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Super Simple Glitter Ornaments

It’s a day after Thanksgiving…you know what that means! Christmas time!

My daughter wanted to make ornaments already. I had glitter, glue, and card stock on hand, so this is what we came up with:

Materials:

-glitter glue, glitter, cardstock or thick paper & yarn

Use the glue to make your designs. Madison made the round ornament with the glue, while I made the tree for her to decorate. We used a trash bag underneath it for quick glitter cleanup.

When you are done with the glitter, simply let it dry! Cut out the shapes, hole punch, and tie on the string. Simple! A keepsake for many years to come!

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Turkey Pinecone Gobble!

We went on a pinecone adventure! First we grabbed our magic buckets and took a stroll down the road. We found the BIG pine trees and searched all around for pinecones. We filled out magic buckets with little and big pinecones. Once full, we continued our adventure to find any other good objects for future projects. Pinecones can be used for many projects, including some upcoming Christmas ones!

Since it was unseasonably warm here in Pennsylvania, we decided to paint outside so there wasn’t as big of a mess. Besides using a variety of paints, we used glitter of all colors! Some of the trees we purposefully painted blue and green for Christmas tree pinecones!

After allowing the pinecones to dry overnight, we found some googly eyes, construction paper, and leftover foam pieces from an owl project! The kids cut out feathers and showed mom where to glue them. Mom used the hot glue gun to glue everything on, however you can use regular glue but it will be more challenging to stay and dry.

You can of course decorate your turkey any way you like with any materials! Get creative and enjoy!

Gobble Gobble!!! Happy Thanksgiving! Be safe and stay home if you can (quarantine)!

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Fall Fun!

Make a beautiful fall collage with leaves from around your yard or neighborhood! My 3 year old LOVED it!

Our family likes to take walks and LOVE to collect things from nature for crafting. The other day we decided to find some colorful leaves.

To make a collage you need:

-various leaves

-contact paper

That’s it! It’s very simple, but so much fun! We made 3 of them so far and gave them as gifts!

First, cut a piece of clear contact paper and take off the sticky side. Lay it on a flat surface.

Lay the leaves on the sticky side of the contact paper and arrange them in any way you like. When you are happy with the way your leaves look, cut another contact paper sheet the same size as the original one. Lay it flat on top of the leaves and smooth it out with your hands. Then boom, you are done! Hang it in a window to admire it or give it to someone as a gift! Madison gave some to her cousins, grandparents and her family!

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Turkey paper puppet!

Gobble gobble! It’s almost thanksgiving time!

Since it’s getting cooler (or it is suppose to!), thanksgiving crafts are a great activity for your kids, especially with covid keeping us home!

The first craft we have is a turkey paper puppet. It is simply, easy, and many of you may have all the materials at home already!!

What you need:

-Paper lunch bag (or if you do not have it, brown construction paper and a popsicle stick can work)

-Googly eyes (or you can use a marker or construction paper)

-Construction paper (for the beak, feathers)

-Colored feathers (or construction paper)

-Glue or Gluestick

Then all you do is have your little one glue the eyes on, cut a beak out of construction paper and glue it on the front. Put the little gobbler underneath the flap of the bag, glue the feathers and WA-LA! You have an easy turkey! Enjoy!

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A Happy COVID Halloween!

This year’s Halloween was quite different than others. We decided to skip trick-or-treating due to the pandemic and do a very small family gathering with our own version of trick-or-treating.

Start by decorating the house and getting in costumes!

Next, add the kiddos!

Time for fun, games, and crafts!

A great activity is painting pumpkins! To keep it clean and organized have a paint set and brush for each kiddo with their own cup of water. You can use cardboard box lids to keep it clean.

For the next craft we used paper toilet rolls to make Frankenstein (or Frankie as my daughter likes to call him).

You will need: toilet paper rolls, googly eyes or buttons, glue, tape, black construction paper or foam sticky paper.

I cut out the black hair, eyebrows and mouth ahead of time and stuck each one in a plastic baggy with the green construction paper. Each kid got a bag and pulled out the green construction paper and taped it over the toilet paper roll. Next they pressed on the stick foam hair, eyebrow and mouth. If you don’t have sticky foam colors then you can use construction paper. They chose their own eyes by using googly eyes or buttons and glued them on!

Next we did a Halloween piñata! The kids used a badminton to hit it then Aunt Amanda helped out with a big pole. Once it spilled open the kids got playdough, bubbles, and candy…yum!!

Next we made lots of spooky treats like meatballs, jack-o-lantern grilled cheese & clementines and mummy hot dogs!

Grandma baked sugar cookies & had each kid decorate their own box to hold them with foam stickers (leftover takeout containers). They used icing and sprinkles…yum!!

Instead of trick-or-treating around the neighborhood, we went trick-or-treating around the house to each door! The kids LOVED it and ran to each door multiple times!

As if this wasn’t enough, we did a Halloween dance party and Halloween egg hunt (Easter eggs filled with Halloween goodies and pennies).

To end the night we had a campfire & smores! Happy Halloween everyone and stay safe!

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Construction Counting Fun!

If you have a boy or girl who loves construction vehicles, then this activity is a fun counting activity! Not only do young ones like using their front end loaders or excavators to lift up the beans, they also learn their numbers!

You can use uncooked beans such as I did, or anything that can be scooped up. Examples include rocks, beans, beads, food items, and others. Obviously, you do NOT want to use something small for children under 3 or children who still put things in their mouth. Supervising the activity is important as well.

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Leaf tracing fun

Leaf tracing is easy, fun, and inexpensive! I might even enjoy it more than my kids!

All you need is white paper, crayons, and leaves!

Go outside and collect all different fall leaves, even strawberry plant leaves, tall grasses, any leaf will work!

Then, place the leaf underneath the white paper and use the crayon to rub on it! Make sure you hold the paper down and leaf with one hand while you are coloring.

I also find the stems and veins of the leaves show up much clearer if you flip the leaf to the back and trace it.

Enjoy this easy creative craft and post your pictures below!

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Alternative Trick or Treating 2020

We all love trick or treating! I can remember trick or treating in high school with a group of my soccer friends! I personally think trick or treating is great for older children as well (as long as they behave and aren’t too scary for the little ones!). There were neighbors who said, “How old are you?” or “Don’t you think you’re too old for trick or treating?” NO is the answer. If a teenager is responsible and behaving, then by all means go trick or treating instead of the many other negative things that could be done.

I remember running home and spreading the treats all over the floor with my brother and sister. We would compare our stockpile and trade our treats! Oh what fun trick or treating was! However, 2020 is different. With the COVID virus going around (rate dependent in your state/county), we are minimizing this high risk activity by avoiding the traditional trick or treating. As disappointing as this is, there are some other super fun alternatives (and hopefully next year we can do the old school trick or treating)!

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Mini Party!!!!!! Mini party essential means a small party, usually under ten people, with trusted low risk covid people. This can encompass many activities such as
1. A Piñata
2. Movie night
3. Campfire night with smores
4. Fun Halloween snacks and food
5. Carving/painting pumpkins
6. Halloween crafts/face painting
7. Board games
8. Crafts
9. How many candy corns are in the container
10. And any of the other activities on the list!
Scavenger hunt time! Who doesn’t love a good scavenger hunt? Well, maybe your kids if they don’t want to work for their candy! There are many scavenger Halloween hunts, I made one for kids who aren’t quite reading yet so they can look at the pictures and words and understand. The one below you can download. If you need another type you can find many online!

Halloweenscavengerclickhere

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3. Halloween Egg Hunt: You can easily use marker and draw faces on eggs, or you can use puffy paint! Another option is glow in the dark eggs and a night egg hunt…SPOOKY! You can also paint eggs with glow in the dark paint. Put your favorite candies, stickers, tattoos, rings, or whatever you child enjoys in the eggs! Use your pumpkin or usual trick or treat bags to collect them.

Halloween party games for kids - Upcycle plastic Easter Eggs for a Halloween Egg Hunt.

4. Trick or Treat Stations: Setup stations in your yard, or at each of your doors. Each adult is dressed up and has a scene behind them. For example, one adult has spider webs behind them and the kids come up and say trick or treat. The idea is that its safe since it is your mom and dad or family member you live with and its similar to trick or treating. We may do the door idea. So the kids can run from door to door (maybe more than once), and knock for trick or treating.

5. Family trick or treating: this is similar to the one above. However, you can drive to grandparents house or aunt or uncle house and do trick or treat at just a select couple houses to lower the risk.

6. Family Ideas: So besides all the other ideas, there are many other Halloween things that can be done. Family board games, campfires, Halloween movies, pin the spider on the spiderweb, mummy toilet paper roll game (although you may not want to waste the toilet paper!!), painting pumpkins or carving them, Halloween bingo, ring witch hat toss

Halloween Bingo - Perfect halloween party games for kids

7. Yard Parade: have your little ones dress up and walk around the yard and do a parade! You can walk down the road dressed up as well (not on trick or treat day of course!). Kids love dressing up and having a pretend parade!

8. Zoom party! So have a family/friend zoom party. You can vote on the best costumes, each show off your spooky treats and your pumpkins. Do crafts together or drawing contests

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Letter Activities

If you have a preschooler or even a toddler you can do some fun craft activities with them! Today we focused on the letter “M” since my daughter’s name is Madison.

We read an ABC book and focused on the letter M. Next we did Madison’s favorite: crafts!

M is for marshmallows! This activity is fun because your child not only gets to eat some marshmallows but starts to learn letter recognition.

Yes, those are yard sale stickers. We didn’t have any blank ones left so we used what we had!

For this activity you will need to cut the letter M out of construction paper and glue it onto another paper. Next, use dot stickers and have your child put them on the letter m. Finally, have your child or yourself put glue dots on each sticker and stick on marshmallows. If you have an older child you can have them do patterns with marshmallows in different colors and count marshmallows.

All you need for this craft is buttons, glue, and paper. If you don’t have buttons you could use other items like stickers or pom poms. Use the glue to draw the letter M and then have your child put on the buttons!

She had so much fun she kept asking for more M arts and crafts. Other M activities could include drawing 2 moose antlers and stapling/taping them to make them into headband. Making M monsters by writing the letter M and adding googly eyes and many hands/legs/tentacles, whatever your child wants would work too!

We decided to end the day with movement!

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Rescue the Numbers!

There are many simple ways to get your child to start to recognize numbers without drilling them. One activity is called, “Rescue the Numbers!”

Materials: a bucket/bowl/container with water, spoon, numbers (I used foam), paper, plastic sleeve (I had a lamination sleeve)

I traced the numbers onto a blank paper and put it in a lamination sleeve, this way it stayed dry. Next, I put all of the numbers into the container with water & she got to have fun taking them out! If you have numbers and you can draw faces on them your child would like that even more!

I had the numbers saying, “Help!” and when she got each one out I’d say the number (or she would) and she would match them on the paper. When they were all done we counted them while pointing to each one.

She ended up putting in some rocks and making them sink, then pretending they were stuck and she had to rescue them again. We also talked about sinking and floating. She loved it so much she asked to do more (next time I’ll do the alphabet).

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