Epicurean Style

Fun Activities for Kids

I found these cute coloring pages and thought you might like them.  Jackson and Bennett have really enjoyed coloring some of these fun festive Halloween pictures.  They kept the boys busy while I got dinner ready and anything just a little different or out of the ordinary is great.  Click here to see the Coloring Pages

Happy October.

With today being the first day of all of the fun holiday months we have ahead, we decided to do a craft.  We picked these little masks up at Joann's for a $1.00.  Check out Michaels, Joann's or your local craft store, they almost always have a $1.00 section with fun small projects.  It gives you something different from your daily routine without breaking the bank.  :)  Happy October!

 

Freezer Paper T-shirts

This was Soooo much fun.  Seriously, Jackson and I both had fun creating this little project.  Jackson told me what he wanted on his shirt and then we both worked on it in different ways.  

 

 With Robots on the brain, Jackson of course picked this for the design.  When you do decide to do this project think about the edges of your design rather than the middle (the silhouette of an object).  I planned our robots to just be Silhouettes and then decided to add an extra stencil in the middle to give added texture, but this isn't necessary, a solid shape would work just as well.  

I made a stencil out of Freezer paper, first by drawing the image I wanted on the freezer paper and then cutting it with an x-acto knife.  I haven't master curved edges with the x-acto knife yet and thus I was glad Jackson picked robots in all the hard/straight edge glory.  :)  

Lay your freezer paper waxy/shiny side down (against your t-shirt) and then lay a piece about the same size on the inside of your shirt shiny/waxy side up (this holds the stencil in place a little better).  Iron over the freezer paper for about 10-15 seconds to hold the stencil in place.

Paint in the stencil using any fabric paint and paint brush.  We first painted in Ivory and then flicked a paint brush to make brown speckles on top and around the robots.  Once it has been painted let it sit until dry and then peel off your freezer paper.

I then used a fabric marker to make the little black details on our robots.  I used an Iron to heat set the paint and the fabric marker.  

I haven't added this part yet, but I think I might do some "messy" stitching around the edges of the robots in bright thread colors.  I'll show you when I get it done, but for now enjoy the cute robots as they are.  :)

This is a really fun activity.  Jackson loved painting the robots and I seriously was able to back away and let him enjoy doing it, because I knew the stencils were stuck in place and we had plenty of excess freezer paper surrounding the stencil.   

 

 

Masks

We were between the hours 3-5 and feeling the dullness of life.  Waiting for dinner, Marc to come home and all feeling a little bored and whiny.  I don't know if those hours are some of your hardest, but seriously for us...we struggle.  We've used up our energy and are ready for something new and different.  

That's when I decided we needed to DO SOMETHING!  Anything!  I started racking my brain and with Halloween on my mind we pulled this one out of our hat.  Nothing new or earth shattering, but sometimes just seeing someone else's idea sparks your mind to do something, so I thought I would share. 

 

Jackson first painted a piece of paper, we cut our shape out and then I had him stick curly ribbon, shaky eye balls (a huge hit!), and we tied it with elastic.  It kept us busy and has actually provided some good laughs and scared squeals when he sneaks up behind one of us.  Bennett isn't so sure how he feels about it, but Jackson always lifts up the mask to show Bennett it is just him and then keeps on playing. 

 

Painting with Pudding

Jackson was having a REALLY LoNG day a few days ago and I decided we needed a change of pace.  I whipped up some pudding and thought I would just let him finger paint (and of course eat it) on paper with it, when suddenly I got the great idea that it was going to be a tinesy-bit messier than a simple piece of paper could handle.  

So I covered the entire table with plastic wrap (wrapping from end to end and side to side...to keep it in place) and then let him have at it!  

He Lovvved it! 

(What's not to love here though? I mean I am telling to go ahead and make a mess, lick his fingers and play with his food.)

! 

 

I would definitely recommend this activity.  Yes, it was up to his elbows and his face was covered with it when he was done, but a nice bath always creates another fun activity (Jackson loves to play in the water...FOR-EVER!).  

 

We actually only ended up with one small spill on the floor.  The rest was on the table top.  And seriously the clean up was EASY...stick Jackson in the bath and fold all the edges of plastic wrap in, lift off the table, and toss in the garbage. 

 

Easy-Peasy--and it will definitely catch your kids off guard since it is so out of the ordinary  

Play Clay

All Natural, No Cook Play Clay!  I found this recipe in the Family Fun Magazine (I've never actually read the magazine before, but when I heard they were going to have one my aprons in the magazine, I just had to check it out).  The magazine is packed with fun ideas, but this was one of my favorites.  

 

I only had Cocoa Powder on hand, so we only made brown play clay, but is smells great and it took a total of 5 minutes to make.  Jackson has been playing with it for the last 45 minutes..I'd say that it was worth it.  :) 

My Helpers...

  

Here's the recipe:

All-Natural Play Clay

1 Cup flour

3/8 Cup Salt

1 Tablespoon vegetable oil

Natural Dye 

Natural Dye Chart:

In a Medium bowl combine the flour and salt.  Pour in the oil and your chosen natural dye, and stir well.  Knead the dough on a floured surface (I just poured a little extra flour into the edge of the bowl and used that for kneading.  Keeps all the mess in one place.) for a few minutes.  If the clay is too soft add a little more flour.  Store the clay in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

Fall Leaves

We had a lot of fun with this project.  We are definitely missing the fall leaves around here and had to find something to make it feel a little more like fall.  So we came up with this little project...

Fall Leaves

First cut leaf shapes out of regular white computer paper.

 

Unwrap about 7-10 crayons in the colors of your choosing.  Melt the crayons.  We melted our crayons in the microwave in a pyrex dish.  It gets a little hot...so watch cute little fingers that might try to help.  

Then set the melted crayons (in their pyrex dish) on the floor and dip your white leaves in.  I didn't dip the stems of my leaves, simply so I would have something to hold onto the leaf with, but I am sure, you could let the leaf dry and then dip in all the stems, we were just a little to tired to worry about it by the end.  :)

The leaves dry pretty quickly.  Dip one side into the crayons and then quickly dip the other side.  Then let the leaf drip dry, over your pyrex dish, for a few seconds.  It should become hard enough to touch after a few seconds and you can lay it down. 

 

 

Do this for as many leaves as you like and then hang them on your windows or other creative places.  A window creates a stain glass look, but anywhere could be fun.  We hung some on the window and some just in front of the window on string. 

 

For cleanup...

Heat the crayon back up and create a little bowl out of foil and dump the crayon into it--most of the crayon should easily pour out of the dish.  Whatever is left in the dish wipe out with a napkin.  Wash the pyrex in the dishwasher and all the cleanup should be done.  :)  

Halloween Craft

It's not that this craft took forever or was hard, but my son loved it!  It's surprising how the smallest activity can make him so excited!  I know we have talked about making paper sack puppets before, but since it is Halloween, we decided to shake things up a bit (ha.) and make a pumpkin paper sack puppet.  While we made it, we sang a few Halloween songs and read one of my favorite Halloween Poems.  

We also made a paper chain link counter, to count how many days until Halloween.  He gets to take one paper chain link off each night or morning and then we count how many days are left on the chain.  He loves counting it and being able to rip on of the links off.  Simple idea, but it makes for a little bit of fun, something a little out of the norm.  I think it would be cuter made out of Halloween colors, but we just went with what we had.  :)

Anyway, here are a few pictures of our paper sack pumpkin puppet. I am sure you could figure this out on your own, but a little step by step of how we did it can be found below...

Cut two half circles out of Orange paper.  Make the one that goes inside the flap larger than the one on the top of the flap.

Cut a thin rectangle out of yellow paper (this will be the top of your pumpkin mouth)

Cut a mouth shape out of yellow paper.  We cut a tooth shape out of the yellow.  Make sure it is long enough to be seen on the other side of the flap.

Add a stem on top.

Add eyes and a nose of whatever shape you like.  

And then you have your ultra-fun pumpkin puppet!  :)  Nevermind, our peanut butter and jelly stained shirt from lunch.  :)

Here are the words to the songs that we sang:

Pumpkin, Pumpkin Song

(sung to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star)

Pumpkin pumpkin on the ground

How'd you get so big and round

Planted as a seed so small

Now you are a great big ball

Pumpkin pumpkin on the ground

How'd you get so big and round 

Three Little Witches

 (sung to the tune of Three Little Indians)

 

One little, two little, three little witches,

Fly over haystacks, fly over ditches,

Slide down moon beams without any hitches,

Hey ho Hallowe'en's here!

 

Horned owl's hooting, it's time to go riding,

Deep in the shadows are black cats hiding,

With gay little goblins, sliding, gliding,

Hey ho Hallowe'en's here!

 

Stand on your head with a lopsided wiggle,

Tickle your little black cats till they giggle,

Swish through clouids with a higgedy, piggle,

Hey ho Hallowe'en's here!

Five Little Pumpkins

Five Little pumpkins sitting on a gate.

The first one said, "Oh, my it's getting late!" (Look at your watch or touch where it should be)

The second one said, "There are witches in the air." (Look around nervously)

The third one said, "But we don't care." (Shake finger back and forth,  "no" motion with finger)

The fourth one said, "Let's fun, let's run!" (Running motion with your arms)

The fifth one said, "Isn't Halloween fun?" (Make the "what" motion with arms)

The Wooooooosh went the wind (make a windy movement with your hands)

And OUT (clap hands together) went the lights.

And five little pumpkin's rolled out of sight. (Whisper this last line and Roll your hands)

 

Cupcakes

Okay, so the recipe isn't all that hard or tricky.  It might not even be considered a recipe when all you have to do is open a box and add a few eggs, a little veggie oil, and water. But this time of year I just crave fun festive holiday activities, so let the good times roll.  

My son and I broke out the cake decorating supplies and make us some fun Halloween Cupcakes a few days ago.  It was too much fun, especially for him, okay probably for me too.  It's just fun to get the creative juices flowing.  

So in effort to get all of you into the Halloween spirit, break out the box cake mixes and have some fun.  You don't have to get too creative or fancy, a few black and orange sprinkles or some orange frosting can go a long way.  

Have fun.

If you need some creative ideas look at some of these...

 

(Photo from Pillsbury Website)

Brain Cupcakes

(Photo from Family Fun Website)

Spider Cupcake

(Photo from Family Fun Website)

Witch Cupcakes

(photo from Martha Stewart Website)

ABC's

It's a hard job to try to educate your child and hope that you are giving them all the time and attention they need to learn and grow.  I definitely don't claim to be an expert teacher or even think that my own son is a genius.  I just want him to have some basic knowledge about things before he enters school (I know I have a while....).  Anyway, something that my son has shown a lot of interest in lately has been numbers and letters.  So I have tried to do a few craft projects with him to just introduce letters. 

Here are a few of my ideas:

Bumpy Letters
Kids can learn from touch as well as sight and sound when it comes to letters.  So reaching back into the recesses of my mind (when I used to tutor a little boy).  I remembered this activity.  We made letters out puffy paint on little index cards.  We would trace the letters with our fingers and say what the sounds that the letters made.  I have also played memory with the letters.  Matching the Uppercase Letters with the Lowercase Letters.


More Texture Letters:
Shape letters out of as many textures and objects you can think of...

-Play-dough

-Glue Salt/sprinkles (Use glue to shape the letter and then sprinkle salt onto the glue, shake off the excess salt.  Let dry and then feel them.)

-Glue macaroni/Penni noodles to a page to shape letters

-Cookie Dough and Letter Cookie Cutters (or just shape the letter yourself) and bake them.

-Alpha-bits Cereal



-Ice Cube Trays



I am in love with the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Tree... A fun way to have your child find the letters and place them on the tree as you read or just play with



-Make letters on paper for your child to color or decorate how ever they like

My son seems to love Puzzles so we have also opted to buy him a letter and number puzzle...just one more way to see the Alphabet. I am a big fan of Melissa and Doug Puzzles.

My son also loves the Letter Magnates made by Leap Frog.  I have to say that I am also a big fan of them, considering they make the say the letter and then makes all the sounds that the letter makes in a cute little song.  I am not a personal believer in the A is for Apple method.  I like to say A says and then list all the sounds that A makes.

I know this post in only partial a project or craft, but I did also say ideas right?!  Well, I hope so because I like to get ideas from people too.  Maybe one of the days should be  designated just to teaching ideas...what do you think? 

If you have more ideas for teaching the Alphabet share them!