Happy Halloween!

This week we ditched the letters and did ALL THINGS HALLOWEEN!!!  Did you carve a pumpkin with 10 children?? YES!!!  Did you paint bats??  YES!!!  Did you taste, smell and feel pumpkin guts??  Sorta!!!  Did you color, paint, dance, dress up, bake, party and read??  Absolutely!!!

During this cram-packed week we did our Halloween hardest to pack every itty bitty bit o' fun into each day.  I think it was a grand success!  Pictured here is my FAVORITE fella' with his prize pumpkin.  This year was the FIRST year that he was in charge from, start to finish, in the fine tradition of carving a Jack-O-Lantern.  His pattern choice was the creepy castle that took hours to complete. 

Thankfully, he was able to finish his veggie sculpting prior to the party and excitedly displayed his skills.  You can see him beaming here just moments after he dashed inside to notify me that he needed to capture this before it "melted."

Such a fun time of year...

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Kid- 0 - latern!

When we paint, everyone is involved...no matter how old or young.  Ususally, everyTHING is involved too.  It's a wonderful sensory activity and great for building creativity and fine motor skills.  It is also a wonderful way to discuss vocabulary words like cool, smooth, silky, and squishy. 

It's absolutely the BEST way to teach colors, textures and words like spot, dot, line, curve, etc.  Our children ADORE painting and I love giving them every opporutnity to do it.

This little cutie pie has just recently discovered the joy of painting.  It happened for her when she, as a rather small toddler, realized that I would give her baths in the sink (which she LOVES) post painting.  So now when we break out the paints, LOOK OUT, this babe will colorize every square inch of the walls, tables, floors, other children, dog...you name it.  Then, when she is done, we set her in the sink for a scrub and she giggles and laughs, splashes and soaks. 

No lack of sensory experiences for our children, NO SIR!

Does your child get to do this?  They should!  If you don't want the mess in your home, find a great pre-k program in your area and always pack an extra set of clothes for your little sugar!  Happy Halloween!!!

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PARTY TIME!!!

I will only post a few of our Halloween pix here.  If I posted everything it would take us ALL day to get through every little cute photo.  If I have not yet added you to our private photo viewing account and you (mom or dad and grandpa/grandma would like to be added, just give me a call!)

Have you ever carved a pumpkin with 10 children under the age 5 and under??  Well, lemme' tell ya' it's one big wild bunch of fun!  Each child took turns squishing, pulling and scraping the pumpkin guts out of our great, big pumpkin's noggin. 

We worked and worked.  We had pumpkin goo in our hair, clothes...everywhere.  In true pre-k fashion once they overcame their hesitation for the gooey glop they dove right in and didn't want to stop!

Witch's Broom Race

We also made our own witch's booms for our race.  We rolled a piece of construction paper widthwise and cut it into strips to resemble broom straw and then glued it to the end of a papertowel roll.  We allowed the children to decorate their brooms with stickers, paint, etc. and then we practiced balance and running while "riding" our brooms! 

Face Painting

My wonderful assistant, pictured here, was the perfect choice for "face painter!"  As an art major I knew her creations would be lovely!  She did a great job at her post with pumpkin cheeks, butterflies, flowers and balloons that delighted each one of our little party goers.

Pumpkin Painting

No party Halloween party is complete without pumpkin painting and we were not going to disappoint!  In fact, we painted our pumpkins on party day and then again the next day. 

These were glittered, painted and stickered until there wasn't an orange spot left...and not a clean finger in the house!

We made all our own games and all the parts and pieces to them.  Pictured here one of our little ones is holding our homemade ghosts for the "ghost toss."  We cut up an old white sheet into 8x8 inch squares and then we filled the middle with about a 1/4 cup of pinto beans.  We tied a black piece of yarn around their necks and PRESTO!  We had ghosts.  Each child then personalized their ghost with two black thumbprint eyes.  We used these with a big white cardboard cutout of a ghost we made with its eyes and mouth cut out to toss the ghosts through.  We made a pumpkin one as well since we were going to have multiple children playing at once.   This was a great game for our children.  They all LOVED throwing their very own ghosts through the holes again and again!

Ghost Toss

Toilet Paper Ghost Bowling

We painted toilet paper rolls (not just the rolls but the whole bundle!) with black eyes and a mouth to turn our ordinary white paper into a stackable bowling game fit for toddlers and preschoolers to build, knock down, throw around and build again...

We used our little gourds to "bowl" with though it didn't take our kiddos long to figure out that kicking the "pins" down was equally fun!

The fun stuff leading to party day...

We painted, glittered, gutted, glued, and stickered real pumpkins but we also took the opportunity to discuss emotions with this project...

Each child received a pumpkin cut out and several shapes to make eyes, noses and mouths.  We talked about the fun of Halloween and how it would make us feel to get candy, see scary costumes, go to parties, etc. 

As you can see there are many emotions pictured on these little fella's!

CUTE!!!

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"Handy Bats!"
We made these adorable bats with white handprints on black paper that we cut out and stapled together.  We hung these from the ceiling as the children enter and they proudly pointed out their bats each day trying to figure out which set belonged to them.  We talked about the sizes of our hands and guessed which bats must go with each child based on size...great little comparison, pre-math activity!

Please remember if you would like to print pix from our party and you do not have access, give me a call or email and I will resend our photo sharing account information.

Have a GREAT week!

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