Read This, Made That {Cheesecloth Ghost}

October 31, 2014Amber Leave a comment

In Say Boo!, Ben the ghost is practicing his scariest “boo” for Halloween night, but it comes out mixed up most of the time. In case you were wondering, ghosts don’t say “moo” or “coo”, they say, “Boo!” Even though we already made wispy ghosts, another ghost craft was in order for this story.

I’ve always wanted to try my hand at cheese cloth ghosts, but never attempted them. I found simple directions at One Good Thing by Jillie to try. I created a form using ball pit balls taped to paper towel rolls, which I secured onto paper plates. Then, I covered the form with two layers of cheesecloth. The quads helped by spraying the cheesecloth with liquid starch until they were soaked. I set our soppy figures in the sun to try for 24 hours. The next day, I dotted glue on the tops of the forms and let the quads stick googly eyes and oval mouths on them. I think they are adorable! In fact, I’ll try to pack them up to use for next year’s decor.

Happy Halloween!

Amber

Read This, Made That {Tissue Paper Pumpkin}

October 30, 2014Amber Leave a comment

I cannot take the credit for implementing this adorable craft, but it is the kid’s handiwork. Last week our family friend, Billie, babysat and brought a craft for the quads. Being a former preschool teacher, Billie is a pro with the crew.

She printed jack-o-lantern coloring sheets from Make and Takes and colored the faces with black marker. Then, she pre-cut and wadded orange and green tissue paper into squares. She dotted glue along the pumpkin and let the quads stick orange tissue squares there. Then she dotted more glue along the stem and vine for the green squares.

The activity paired well with The Biggest Pumpkin Surprise Ever!, coincidentally a gift from Billie. There are flaps throughout the book, and the goal is to find and count all of the hidden pumpkins. Beneath the final flap is an enormous jack-o-lantern.

Hugs!

Amber

PS- Don’t forget to share photos of your Halloween art on our Facebook page! We’d love to see it.

Read This, Made That {Spindly Spiders}

October 29, 2014Amber 2 Comments

In this tale, Happy Halloween, Max pulls out all the stops including dangling rubber spiders in a futile attempt to scare Ruby. The quads absolutely L-O-V-E waiting for the end of the book when Ruby startles Max. In honor of Max’s not-so-scary spider, we made our own spindly spiders.

We had black dessert plates from the quad’s birthday party that we used as the spider body. I punched eight holes around each plate and let the kids string pipe cleaners through the holes. I then dotted the center of the each plate with glue and let them stick an assortment of googly eyes. For a little more pizzazz, I swirled more glue onto the spider and let the quads dust them in black glitter.

Hugs!

Amber

Psstt…Don’t forget to share your pictures on our Facebook page if you try any of our craft projects. We’d love to see your handiwork!

Read This, Made That {Candy Corn}

October 27, 2014Amber Leave a comment

In this cute little tale, 10 Trick-or-Treaters, the children’s cache of candy is displayed on the final page for a counting game. The iconic candy corn was in the mix and naturally inspired our next craft.

To create our masterpieces, I cut orange construction paper into triangle shapes with rounded edges. Next, I taped the triangles into the bottom of a shallow pan. I dunked about 4-5 marbles into white tempera paint, dropped them into the pan, then let each child tilt the pan. In time, the marble made its way across the paper several times over creating a striped effect. I then dropped 4-5 marbles dipped in yellow paint and repeated the process. When we were done rolling marbles, I thought they looked boring. We added a dusting of orange glitter for sparkle.

After our works of art were complete, everyone sampled candy corn for the first time. For a sweet and salty snack we also paired candy corn with salted peanuts. Delicious!

Do you have a favorite seasonal candy?

Hugs!

Amber

Read This, Made That {Paper Plate Jack-O-Lanterns}

October 25, 2014October 26, 2014Amber 3 Comments

After years of hating Halloween, the kids are helping me change my perspective. We live in one of the best neighborhoods for Halloween, and it’s high time I enjoy it. In fact, last spring as we searched for a new home, we felt a sense of relief knowing we would stay in our beloved neighborhood. It’s the type of community where families play outside together, take walks, ride bikes, and know the neighbors. On Halloween night, hundreds of children will line the sidewalks escorted by parents clad in costumes. Families living on cul-de-sacs will invite others to join them for snacks and activities. This neighborhood makes Halloween night exactly what it should be- filled with community fellowship, and I want the quads to experience every bit of it.

When October rolled around, a family friend gave each of the quads a Halloween themed book. Little did she know, these books would help stir the spirit of Halloween. As I read these toddler books, it brought to mind the nostalgic parts of Halloween, and the reasons kids adore it. As I read, I began explaining the process of trick-or-treating and other spooky traditions, increasing our anticipation of the holiday. In addition to the books gifted to us, I scored a treasure trove of Scholastic books at our community garage sale, which resulted in a decent collection of Halloween themed toddler books. Since I’m a sucker for thematic crafts and activities, we spent the month of October creating a gallery of Halloween themed art loosely tied to toddler literature. Check out my post about literacy based crafts to see how I approach these. We read several if not all of these books at least once daily.

We kicked off our Halloween literacy based crafts with Five Little Pumpkins paired with a paper plate jack-o-lantern craft. The book is actually a poem, and the quads now recite it as I read, which melts my heart every single time.

To create the craft, each child painted a plate with orange tempera paint (mixed with a few drops of dish soap). When the paint was dry, I dotted glue on the plate where the face should go, and let them add facial features (pre-cut them from black construction paper). I finished it off by tracing their hands on green construction paper to create leaves and a stem.