Happy Halloween!!! As you are reading this, I am taking the boy's to Brad's work for the big Halloween celebration. WOOHOO!
The last two weeks I had out our Halloween themed activities for tot school. John and Matthew played with everything throughout the two weeks, but of course I didn't get pictures of most of it. It is really hard to take pictures now when I am trying to get two kids to do the activity (or two activities at one time!), trying to keep them from fighting over a toy, and trying to keep Matthew from falling out of his chair or eating pieces of a toy. Soooo...pictures are slim right now. I had all the activity pieces out on the shelf and they just would pick and choose from what was there so we basically are having 'educational play' for about 45-60 minutes each day. If nothing else, it gives us a break from playing with the same ol' toys in the living room!
However, we did a lot of fun things! Here is what I managed to actually photograph:
1. Shaving Cream Pumpkin Painting:
I used food coloring to dye shaving cream. Then the boys painted plastic pumpkins outside in the backyard. This quickly evolved to painting their hands and baths were needed right afterwards! But they of course had fun with this activity.
2. Counting Pumpkins:
I got this activity from
Confessions of a Homeschooler. John is really into counting right now and did this perfectly!
3. Skeleton Puzzle:
I made this skeleton puzzle last year using a plastic skeleton from the dollar store. Basically I traced around the skeleton on a folder and then took apart the skeleton. Very easy. John really liked putting this together this year and did this several times. It was interesting because he could fill in the traced outline, but if we took away the folder, he couldn't put the skeleton together very well.
4. Pumpkin Patch:
We made the annual trip to the pumpkin patch with Nana. The boys had fun checking out the pumpkins, jumping in the bounce houses, and taking a mini train ride!
5. Cookie Cutter Prints:
We pulled out the Halloween themed cookie cutters and used them to make art prints. Again, this evolved to John painting his hands...and Matthew trying to eat the paint!
6. Halloween Collage:
We made collages from a Pottery Barn Kids catalog. I am posting more about this tomorrow for Toddler Art Tuesday!
Other things we didn't get pictures of:
-color pumpkin puzzle from
Confessions of a Homeschooler.
-candy corn letters (that I posted about
HERE)
-pumpkin patch letters (that I posted about
HERE)
-monster math from
No Time for Flash Cards-spider leg counting from
Little Family Fun (with Uno cards instead of die!)
-Mr. Pumpkin Head (that I posted about
HERE)
-pumpkin toss (tossing small plastic pumpkins into a larger plastic pumpkin)
-sorting Halloween erasers in a muffin tin
-playing with a VERY mini sensory bin of spiders and skeletons
WOW- you know, I always feel like I should be doing more with the boys and I am slacking on these tot school things. (I mean, have you seen other people's blogs? They are hardcore and sometimes make me feel like I am failing or something!) But when I write it out, we do more than I realize and even though I could always do more, I shouldn't beat myself up about it!
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these parties!
