our joint venture in raising our families through play.
Dear Reader,
This has become a tradition for us every Halloween. We buy small pumpkins and then we paint them.
The girls love painting the pumpkins and we get to display them and they also play with them too.
All you need is a kid friendly paint, something to paint with, and the pumpkins.
We have been doing this since my oldest was a toddler. Much easier than carving with littles.
Dear Reader,
The idea behind this activity was to get the girls to work on walking on a line as well as letter recognition. As sometimes happens though one of these fell by the wayside as I focused more on letter recognition while trying to fend off their toddler sister.
This is definitely an activity you either need to do during a nap or when your littles are distracted elsewhere. My toddlers thought it looked so fun that they had to either sit on the web or stand in the middle making it hard for sisters.
Start by making the web out of masking tape. Then make letters for your littles to find on the web. We used some cards we had lying around. Place the letters on the web.
Call out letters for your child to find. Have them walk on the tape in a line until they find the letter. Then have them bring the letter back to you.
This will help them work on balancing and letter recognition.
Dear Reader,
Sorry I’m so late posting tonight, but today we went to the corn maze! Our corn maze, as many others, has a corn pit. It makes sense to me, all the corn – works just as well to play in it and then use it for feed or for planting. Our toddlers were split on this one. Mostly because it was cold tonight. One just wanted to snuggle where it was warm, but the other loved the corn so much she bawled as we pulled her out to head home! The funny thing is, she didn’t even really play in it. For the most part she just sat there, occasionally she would take a kernel or two in her hand and watch them drop. But apparently that was pretty awesome, given the reluctance to leave.
We stayed out way past the girls’ bedtime and they protested quite a bit on the ride home. I wish they would set up times earlier for families of littles. Most don’t open until later in the afternoon or even the evening here. We got everyone tucked in and snug in bed, so I wanted to get it all posted before I went to sleep.
Goodnight!
Dear Reader,
We have made it a tradition in our family to visit the corn maze every year. We have managed to do it with kids in a stroller, kids in a hiking backpack, and kids making the decisions on where to turn, but we have kept the tradition alive! Personally, I love the maze. Sometimes I think everyone else just humors me. There’s just something fun about making decisions together as a family (or group) in a way that doesn’t have any serious consequences. There is probably some psychology term for that. But it’s fun to ask a preschooler to make the decision every once in a while, just to see where you end up.
Dear Readers,
Today I wanted to practice the pincer grasp with my preschoolers. We started with a pushpin and a printout that my sister made us. I did have a little difficulty because nothing I was using was allowing the give that the pin needed to get through. The cardboard I had was too thin and the table was too hard.
Then I had a brainstorm, why not use a folded blanket? We had a lot of muslin blankets still lying around from the baby stage of the kids, so why not use them?
This activity was definitely too hard for my oldest toddler (she didn’t even really poke any of the dots), but it was a good stretch for my youngest preschooler. If you are looking for a good craft for your preschoolers to do during the Halloween season these are a great option. Just don’t expect them to finish them the first time you try doing something like this.
The first one we did might have been way over the kids heads but my oldest did about a third of the pumpkin before she decided she was done. I will link that one for older kids if you would like to do this with elementary aged kids it will be there for them too.
The second one we did is more preschool friendly, so definitely try that with your preschoolers.
Here is the preschool version:
Here is the elementary aged version:
Have fun, whichever one you choose to do.
Dear Readers,
Today I tried to experiment with my rainbow foam recipe. Instead of using water I decided that I wanted to see what would happen if I used Vinegar. Would it foam more if it is already foamy from the soap?
What happened was unexpected, but fun. To make it more Halloween like I decided to theme this sensory play around a Witches brew. The bowls held the potion (the foam) and I had some bone powder (baking soda) and eyeballs (cotton balls).
In a blender mix 1 cup of vinegar with 2 Tablespoons of dish soap and around 5 drops of food coloring. I added more because I thought it wasn’t enough, but as I will explain later start with 5 your first time… I added way too much. This is good for around 4 small cauldrons (the bowls) so if you wanted to do less, or make it more than one batch for other colors you could do that too.
When I mixed all the ingredients together the color just wasn’t showing. The potion was a really pale purple, an almost unnoticeable purple by the time I put 10 drops in. But I gave up.
I don’t know how well you can tell from the photo, but when you add your bone powder (baking soda) it brings out the color. By the time we were done with the potions my girls hands (and shirts) were purple too. Thankfully the purple wasn’t permanent.
I tried to contain the mess a little by using cookie trays or pans. While this worked for the most part, my girls wiped the potion on their shirts. This may not be too much a problem if you don’t use a lot of food coloring, but I would probably provide some protection for their clothes if I were you.
The girls loved it and it was a cool learning experiment for me too. I forgot to mention though that the potion did not fizz until it had settled from a foam into colored vinegar. Oh well, it still turned out pretty cool.
Dear Reader,
I have had the idea of putting small objects in ice cube trays for quite a while, but I couldn’t find the pompoms I have somewhere in my craftroom-mess-that-is-now-storage. I did, however, come across a box of halloween trinkets! That discovery is both helpful now and will save me a ton of trouble in a few weeks, when I can hand them out to trick-or-treaters. I thought for sure our city would follow all the neighboring cities and ban festivities, but they’re still allowing trick-or-treaters.
The spiders are bigger than I wanted for this activity, so I’ll probably still do it again with the pompoms when I find them, but it’s still a good activity for finger control and hand-eye coordination. And it’s festive!
In case you need instructions, get an ice cube tray and a pack of plastic spiders. Place the spiders in the tray, and hand them to your toddler!
I gave the trays to the girls first thing this morning, while I was making breakfast. It kept them pretty distracted, actually! I had time to finish breakfast and come sit and play with them!
When they started getting bored with that, I turned the trays over and showed them that the spiders could fit between the trays, too! Truth be told, I think these spiders are much more entertaining with the back of the ice cube trays, because they’re thin so they fit between and can slide around the little mounds for the ice.
One twin played with the spiders and trays until naptime, eagerly coming back after her breakfast was all gone. I’m glad she enjoyed it, but it goes to show that even the simplest things that you don’t think will entertain a toddler can hold such mystery and exploration. I think that’s my favorite thing about toddlerhood – the general fascination with and ability to learn from anything.
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 have seen this idea on the internet for a while and wanted to try it out for myself. With a little help from my sister I was able to set this up.
The Idea is you glue white cut-outs on white paper to hide what it is. I used a glue stick (we all know how well those stay glued, so it was perfect for what I wanted).
Once the glue has dried let your child color the paper. To make this activity a little different I also used cotton balls grasped in clothes pins. I did this partly because I don’t know where my paintbrushes are and partly because it is a different item that forces my children to practice the pincer grasp.
Have your child paint the paper until they are ready to stop, just make sure the glued pictures don’t get unstuck prematurely and your child paint under the picture. When the paper is painted let the paint dry, then peel the pictures off and see the hidden pictures.
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.
