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Dear Reader,

Years and years ago, I made bat decorations with my now-teenager. I kept them for quite a while, putting them up year after year. Sadly, since they’re made from paper pulp, so they got pretty bent and hashed. In thinking of some fun Halloween activities, I decided to have a go at egg carton bats again!

The nice thing is, since teenagers seem to thrive on nostalgia, I was able to get my teen in on the activity, too, and the 3 of us had very different interpretations of how to paint them! My teen used her creative talent to mix purple and black into interesting combinations (there’s an ombre one and one with a mottled black over purple, just so you get the idea). I am boring and stuck with all black – a classic. And the preschooler? Well, apparently painting is boring. she was done within 5 minutes and wishing we’d let her glue eyeballs on it already.

I broke out some moon and lightning confetti in hopes to increase her patience. I don’t think it worked very well, but it did give her something else to do while the teen and I finished. I have had this confetti since high school. Back in the dark ages before texting, I used to stick confetti in my passed notes at school. Sadly, after the bats, it got pushed onto the floor, and it had to be vacuumed up before toddlers could eat it.

I wish the preschooler had had more patience, but I guess that will come with more time. At least, I hope. She is kind of my queen of “onto the next great adventure!” so one of the hardest things for her is being patient and holding still.

After we were all done, I strung strings through them and hung them over our piano. I have tons of decorations in storage, but since the basement is under construction, I just don’t think I’m gonna put anything else up this year. At least we have obviously home-made bats to show off, eh?

Dear Reader,

I decided to try something new. Something that turned out to be really messy. I have never used shaving cream to trace shapes or anything else. It has been suggested so many times that I finally decided to take the plunge. Lessons were learned, and not just by the kids.

So the idea for the activity was for my children to practice making different shapes. My oldest really struggles with most of the shapes so I thought this would be the perfect practice. While this was true it has taken me some trial and error.

First lesson, don’t use too much shaving cream. I put a layer as big as my cookie sheet, which ended up being way too much. Since no one told me how thin to make it, or that I needed to do a thin layer at all, I will tell you. Learn from my mistakes, a thin layer will suffice.

Lesson number two, don’t use hands. I thought I would just let my kids use their hands, since that would make a good sensory option as well. Let them play in the shaving cream after, but use a utensil to draw with otherwise your activity will be derailed very quickly. I don’t know if you know this, but shaving cream sticks to your hands very quickly. Shortly after we began there was shaving cream everywhere else too.

I did try this activity a second time with less shaving cream and it worked so much better. My child was able to actually make the pictures. I still let them play in the shaving cream after, but I was able to get them to practice the shapes.

Dear Reader,

My preschooler uses pony beads a lot in therapy to help her build strength in her hand muscles, increase hand-eye coordination, and to work on her pincer grasp (I’ve talked lots about the pincer grasp). It helps that she likes beads, I’m sure. She also loooooves Halloween. So, since it’s October, most of our activities will be tied to Halloween! Play to their interests, haha!

There was just one problem, although I have Orange beads, and orange pipe cleaners, they’re buried in storage while my basement is under construction (for-ev-er). I decided to give Joann online ordering and curbside pickup a try. Not my favorite, I’m not gonna lie! first of all, operator error, our pipe cleaners are only half sized! I mean, I should have looked closer, I guess, but, eh. They were bright colors! The orange beads were perfect, though. And now I have a ton of them.

I set up a little spider web-like-thing for her to string beads onto, by folding the pipe cleaners in half and wrapping them around each other for the smaller one and just making little loops for the bigger one. I’ve gotta say, I kinda prefer the shorter pipe cleaner but creating loops at the end so it is the size of a full-length pipe cleaner. So I guess operator error worked out in my favor. Below is a picture of the bigger one. I have set up 3, because she kept wanting to make more!

After that, I handed it to her and let her add beads! She added them all the way to the very end, so I had to take a few off, but obviously that’s not that difficult to do. You want to leave about an inch for the end. which is hard on the smaller pumpkin (hence why I recommend the larger size, but most of you wont buy the wrong sized pipe cleaner, anyway, so the recommendation is not important. You’ll just have to fold them around each other instead of looping them).

After they’ve added all the beads they want (and after you remove some, if necessary, to get enough room), twist and wrap the pipe cleaners together and then wrap a green pipe cleaner around the combined bundle. Take another pipe cleaner and twist it into curly-q’s and add it to your pumpkin.

This pumpkin is currently sitting on my piano (up high, because the toddlers like the bright colors and instinctively know it’s something they’re not supposed to have, so they kept trying to get it when it was lower, and I enjoy looking up at it. Maybe it’s the bright colors, maybe it’s how proud my daughter is of being good at stringing beads. Or maybe it’s because although I love Halloween almost as much as my preschooler, I just don’t have the time or the space to set up all the Halloween decorations this year, so a little pumpkin (and his itty bitty companion) are are going to have to count this year.

Dear Reader,

It was interesting to see the different paint style of my children. Each had their own style, but each had fun painting.

The idea behind this activity was to have my children paint on a white piece of paper to find the spiderweb. The oldest traced the lines she could see of the white crayon. The middle child scribbled painted all over the page, until she saw the older child making spots on her paper so she had to do that too. The Toddler (who was really only participating because I didn’t want to fight her off and just make the activity miserable for everyone) painted, and painted, and painted on one spot until the whole page was so soaked it just tore.

You may notice that in the pictures they are using Q-tips to paint with. Why would I use Q-tips? Well the simple answer was that the girls lost their paintbrushes and these were the closest thing I could find. Q-tips can also help you practice the right grasp technique that you need for writing as well.

This Activity was simple and my girls loved it. I may just have to watch the water a little closer next time because the finished pieces got a little soaked in the end. Oh well, at least they dried out. Little sister decided to crumble hers into an unrecognizable mush after she got it so soaked that there was no saving it though.