Spooky Ghost Counting

Happy Halloween to everyone!!  We are busy having Halloween parties, making pumpkin cupcakes and eating lots and lots of candy!!

I still managed to sneak in a little learning fun at our little Halloween get together today!  I found the haunted house printable at Sarah Jane Studios.  I just cut out her template and traced it onto black construction paper.  Then I cut out and numbered some yellow windows and some numbered ghosts.

I covered both the house and the ghosts with contact paper so I could use tape on the back of the ghosts.  

Both my kiddos have loved playing with the little ghosts and the house.  Drew loves taking off the ghosts and putting them back one.  Anna loves matching the numbers up!!  

Hope everyone is having a fabulous Halloween!!

http://sarahjanestudios.com/blog/2012/10/halloween-traditions/

Preschool Journal: My Favorite Things

These pictures are probably Anna's most favorite thing ever.  She loves the pictures and she loves looking at them in her journal.

Her preschool class had each child create an "all about me" page using their favorite "things" and Anna requested to add one to her journal book.

All of the images are just printed from Google images.  I printed a thumbnail of each one and then cut them out for her.

She carefully placed each picture in her journal.

With her favorite...the mermaids....front and center!!

The journal has kind of turned into her own little "scrapbook" and I love it.  I'm sure it will be fun to look back through all her pictures, words, letters, drawings, etc.  in a few months!  They grow fast, don't they!!

Five Little Pumpkins

The "Five Little Pumpkins" story has been repeated numerous times over the past few weeks in our house.  Seriously....like every other minute.

So I decided to just enjoy it and Anna and I made a little picture to go along with our story.  

I drew some pumpkin shapes onto a piece of paper and she drew some faces and colored in her pumpkins.

While she colored away, I cut out a "gate" for our pumpkins to sit on.  Then Anna colored some grass, sky and a moon on our picture.  And of course...it just had to have a witch (please excuse my awful representation of a witch!)

Then we told the story using the pumpkins!  

Anna loved this!  We've done this little activity too many times to count!  Hurry up Halloween!!  :)

And in case you don't know the Five Little Pumpkins, here's our version...

Five little pumpkins sitting on a gate

The first pumpkin said, "Oh my, it's getting late."

The second pumpkin said "There are witches in the air."

The third one said "But we don't care."

The fourth one said "Let's run and run and run"

The fifth one said "I'm ready for some fun"

Then whoosh wind went the wind

And out went the lights

And the five little pumpkins rolled out of sight

Making Pumpkins: A Color Mixing Experiment

I love trying to incorporate some learning into craft activities and this one is perfect for preschoolers.  

We have done lots of color mixing activities, but I figured with Halloween right around the corner we could do some mixing to make some pumpkins.  Mess free pumpkins, that is!!

You only need a ziploc bag, some yellow and red paint and a marker if you want to give your pumpkin a pretty face!

Have your kiddo squeeze some yellow paint into a ziploc bag.  (I'm pretty sure the squeezing part was Anna's favorite!)

Then add some red paint.  And squish away.

Soon you'll see your orange "pumpkin" appear!  

After we mixed our colors to make orange, I handed Anna a sharpie marker to make her pumpkin face.

Simple, easy, but educational!  Love it!

Our Fall Family Tree

Drew and I painted leaves for our fall family tree one afternoon.  It turned out to be such a cute little project and the kids loved looking at all of our family.  It was pretty simple to complete too....you know my style...simple and easy.

Here's how to make one:

Start by painting some "fall colors" onto a piece of paper.  Just let your child paint away (unless you have an older child who could actually paint leaves freehand).

While your child is painting, cut out a tree with some branches.  Tape it up to the wall and then tape a piece of contact paper over the top with the sticky side out.  

After the painting has dried, cut out leaf shapes from the paper.  I think it's pretty cool how the colors are all mixed. 

Then print off some pictures of your family members, tape them onto the leaves and laminate the leaves.

Stick the leaves up on your tree and then play around.

My two really loved seeing all of our family!

Happy Fall!

Halloween Cookie Cutter Paintings

The kids and I did some Halloween cookie cutter paintings one rainy afternoon.  It's an easy way to pass some of that lazy day time!!  

Pumpkin Counting Game

Anna found this little pumpkin game in the back of one of our Halloween books and asked if we could play it one day.  It's pretty simple, but a great way to incorporate counting in a fun little game.  We played it like "hide-n-seek" with just a few pumpkins since it was just the two of us, but if you had a few kids playing, I'd recommend making lots-o-pumpkins.

Here's how you play...

Start by drawing some pumpkins on pieces of construction paper.  Your little one can draw some faces if they'd like.

Cut them out after they are all ready...

...and add some star stickers to the back of the pumpkins.  We did two of each number 1-3 (but like I said...make more if you have more kids).

Then the fun comes.

Hide the pumpkins throughout the house and then set your kids free to find them.

After all the pumpkins have been collected have each kid count up the number of stars on the back of their pumpkins.

The one with the most wins!!  

Simple Halloween Wreath

I saw this cute little wreath while browsing Pinterest one day and decided we just had to have one for our house!!

I cut out some simple pumpkin and ghost shapes from some construction paper and then had my two kids draw faces on them.

Then I cut out a circle from some more construction paper and Anna glued on all our pumpkins and ghosts.

We added a little bit of black ribbon and hung our beautiful Halloween wreath!!

Halloween Rhyming Game

This was a fun little game Anna and I played one afternoon while Drew napped.  I printed off the cards from here....

The game is basically a rhyming/matching game.  First we read through all the words together.  Some are obvious (house, hat), and some not so obvious ("boo" for ghost, "rich" for a pot of gold).  

Once we read through all the words and I felt like Anna knew what the picture represented, we mixed them up all over the floor and she had to pair the rhyming words together.  I also had her try to "make up" another a rhyming word to rhyme with the other two....just for practice (for example, "candy" and "sandy" and then she would make up "pandy".)

Then we played a little matching game with the cards by turning them all face down and finding our matchings.  Luckily for her, you could see through the backs of the cards so she won that game pretty quickly....ha!

Check them out and print off your own for some Halloween rhyming fun!!

Potato Pumpkin Stamps

That's right....more pumpkins!  We're kinda obsessed over here!

This is another fun little pumpkin craft and all you need is a potato, paint and paper!

Start by slicing the potato in half and then carving a face on the potato halves.

Then invite your child over to paint the pumpkin face with your orange paint.

Then stamp away!  

You really had to have just a little bit of paint and push pretty hard to get a good pumpkin face, but it was fun anyway.  Painting with food is always fun, right???

Happy crafting!

Simple Pumpkin Craft

Well, it's officially October and pumpkins are popping up everywhere!  

This is a fun little pumpkin activity we've done a number of times already this year.  My wall in my kitchen is covered with cute little pumpkins.  This is a great activity for small kids and big kids alike!

Supplies needed:

paper

orange paint & paint brush

black construction paper

glue

Put a little bit of paint in a cup and then invite your child over to paint a "pumpkin" on a piece of paper. 

For my son (22 months...yikes), I painted a circle for him and then let him paint inside the pumpkin.

Then cut out your faces for your pumpkins.  (I just cut a variety of shapes for eyes, noses, months and stems.)

Then let your kids decorate their pumpkins anyway they like.

(This month soon became a pumpkin crown).

Letter D: Lots of Dots

Anna and I are making an ABC book this year to continue practicing letters and their sounds. 

For letter D, we made lots of dots!!

Anna used my circle punches to make large and small dots.

Cool confetti!!

Then we added some glue to our paper and glued down all our dots!

ABC Pizza Craft

This fun little activity is from No Time For Flashcards!

It was a great learning activity to do while my little guy took a good afternoon nap. 

We didn't have a pizza box handy so I cut a circle from one of the many cardboard boxes we have lying around.

Anna added some "sauce" with her red crayon.

Then we added some glue and put on our letter "pepperonis".  We talked about each letter and it's sound as she was putting it on our pizza.

Then we added our "cheese" and "green peppers".....

Yum!!

What Can You Make With A Circle: Preschool Journal

I blogged about our preschool journal last week and thought I would share one of our recent entries.  For this particular day, I drew several circles on two pages of Anna's journal and invited her over to "make" these circles into anything she wanted.  

She wasn't quite sure what I wanted her to do at first, so we talked about what things we saw in the room that were round or circular and then we started brainstorming about other things that are round.  

After the first circle, she was pretty good to go and got to work "making" the circles into different things.  She pretty particular about "mixing colors" so she had me draw an additional yellow circle because she really wanted to add a sunshine.

After she completed each circle, she had me spell out the word so she could write down what they are....I told you the girl likes to write!!

She made:

person

sun

ball

balloon

bowl

It's an easy activity that really gets your child to "think outside of the box".  Give it a try!!