Frankenstein Trick or Treat Bag

A simple and fun idea for a trick or treat bag. We made them at a friends house when they invited us over for a play date last week and our girls loved it {thanks Jeni!}

You will need:
a paper bag
black, green and pink or red construction paper
googly eyes

Measure the length of your bag and cut a large green square of green paper. Glue on bag to use as your monster's face.

Then cut a strip of black construction paper for Frankenstein's hair. Make one edge zig-zag. Glue on top of green paper at the opening of the bag.

Cut out a nose and a smile and let your child glue them on.

Then just add googly eyes.

Fill with treats as you go door to door on Halloween night ;)

Nature Walk & Collage

This is a very fun activity for this time of year!

Wrap a piece of packing tape around your child's wrist, sticky side out. Go for a walk outside and let your child pick up any leaves, twigs, etc. off the ground and stick it to the tape.



Once enough nature has been collected, remove the tape and put it onto a piece of paper. You now how have fall collage!

Paper Plate Pumpkin

This is an easy and cute craft that is perfect for Halloween-time! All you need is a paper plate, some orange paint, and paper. Start by painting the plate orange. You can paint either the inside or the back. My toddler wanted to paint the inside because she said "that is how plates go" :). After the paint is dry, draw and cut out pieces for a jack-o-lantern's eyes, nose, and mouth. Let her child glue them on. Then just add a green stem.

No Mess Painting--Fall Leaves

Put a piece of wax paper on your table or work area. Put a piece of construction paper on top of that. Squeeze small amounts of paint onto paper.

Put a second piece of wax paper on top of paint. Press and smoosh paint with fingers. Kids enjoy the sensory experience of feeling the paint and watching it blend, and parents love this mess free version of finger painting :)


Carefully remove the top piece of wax paper and look at how beautifully the colors mixed together!


Once dry, cut out into fall leaf shapes.


We then displayed ours in our window. So fun! :)

All about colors

Here is an activity for each day of "color week". With each activity, emphasize the color you are practicing. Point out anything you see in the color. Write the word down so your child can see it in print. It would also be fun to wear clothes of that same color during the day.

These activities were designed for a 2-yr-old. Adapt as needed if your child is older or younger!

DAY 1: Green

Since we are still close to summer, most things outside are green. Walk around and collect anything green your child can find. Glue them onto green construction paper to make a collage.

DAY 2: Red

Lunch! Choose 2-3 foods that are red and serve them together. For example, we had spaghetti with marinara sauce, raspberries and roasted red peppers.

DAY 3: Yellow

Choose as many different art mediums as you can find in yellow--crayon, marker, colored pencil, paint, chalk...then let your child go wild with them all!

DAY 4: Blue

Pictures can be a very fun thing now in the days of digital cameras. Walk around your house (or neighborhood) and take pictures of anything blue your child sees. If you have a cheap camera, you may consider letting your child take the pictures themselves--they'll love it! Pull them up on the computer to practice the color again later.

DAY 5: Purple or Orange

Go through your child's toys and find all the toys of one color you choose (choose a color that will give you a good selection of toys). Take them into an area that usually isn't used for playing, such as the dining room or mom and dad's bedroom. Then just sit down and play together!

Bike Wash

The above picture was found from google. Unfortunately I did not snap my own pictures of this :(

I wish I had my own picture for this activity. Sorry! Sometimes we just get too wrapped up in an activity to remember to pull out the camera and I guess that's OK :)

I got this idea from my sister-in-law. The adults had some yard work and organizing in the garage to do and the kids needed something to keep them entertained. My super smart SIL got out all their bikes and a big tub with soapy water and sponges, rags etc. She told them to have a bike wash.

The kids thought it was a blast! They had so much fun covering their bikes with soap and then spraying them off with the big hose. When they were finished, they ended up covering themselves with soapy bubbles and rinsed off by running in the sprinklers. They were enjoying themselves so much that they didn't even realize they had helped their mom by washing the dirt of summer off their bikes :)

I totally recommend it!

Rubberband Music

Materials needed:

Small box
Several Rubberbands of varying sizes

What to do: Wrap the rubberbands around the box. Pluck the "strings" while singing your favorite songs!

Extra challenge: See if your child can hear the difference in the pitch of the rubberbands. Put them in order from lowest to highest notes.

Thumbprint Mice

Materials needed:

Paper or index cards

Stamp pad (any color)

Glitter Glue or Pencil


What to do: Have your child use press his/her thumb into the stamp pad and then transfer their thumbprint to the paper. Add as many as you want of different colors (or sizes, using your thumb or siblings). Then add ears and a long tail to make little mice. You can make a mice family too!

Homemade Ice Cream in Bag

Materials:

1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 Cup milk
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
6 tablespoons rock salt
1 pint size ziploc bag
1 gallon size ziploc bag
ice

Directions:

Combine the sugar, milk, and vanilla in the pint size bag. Fill the gallon size bag half full of ice and add the rock salt. Place the pint size bag inside the gallon bag. Make sure both bags are sealed tight! Shake the bag until ice cream is done, about 5 minutes. Wipe off the little bag and enjoy!

Decorative Drinking Straws

Materials:
Craft Foam, straws, and scissors

Instructions:
Cut out a two to three inch shape out of craft foam, such as a star or a heart. Carefully fold the shape in half. Cut two small slits about 1/2 " apart in the center of the shape. Pull straw through the loop. Now your straw is ready to brighten day when you take a sip of your nice cool drink. :)

Jellyrolls

Materials:

Bread
Jam or Jelly
Rolling Pin

Directions:

1. Roll out bread as flat as possible. Kids love doing this! If you don't have a rolling pin you can use a large cup or glass.

2. Spread jelly on bread.

3. Roll bread into a cylinder shape.

4. Eat up!

Popcorn Pictures

Materials:

Construction paper or Cardstock
Popcorn
Elmer's Glue
Paints (optional)

Instructions: Sing "popcorn popping" with your child, or some other song about spring. Then pop some popcorn in an air popper or a stove popper. Draw a picture of a tree on construction paper, you can use colored construction paper to make nature objects like grass and the sun or clouds. Then using Elmer's glue, glue the popcorn onto the tree. You can also paint the popcorn in purples or pinks to show some pretty colored blossoms.

Koolaid Playdough

Materials:

1 c. flour

1/2 c. salt

1 tbsp. cooking oil

2 tsp. cream of tartar

1 pkg. unsweetened Kool-Aid

1 c. water



Mix dry ingredients. Add oil and water. Cook over medium heat until mixture forms a ball. Pour onto floured surface and knead. May need a little extra flour for this. Store in an airtight container.(I put mine in the fridge.)



The best part about this playdough is that if your child eats it,like mine did, it's non-toxic. And you know exactly what's in it. It also smells good and the colors are really bright!

Glitter Shapes

Materials:
Elmer's Glue
Glitter
White paper
Jellyroll pan

Directions:
Draw or print out shapes off the computer. With your child, label each shape and count the sides and corners. Discuss the different shapes. Then place the sheet of paper on the jellyroll pan. Have your child squeeze the Elmer's glue (depending on your child's age you may have to guide his/her hands) to trace each shape. Have your child then shake glitter over the whole paper and then dump the excess onto the jellyroll pan. You can gather up the glitter by sprinkling it onto a paper, rolling the paper up, and pouring it back into the container.

Variations:
You can do this with most anything. You can put numbers on the paper instead and draw dots to represent each number. You can put letters or words on and practice tracing them. You could also do this activity with glitter glue.

Colored Fans

Materials:

Plain white Paper (hard paper like cardstock will work best, but construction paper or even computer paper will work)
Markers, caryons, or colored pencils.

This is a fun QUICK art project to do with your little one. Give your child a piece of paper and let her/him decorate it in any way desired (you could even add glitter or stickers). Then fold the paper into a fan!

Variation: fold the fan first and have your child color each panel a different color.

Colorful Chameleons

To introduce this activity, read several books about colors with your child. Talk about colors and where you see them. It is also fun to read some non fiction books. We checked one out at our library about chameleons and my toddler was fascinated by it.

Then cut out several small squares from different colors of construction paper. Find a picture of a clip art image of a chameleon online, print it out, and allow the child to glue the colorful squares onto the image wherever they like.

Volcanoes

Supplies:

small container - I used a baby food jar

something to make the outside of the volcano. I used play dough, but you could make one out of paper mache, or make a dough from flour, water,and oil.

vinegar

baking soda

dish soap

food coloring

Instructions:

Make the volcano by building the dough around the container. Pour in some vinegar, a squirt of dish soap, and the food coloring. Take this outside or put it on a cookie sheet so it doesn't make a huge mess. Let your child pour the baking soda in and see the chemical reaction. Kids love this!

Egg Carton Butterfly

Materials Needed:

1 Dozen Egg Carton
Paints (tempura or finger paints will work best)
Large Paint Brush
Different Colored Construction Paper
Pipe Cleaners (optional)
Glue
Scissors


Directions:

Let your child choose what color he/she wants the body of the butterfly to be. Then pour out the paint into a shallow bowl. Add water to make it a bit runny. Turn the egg carton over and have your little one paint the egg carton with a large paint brush (we used a sponge brush - it was perfect). Let egg carton dry.

While egg carton dries fashion wings out of construction paper. Be creative - make them any way you like! Using Elmer's glue carefully attach the wings to the body - it will need quite a bit of time to dry.

Lastly - cut a pipe cleaner in half and attach the two halves to the front of the egg carton to create feelers. We didn't have any pipe cleaner on hand so we made feelers out of construction paper and glued them on with a dab of hot glue.


That's it! So fun.

Homemade Bath Paints

So I'm too cheap to go buy bath paints from the store that will last for about 3 times and then they're gone. So I decided to google it and I found this idea here.

Materials needed:

--1 Can of Shaving Cream(I got the cheapest kind at Walmart for around $1.50)

--Bowls & spoons

--Food coloring

Express some shaving cream into bowls. I used plastic containers so they weren't breakable.

Put in a few drops of food coloring and mix. The more food coloring the darker the colors. I had to use at least 6 drops for each color.

Put your child in the bath tub and let him/her go to town creating beautiful paintings!!

My son LOVED this!! And no matter how closely I was watching him he was able to sneak a "bite" of the shaving cream. SICK!! 

Blown Eggs

This is a great Easter activity (sorry for the late post about it), but it could be fun really anytime you are ready for a fun art project.

Materials:
Rechenka's Eggs by Patricia Polocco (optional)
eggs (as many as you want)
small knife or other sharp implement
decorating supplies (such as stickers, markers, paints, glitter glue, etc...)
string or pipe cleaner

Directions:

Read Rachenka's Eggs by Patricia Polocco to start out.

Take an egg and hold it firmly between your fingers. Use a sharp knife to puncture a tiny hole in the top of the egg. Turn the egg over and make a small hole in the bottom. Blow the contents of the egg into a bowl and you can cook these up like scrambled eggs or use them for a recipe. Repeat with as many eggs as you want.

When you've blow all the egg out of the shells take the eggs to the sink and rinse them out thoroughly. Leave them on a paper towel to dry/drain.

Have your little one carefully decorate the eggs any way he/she wants. My little girl liked painting her eggs the best. But she also had fun with stickers and makers and glitter glue. With the eggs that are decorated with markers and glitter you'll need to hang them up to dry. So poke a piece of pipe cleaner into the egg's hole and hang them up. You can also do this with string.

That's it! SOOOOO fun.

Variations: you can glue google eyes onto your egg and then decorate a face with markers. You can add strings or ribbons to make hair and call it an "egg baby."

Furry Friends

For some reason spring makes me think of baby animals, so I had to do a baby animal craft with my toddler.

To make one yourself all you need is a glue stick, some cotton balls and a clip art image of an animal of your choice. My 2 year old chose the image of the bunny we used all by herself :), but some other ideas could be a sheep or lamb, baby chick, etc.



Then you just glue cotton balls on the image wherever you want to make it fuzzy. You can even get out some crayons or markers after and color away. Super easy and fun!

Pinecone Bird Feeders

Materials needed:

Pine cones(or any kind that you can find)
Yarn
Bird seed
Peanut butter
2 Bowls
Rubber spatula
Newspaper(or any paper)

Look around your yard(or in my case, my neighborhood) and pick up some pine cones of any sort.

Take the pine cones home and cut long pieces of yarn to tie around the top of the pine cone.

Then scoop some peanut butter into a bowl and put it in the microwave for 15-20 seconds, or just until soft enough to be spreadable. Then spread it onto the pine cones.

Pour some bird seed into a separate bowl and dip the pine cone into the bird seed. Then place them on newspaper until you're all finished. Then go find a tree to hang them in and watch the little birdies eat the delicious food you have made for them!! :)

Sink or Float?

Materials needed:

A big bowl
Small toys or objects. (choose some that you know will sink and some that will float)

Simply fill the bowl full of water and let your child place the items in the bowl. Talk about whether the objects are sinking or floating and explain what that means. Let your child guess whether the next object will sink or float. If they are old enough you could even start talking about density.

This is a great activity for many ages, because you can adapt the information given to your child's age level. Put the bowl in a the middle of your kitchen floor on a towel, and don't worry so much about spills. What child doesn't love to play in water?

(Please excuse my son's clothing choice... He has his own ideas about his wardrobe these days.)

Spoon People

Materials:

Wooden spoons
Google eyes
Yarn
Buttons
Glitter glue
Hot glue gun

Directions:

Have your little one lay out the parts of the spoon person's face on the spoon how he/she wants. Let the child choose the color of button nose and other things. When the pieces are in place, YOU glue them on with hot glue. Wind up a bit of yarn and tie it together for hair and glue it on as well. Then, take some glitter glue and draw a mouth. When the glitter glue dries you are all done! Have a puppet show or just play with them.



*Tips - this activity was super cheap. I bought a set of spoons at Wal-Mart that only cost me $1, then I got some google eyes (again $1) and some buttons ($1) I already had yarn (hence they all have white hair, but I have so much white yarn I didn't want to buy different colors) and glitter glue. You can also use what you have - instead of buttons use puff balls if you have them.

You can also leave the mouth off if you don't have glitter glue - it looks cute either way.

Find That Number!

Supplies:


11 small slips of paper with numbers 0-10 written on them
3 plastic or paper cups
10 beads, marbles, raisins, buttons (really, anything)

How to play:
Have your child cover his/her eyes. Place one of the pieces of paper under one of the three cups (make sure the papers are small enough so that the cup can cover them). Then have your child guess which cup has the paper. When they find the paper have them identify what the number is. Then have your child count out the same number of beads as the number on the paper. Repeat until all numbers have been hidden, identified, and counted.

Modifications:
Cut out shapes on the slips of papers and then have your child identify the shape and name how many sides/corners it has.

Color on the sheets of paper and have your child identify the color and then find 3 objects in the house that are the same color.

Write letters on the papers and have your child identify the letter, give it's sound, and think of a word that starts with that letter.

Write words on the papers and have your child read the words.

Really - you can use this game for any learning activity!

Stuffed Animal Safari

Materials:

~2 toilet paper rolls or one paper towel roll cut in half

~construction paper

~stapler & scissors

~all the stuffed animals you can find :)



Directions:

1. Color the construction paper if desired.



2. Staple the cardboard rolls together, wrap the construction paper around and cut to size, then staple the paper to the rolls.



3. Hide the stuffed animals around your house, and going searching for them with your new binoculars.



Happy hunting!

Snowflake Crystals

We made these around Christmas time but they are a great January craft as well. Simply form a pipe cleaner into a snowflake [or whatever shape you want, my son made a snowman), boil water and pour into wide mouth jars. Dissolve 1/3 c. of borax into water. Hang pipe cleaner with string from a stick laid across the jar. It should take about one day for the crystals to completely form.

These are so pretty and way easy. You could even make hearts for Valentine's Day which is just around the corner. As for the borax, I found it at Walmart on the bottom shelf. A box was going for just over $3. It is a great stain remover and I keep finding new uses for it...like this craft and slime goop that my friend Jes has the recipe on her blog Koop's Kitchen.

Have fun!

Raisin Letters

Here is a super easy craft/learning activity.

Supplies:
Raisins
Toothpicks

Directions:
Form letters out of raisins and toothpicks - have your little one help by handing you the toothpicks and raisins. Just poke the raisins with toothpicks to form letters. Some letters are curvy, so instead of using toothpicks just form them with the raisins. You can glue these down onto a paper for an art project or just form the letters and then pick off AND EAT the raisins when you are done (which is what we did).


*This activity is great because you can incorporate counting skills and you could also switch this to a shape activity instead if your child needs to brush up on geometry. :)


HOW FUN AND EASY IS THAT??

Treehouse for Birds

I heard about this idea on NPR. Instead of chucking your Christmas tree, set it out in your backyard to give some protection and food for birds. Especially where we live there are not many evergreen trees to offer birds a place to perch and hide. Winter is also a time when food is scarce for them.

So instead of getting rid of your tree, set it up in the yard and decorate it with bird feeders. We spread peanut butter on pine cones before putting sunflower seeds on them and kept our popcorn garland on the tree. It is the activity that keeps on giving too...because it is just as much fun to watch the birds from your back window.

*If you already got rid of your tree or didn't get a real one, consider just making some bird feeders to set out for the birds.

Variation:
You can spread peanut butter on a card board cut out and then pat on bird seed.