel created little hooks at the ends of the pipe cleaner to hold them in place.

I thought we were done when the smile was in place, but I was told the pumpkin needed a stem. I decided to take a picture and post it on Instagram to see what other people thought about the pumpkin. The answers came back unanimous. A stem was needed. We threaded a couple of button onto a pipe cleaner and attached them to the top of the pumpkin.

The stem does look cute. JDaniel and my Instagram followers should be happy with how it stands out.

If you like this Halloween craft, you will love the crafts found on my Crafts for Kids Pinterest board.

I have decided to ask you to link your posts to the Read.Explore.Learn. Facebook page instead of running a link up. I hope you will stop by and share your children’s book related activities there.

Disclaimer: This post does contain affiliate links.

Follow JDaniel4’s Mom on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter.

Top 11 Halloween Books for Kids

October 22, 2013 By Deirdre

This post contains affiliate links.

Here are my top 11 Halloween books for kids! We really try to steer away from really scary Halloween books at my house. I like to read to JDaniel before bedtime and scary books make it hard to sleep. This collection is filled with books that feature pumpkins and creatures that are fun. Another focus of this collection of Halloween book for kids is getting past Halloween fears.

The Runaway Pumpkin– When a pumpkin breaks from its vine, it rolls through a farm encountering many of the farm’s animals. This book is written in rhyme. The rhyme seems to speed up as the pumpkin does.

The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything– Despite having many things chasing her a little old lady on a walk remains fearless. Children will love the unique things that chase her and how she deals with them.

Who’s There on Halloween?– Children will love following the rhyming text to find out just who is there on Halloween. I think parents reading this book to their children will too.

How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin? (Mr. Tiffin’s Classroom Series)– This is a wonderful tale of how good things can come in small packages. Sometimes the good things are pumpkin seeds and the package is small pumpkin.

Duck & Goose, Find a Pumpkin (Oversized Board Book)– Duck and Goose search over, under, and all around to find a pumpkin. Children will love following Duck and Goose on their pumpkin hunt.

Shake Dem Halloween Bones– What fun storybook characters have when they attend a Halloween party. This book is filled with rhythm and fun. You may want to get up and dance after reading this book.

Happy Halloween, Mittens (My First I Can Read)– Max is a favorite at our house. He makes my son giggle at his antics. This time Max plots to get Ruby’s treats and he will make you giggle too.

Scaredy-Cat, Splat! (Splat the Cat)– Poor Splat is scared about all kinds of Halloween things. Spiders, scary stories, and costumes are just a few of the things that scare him. This book has a surprise ending. Splat ends up scaring the class he is visiting almost as much as he has been scared.

Happy Halloween, Mittens– Mittens so wants to help get ready for Halloween, but can she find a way that is really helpful. Some of the ways Mittens tries to help just don’t work out. My guy loved seeing what she would come up with next.

Pumpkin Hill I shared this book two weeks ago for Read.Explore.Learn in a post called Planting a Pumpkin’s Seeds in a Pumpkin. It is the story of what happen to a pumpkin that is allowed to rot and leave its seeds behind and its children do too. Let’s just say everyone in town ends up with a pumpkin.

I hope you find a couple of books that you would like to share with the children in your life. Many of the 11 Halloween books would be great for children of various ages.

What are your favorite Halloween books for kids?

Preschool Craft- Cupcake Liner Pumpkin

October 20, 2013 By Deirdre

On Saturday we sat down at kitchen table to create this cupcake liner pumpkin and JDaniel announced that it was for preschoolers. It was easy enough for preschoolers to complete, but I think children outside of preschool would like to do this craft too.

What supplies did we use to make preschool craft?

Black construction paper, white crayons, cupcake liner with a Halloween theme, glue, and Crayola Metallic Crayons.

How did we make this preschool craft?

Preschool Craft - Cupcake Liner Pumpkins

The project started with hand drawn pumpkins on black paper. I drew the pumpkins although I think JDaniel could probably have drawn his own. White crayon was used to draw the pumpkins. Any color would do! The cupcake liners will be covering the crayon edge or most of it anyway.

We flattened out a bunch of Halloween themed cupcake liners. I love to collect cupcake liners to use in JDaniel’s lunches. We have several different Halloween liners from prior Halloween’s lunches. We used the pattern of the liner facing out or this activity. If you hoping to create a more muted colored craft, you could use them so the inside of the liner is facing up.

We talked about trying to place cupcake liners so that they were not totally covering up the liners underneath them. JDaniel did a good job of leaving some of each liner exposed. We learned that if we placed glue along the outside edge of the liner the liner didn’t curl up after we had several liners curling up.

Somewhere along the way we received or purchased metallic crayons I thought they would be great for this project. The green metallic crayon worked out well for coloring the stem. It had a little sparkle in it. JDaniel had forgotten we have them and loved how the green crayon marks shimmered. I think we will be taking them out again soon.

The craft could have been declared done when the stem was colored, but I decided to cut the pumpkin out and try mounting it on white paper. I think the stem and some of the cupcake liners stand out better with the white background.

If you are looking for a preschool craft, I hope you will try this cupcake liner pumpkin. If you have children that are older or younger, I hope you will too. The cupcake liner collage effect is such fun to create. Preschool Halloween Craft Cupcake Liner

How to Make Halloween Treat Bags

October 16, 2013 By Deirdre

Sponsored by Global Influence With Products Supplied by Hershey’s

I have been going to my son’s class to share a book and the do an activity with them once a month. I was planning on sharing to book T.Rex Trick or Treats this month. When I was contacted about sharing Hershey’s and their Celebrate with Hershey’s campaign with you, I thought I could do an activity with his class that featured Hershey’s chocolate in Halloween treat bags. Dinosaurs, trick or treating, kindergartners, and chocolate just seem to go together.

How to Make Halloween Treat Bags

Creating the treat bags to hold the treats was so much fun. I hopped onto PicMonkey and created a label that I could print out on blank index cards. It was a blast to work on the labels layout. I probably spent more time than I needed to working on its design. JDaniel was at school and I lingered for the fonts for while.

When he came home, I had him punch a hole in the left-hand corner of each index cards. He was in hole punch heaven. I think using a hole punch is something most kids like to do too. We folded down the top of each paper bag and he punched two holes in the folded down area.

The bags and hole punch were then set aside and the fun began. We focused on putting the candy without peanuts into the bags. (I wasn’t sure if everyone was allowed to have peanuts.) That left us with five out of the six Hershey’s candies to put in the bags. The goal was to put one or two of each of the candies into each bag.

When finished distributing the candy into the bags, we folded the flaps of the bags down and lined up the holes we had punched. With the holes lined up, we both worked on placing orange ribbons through the holes. Then we placed a card onto one end of the ribbon. Finally, I tied a bow with the ribbon. We both thought the bags looked great.

What activity do I plan to do?

The children having been talking about shapes lately in math. I decided to create a shape activity for them to do using the Hershey’s candy. Each child would be given a bag of candy treats.

The children will be asked to trace the outline of all the candy in the bag with a crayon. They can trace the shapes onto a piece of white paper. The outlines can be placed anywhere on the paper they would like to place them. I am going to call this creating a shape map.

Then the kids will be given a half sheet of paper to record the number of each shape they had in their bags. Each bag will not have the same amount of everything. So each child will have to record what is in their own bag and not look at what their neighbors have done. The kids can count the actual candy or the shapes they have traced on the paper.

By the end of the activity, they will have a shape map, a recording sheet, and a bag of treats to take home. I hope they will enjoy it. I have had fun putting it together.

Wait! What about the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups?

They are not going to waste. No, they will go with the remaining candy into some treat bags I am putting together for some of the teachers at my son’s school. I am hoping to start substitute teaching at his school this fall. Putting together treat bags that contain candy and a magnetic business card with ways to contact me seemed like a good way to get their attention.

Disclaimer: I was sent the candy for this post by Global Influence with products provided by Hershey’s. All the activity thoughts are my own.

Kids Gardening – Planting a Pumpkin’s Seeds in a Pumpkin

October 11, 2013 By Deirdre

Planting pumpkin seeds in a pumpkin is our latest attempt to grow pumpkins. Last summer we tried several times to grow pumpkins in our backyard. The seeds grew into long vines with beautiful blooms. The blooms were then eaten by big beetles that apparently love pumpkin flowers and live under the shed we planted our pumpkin seeds beside. This fall I decided we would try to grow them one more time with seeds fresh from a pumpkin.
Why?JDaniel and I recently read a book called Pumpkin Hill and that same afternoon I came across a post from Growing PreK called The Pumpkin Project. We didn’t think that this was a coincidence. It was like we were having a kids gardening project put in front of us that we really needed to do.

Kids Gardening Project with Pumpkin Seeds

Preparing the Pumpkin
I love the idea of growing a pumpkin in a pumpkin. Growing in PreK cleared the pumpkin seeds out of the pumpkin and left the guts and everything else inside. We cleared everything out of the pumpkin using our hands at first. We clawed and pulled the guts and seeds out. Our hands were soon covered in slippery and slimy substances. Then we used ice teaspoons to scrape along the inside of the pumpkin to separate the remainder of the pumpkin’s guts from its interior wall.

Most planters and pots have holes in the bottom of them for drainage. We pushed a screwdriver into the bottom of the pumpkin to give it some areas for drainage too. That and one of us might over water the seeds and I didn’t want them to drown.

When we had completely cleaned out the pumpkin, we headed to the kitchen sink to rinse off the seeds. I am not sure that we needed to clean them off, but I thought it was the right thing to do for this kids gardening project.

Planting in the Pumpkin

With the seeds clean we headed back outside to fill the pumpkin with potting soil. We couldn’t decide how deep into the soil the seeds needed to be. What we decided to do was to add soil then seeds, add soil then seeds, and add soil then seeds. The hope is that we have some seeds at the right depth.

Finally, JDaniel watered the soil to give the seeds a moist area to grow in. We must have put in too much water. Just beneath the pumpkin on a rubber mat, we placed the planted pumpkin on a pool of water appeared. I was so glad we had put drainage holes into the pumpkin for this kids gardening project.

Exploring a Book

The link to Pumpkin Hill below is an affiliate link.

Pumpkin Hillby Elizabeth Spurr is the wonderful story about how a lonely pumpkin became a whole patch of pumpkins. The lonely pumpkin grew alone on a hill. One day it broke from its vine and rolled down a hill and into a field. When it finally came to a stop, it broke open and scattered its seeds all over a field.

The owners of the field couldn’t decide what to grow in the field that falls and so it was left unplanted. As time went on pumpkins grew in the field. No one knew they were there and so no one came to get them. The pumpkins withered and died leaving their seeds in the soil. Once again the farmer plowed the field and left it without seeds. He just couldn’t decide what to plant.

This time a wind blew the pumpkins out of the field and into town. There were pumpkins everywhere. What happened next? Well, you will have to read the story to see what happens to all of them. Let’s just say that were just like they grandfather pumpkin.

In our case, our pumpkin and its seeds are sitting on our front step. I am hoping that we will have little sprouts by Halloween. The weather here in South Carolina has stayed warm and sunny. If it stays warm, planting a pumpkin this late in the year may still work out for us. Hooray! This kids gardening project has been a success.

Here are some more fun kids gardening activities:

Plastic Egg Greenhouse

Paper Plate Greenhouse

I have decided to ask you to link your posts to the Read.Explore.Learn. Facebook page instead of running a link up. I hope you will stop by and share your children’s book related activities there.

Halloween Craft- Milk Jug Skeleton

October 31, 2012 By Deirdre

There isn’t an x-ray needed to see the bones in our milk jug skeleton. Last weekend we visited the Roper Mountain, a local science center, near us for a Halloween event. While at the Roper Mountain Science Center, we saw these wonderful milk jug skeletons. They looked so cool. I knew I just had to make a milk jug skeleton for our yard.

Roper Mountain Science Center’s Milk Jug Skeleton

I have been forgetting to put out our recycling on Mondays so, we had enough milk jugs to create one. This skeleton took six milk jugs to create.

Making Our Milk Jug Skeleton

The first milk jug was used to create his head. The Roper Mountain skeleton used the back of the milk jug to create the facial features of the skeleton. I created the face using the jug handle as our skeleton’s nose. They also turned the milk jug upside down so he won ‘t have a cap on his head. Our skeleton has a cap on his head because his mouth would have had to be under the handle if I had flipped our jug upside down.

We used a second jug to create the skeleton’s chest. I cut out ribs and a breast bone out of the second jug. To keep the ribs and breast bone cut out symmetrical I cut a template out of paper and traced it onto the jug before cutting the design out. I didn’t cut out the back of the skeleton’s chest the way they did a Roper Mountain on their milk jug skeleton . It probably would have let more light in. I want to reuse this milk jug skeleton and thought not cutting out the back would give him more stability.I used brace fasteners to attached the skeleton’s shoulders to his trunk. The shoulders were handles cut out of the third and fourth milk jug.

The hip section of the skeleton was cut out of the top third of the fifth milk.

The milk jug caps were then glued on the milk jug sections. When they had dried, I strung fishing line down through the head cap, then through the trunk section, and down through the hips. The fishing line allows the skeleton to rotate and move, but not swing wildly.

The remaining milk jug and the leftover pieces of the other jugs were used to create the bones in the arms and legs, hands, knee caps and feet. Two of the arm pieces and two of the leg pieces had oval holes placed in them to represent the two lower arm and leg bones.

The arm and leg sections all got holes punched in them. Paper clips were threaded onto bones and they were attached to each other.

I think our skeleton came out pretty well.

Did you create Halloween craft at your house?

This post is linked to Mrs. Matlock’s Alphabe Thursday.

14 Halloween Meals for Kids

October 28, 2012 By Deirdre

We have been having lunch creations at our house for three years. I though I would share with you some of the Halloween themed lunches and snacks that JDaniel has enjoyed. I have called this post Halloween meals for kids.

Halloween Meals for Kids

If you see one that you like, please click on its link below and you will be taken to the meals’ original post.

We have just started having bento meals this fall. JDaniel takes them to school once a week when he has late stay.

The first bento lunch in the collage is one he took to school just a few weeks ago it appeared in a post called Pumpkins Galore. Ham and cheese pumpkins were served without bread and pumpkin cream cheese rolls were served in a tortilla.

The second lunch in the top row is one that never had its own post. JDaniel took it to school two weeks ago. It was filled with a batwich, apple bats, and chow mein noodles (JDaniel loves to snack on them.) with cranberries.

The bento in the bottom row has various symbols of Halloween. There are cheese and cracker spiders, neon green pickle cats and spooky sections of a Full Moon Brownie from Clif Kids. It was created for a Clif Kids Giveaway I hosted.

We had the best time making the food creation in the upped left hand corner of the Halloween Food Creation Meal collage. JDaniel and I visited the salad bar at Whole foods and he picked out of the food elements he used for crafting a pumpkin salad.

I just made this owl sandwich for JDaniel to have when he came home from preschool for lunch. It is a simple cheese sandwich, but I think it ended up looking pretty cute.

The lunch in the bottom row is supposed to be a scarecrow’s harvest lunch. The scarecrow came out pretty scary looking. I guess that it he would really scarecrows. JDaniel love the french fry corn stalk bundle in this lunch.

We started out our creative lunch journey by having muffin tin lunches. We linked them up to the Muffin Mom. As you can see a simple light blue muffin tin appeared in several Halloween meals.

The first lunch in the upper left hand corner is from a post called Muffin Tin Monday- Halloween. It was filled with wonderful fall foods. There was pumpkin chili served in a cornbread muffin, apple shaped pumpkins, pumpkin dip, carrots, cheese shaped pumpkins and sweet potato tater tots.

Two Spiders Have Lunch was one of my first muffin tin meal attempts. There was a web of sour cream nachos, spider biscuits, an aging apple slice pumpkin and some carrots. The web was so hard for me to create. The noodles seemed to have a mind of their own. This was one of those Halloween meals for kids that I thought would be easier to make that it turned out to b.

The meal on the middle row was featured in the Pumpkins Galore post. JDaniel had it for breakfast one morning a few weeks ago. He loves tortillas and cheese for breakfast so, I made him a pumpkin tortilla with cheese. He also had sweet potato french fries, pumpkin marshmallows, grapes, Raisin Bran, and a frozen yogurt pumpkin in this meal.

I saw the pumpkin face craved in a orange online and decided to fill it with fruit in this lunch from a post called A Great Pumpkin? Beyond the fruit salad pumpkin this lunch was filled with foods JDaniel loved as a two year old.

The last muffin tin is from a lunch called Boo! for Lunch. The title didn’t come from the ghost shaped bagel. It came from the fact that the tuna and cucumbers were booed by JDaniel. He loved the mac and cheese, marshmallows and bagel though.

I hope you have enjoyed visiting our Halloween meals for kids from long ago and just a few days ago. I had a great time seeing what JDaniel has been served in the past.

Bats for Kids- Baby Bat’s Lullaby Activities

October 26, 2012 By Deirdre

The links below are affiliate links.We spent time this week reading and exploring books about bats. JDaniel and I really love the book Baby Bat’s Lullaby by Julia Noonan. We spend a lot of time together just the way the mother and child bat do in this book. The mother bat shares with her child many of the things he does during the day that make him special.

This lovely book’s words flow as you read and the rhyming text draws you into their day. I love how the mother bat loves her baby. The pictures and the words both share that message.

Bats for Kids Activities

Bat Text Guide

I created a bat text guide for JDaniel to use while we read the book. We used the guide in several different ways. His first job to turn the guide sideways and pull in under the text as I read the story.

JDaniel’s second was to go through the book with me and look for action words in the story a second time.Next he had to help me look for rhyming words.If you are looking for more information on using a reading guide or viewer, you will find some on this post I wrote for the Kid’s Activities Blog called Simple and Fun Strategies for Reading.Stained Glass Bats

Bats for Kids- Baby Bat's Lullaby Activities

I cut out bats and added shape cutouts to the bats. There was a rectangle bat, a circle bat and a triangle bat. JDaniel’s job was to cut out tissue paper squares to use for the bats.When we both had our parts of the craft ready, JDaniel glued the tissue paper squares to the back of the bats covering the shape cutouts I had made. This bats for kids craft looks wonderful hanging in a window.

Alphabet Bats

JDaniel was given some bats with alphabet letters on their tummies. He was asked to hang them on a tomato cage so the letter would be facing the right direction. The bats have clothes pins glued to the back of them to allow them to be attached to the tomato cage. This was my son’s favorite bats for kids activity!

Here are some wonderful book exploration posts from last week:

I love the elephant Living Life Intentionally create to go with the book Elmer.

Reading Confetti created an amazing paper Light Up Pumpkin to go with the book Spooky Boo!

How have you been exploring books this week?

Lunch and Breakfast Ideas with Pumpkins for Kids

October 15, 2012 By Deirdre

October has been a crazy and busy month. On Wednesday we went to the pumpkin patch with JDaniel’s class, rushed from the farm the patch was on to his speech assessment and then to a local park to visit with some playgroup friends we haven’t seen in ages. Thankfully the park is less than a mile from the testing site. The farm was forty minutes away from our church’s school where the testing took place. With so much going on I created lunch and breakfast ideas we could take on the go if we needed to.

With all that going on I knew I needed to pack JDaniel a bento lunch to have at some point. He ended up having it in the waiting area of the testing center. I was so glad I had brought it with me the testing ran over an hour and it was 1:30 p.m. before he finished. The tester commented that he had so much to say it was hard to move on to the other questions on the language part of the test.

Lunch Ideas

What did he have for lunch? He had pumpkins spice marshmallows, pumpkin spice cream cheese spread on a flour tortilla and cut into sections, carrots (left uneaten), red grapes, and ham and Colby Jack pumpkin cutouts.

Breakfast Ideas

A breakfast muffin tin meal with a pumpkin theme was also served this week. JDaniel has started asking for a flour tortilla and Colby Jack cheese for breakfast. Some mornings he gets all the ingredients out and makes it himself. This lunch features his favorite breakfast sandwich in a the shape of a pumpkin. He also got sweet potato french fries leftover from the night before, pumpkin spice marshmallows, red grapes, raisin bran, and frozen yogurt pumpkin.JDaniel doesn’t usually get dessert at breakfast time, but he loves the marshmallows and I thought I would spoil him a little.

We have loved taste testing pumpkin relate products we have found at the store.