I want to do some fun stuff with my 3 year old this week for Halloween. I would like to start some traditions with him that we can do each year together. I would like as many fun ideas as you can give. I think we are going to do a couple of fun things each day. Please help! :)
C.,
My children and I always carve a pumpkin and bake cookies. I do not allow them to touch the hot stuff, but as they get older they get to do more. HTH
One of my favorite thing my mother did when I was little was a Halloween themed breakfast. (you could choose any meal, she chose breakfast when we were school aged because it was easier) She'd wake us up with a sheet over her head and it ghostly voice she would beckon us to the table. Once we got there she would have a fun drink with dry ice in the middle of the table, green eggs, witch finger toast, etc. We always got a little halloween themed prize like stickers or socks. I always loved it and thought it was great way to start the day.
We have fun with this holiday and live in a neighborhood where we get out and say "hey" to our neighbors when we trick or treat.
We go to a pumpkin patch for picture taking earlier in the week and take one home to carve just before Halloween (rots if too early).
We do our neighborhood's costume parade and trick or treat from the end of that. We invite friends to go with us and have a great time. We come home, light the jack o lantern and pass out candy to treaters. Nothing spectacular but its enough to keep us busy.
Keeping things close to home has helped keep this crazy day sane.
Pumpkin patch visit is always good to build on for a tradition each year. Or how about making Halloween cookies or treats....
Dewberry Farm (www.dewberryfarm.com) has lots of things for kids to do. To build up to the 'big' day, you can let your child put on and wear for a short time one part of their costume each day or night (Daytime usually works best since putting on the costume kinda winds the little ones up). Then on Halloween, they get to put it all together. It will give you a chance to identify any potential 'problems' with the costume beforehand - too long, not closing properly, footwear, etc.
My children and I always do things for all holidays including Halloween. Try doing the "You'ved Been Boo'ed" thing. You create a gift bag or basket with goodies in it and attach a halloween poem and door hanger and you give this out to 2 of your neighbors without them knowing. And in return they are to keep this going to other neighbors that havent been boo'ed yet. You can get very creative with this as well.....like having you child decorate the basket if you use one or making some crafts to put in the bag/basket or helping you making cookies to give as one of the goodies. My kids love this becuase they are so involved in it and I let them choose the neighbor they want to leave it for on their doorstep. They think its fun to ring the doorbell and run. Whoever you leave the basket for is NOT supposed to know its from your family.
You can go to www.beenbooed.com for ideas and for printable poems and door/window tags to put in the basket. Or just google the "you've been boo'ed"
sqaure pretzels place on baking sheet add 1 kiss to them put in oven on 350 for l min remove set in icebox to cool
add to snacks taste great mmmmmmmm
here's some things I've done with my girls this month for Halloween (they're 5 and 3):
Halloween sugar cookies...I made purple, orange, and green frosting and they decorated them with Halloween-themed sprinkles
"spiral" decorations...I took Halloween-colored pipe cleaners, we strung plastic beads on them that were also Halloween/fall colors, I used hot glue on the ends so the beads wouldn't come off, then spiraled them around a pencil and strung them up to hang from the ceiling. very cute decorations and super easy and inexpensive!
Halloween cats...I got 2 sizes of paper plates, had the girls paint them (one used black, the other used green), I cut out a tail, ears, nose, eyes, and paws out of cardstock and stapled the tail and ears and had the girls glue the other pieces, then they drew on a mouth and whiskers and then glued a bow on that I made out of ribbon. you could also use pipe-cleaners for the whiskers, but I thought it'd be more fun if they drew them =)
handprint bats...I had them paint a small paper plate black for the body (or you could cut the body out of foam), then I traced their hands onto black foam and stapled those to the plate for the wings, then glued on googly eyes, a pom-pom nose, and a bow, and they painted on the mouth with white paint. I used a loop of ribbon to hang them up
paper plate jack o' lanterns...I had them paint a plate whatever color (or colors) they wanted and then after that dried, they painted on a face
we will also be making spiders...paint a small paper plate black, then cut 4 more plates in half, cutting out the center circle as well, then those become the 8 legs when painted and attached, then attach googly eyes
when I was a kid we would make ghosts out of Kleenex...you wad up a couple tissues and put them in the center of another tissue, then tie it off with some string or thread (leaving extra to hang them up with), then draw a mouth and eyes with a marker
that's about all I can think of right now =) have fun!
PS I forgot, we also do collages a lot for different seasons/holidays. I help them look through old magazines and find pictures of a particular theme (Halloween, fall, Christmas, spring, summer, etc.) and paste them onto a sheet of construction paper. they love doing this and I always hang them up in my kitchen and change them with the seasons =) I've also had them do pictures where I cut out say a tree, leaves, pumpkins, moon, etc. (easy shapes to cut out) and then have them paste them on another sheet of paper however they want...my oldest always wants to make her pictures look perfect, while my youngest has a more abstract view and would place, say, the moon on the ground, pumpkin in the sky, leaves all over, tree upside down, etc. LOL it's fun to see what they come up with! I've also done that with cutting out a shape of a pumpkin and then various shapes of eyes and noses and mouths for them to choose from to paste on the pumpkin...those can turn out pretty funny, too!
how about doing falll activities. like hay rides, country dances, going to the corn, apple, or other fall food harvesting time feilds and helping pick some crops, at this age they can paint pumpkins instead of carving. theres tons of cooking ideas, cookies, cupcakes, rice krispie treats cut out with cookie cutter shapes. you can boo people if he can keep it a secret.
We get all the cousins together and they come over we have quick dinner get the all dressed up and go trick or treating around area. We also go to pumpkin patch and let him pick out own pumpkin and come home a carve it a few days before.
We go to Sea World, and this year I am even going to take him to Chic Fila on Halloween they are having something to eat with the superhero and take pic's etc. Just look around in your area!
