A Candy Corn Creation!

I've been working on a birthday banner for my goddaughter's 2nd birthday.  It's a candy corn theme (she's a Halloween baby), so the banner itself looks like a strand of candy corn.  The boys saw me making it and Buddy said that he wants to make candy corn too.  I remembered this simple craft that we also did last year and thought why not.  When the boys woke up from their nap, I had the craft set up on the table for them.  Here's what you'll need:

paper (white, yellow and orange)
scissors
glue
candy corn (optional)

I cut out a large, white triangle shape and then strips of orange, yellow and white (our white was glittery).  I also cut slits into the strips to make it easier for the boys to cut pieces off.

I liked giving the boys an opportunity to use scissors, since it's not something they do very often.  This year in preschool, I know Buddy's teachers will be looking at him improving his cutting skills, so the more practice the better.  Cutting can be a difficult task for little ones, as it requires fine motor coordination, control, and strength.

The boys sampled some real candy corn as they cut (which was probably their favorite part).  We then looked at our real candy corn to see which colors needed to go on the TOP, MIDDLE, and BOTTOM of the triangle.  This craft provides a great opportunity to talk to your little one about COLOR NAMES and SPATIAL CONCEPTS (top, middle and bottom).  It was also great for them to reference a real object and try to recreate it.

The boys glued their cut out pieces of paper onto the large, white triangle and there it was - a candy corn creation!

This craft is super simple and great for toddlers and preschoolers!  You're tackling some fine motor skills, as well as important language concepts.  Enjoy!

3 days till Halloween!

Love & Language,

Marisa

Room on the Broom Fun!

A new Halloween story favorite for us this year was Room On The Broom by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler.  A witch zooming around on her broom loses her hat, hair bow and wand.  Luckily, she meets some animal friends that help her out!  Each animal asks to join her on her broom in a sweet rhyme.  "I am a frog, as green as can be, is there room on the broom for a frog like me?"  The witch happily agrees, which ends up being an excellent decision, because the she encounters a dragon, who loves to eat witches with French fries.  The witch's new friends come to her rescue!

This story is really fun to read and listen to.  We acted out the story by getting out our cleaning broom and taking it for a spin!  We inserted our own names to request a ride on the broom.  "I am a mommy, as sweet as can be, is there room on the broom for a mommy like me?"  Everyone climbed aboard and away we flew!  Acting out stories is a great way to enhance language development - recalling details and the sequence of events will are skills that your little one will need in his/her school years as well!

Another fun witch themed activity is to make a witches brew!  There are lots of different recipes and we'll be making one this week.  Check out these at Blessed Mom:  Witches Brew Recipes

For more spooky fun and to chat with your little one about colors, try this coloring mixing activity from Kids Activities Blog:  Coloring Mixing A Witches Brew

And if you really can't get enough of the story, like we can't, check out these activities over at Toddler Approved: Room On The Broom Booked Inspired Activities


Enjoy! Hee, hee, hee, hee!


Love, Language & Witchy Wishes,

Marisa

Pumpkin Day!

6 days to go...

Here's a great activity that can go along with almost any Halloween story but we did it along with, It's Pumpkin Day Mouse! by Laura Numeroff and Felicia Bond (author and illustrator of our other favs - If You Give A Mouse A Cookie and If You Give A Moose A Muffin).  This is a very simple and fun story with great illustrations.  Mouse has seven pumpkins to decorate and he does a great job!  The story explores feelings & how we draw them (or make faces): happy, sad, silly, surprised, SCARY!!, and (a sweet ending) friendly.  There are also opportunities to practice counting and color names!  Feelings, counting and colors are great language concepts to address with your little one!  Make faces that match the ones of the pumpkins in the story and for older children, ask them to name a time or situation in which they have felt that way.  Count the pumpkins (and notice when one is missing) and label the paint colors.  This story doesn't make mention of Halloween so it's a great read even after the 31st.

We expanded on color and feeling concepts in our pumpkin craft activity.  Here's what you'll need:

paper plate
green paper (for a stem)
white and black paper (to draw and cut out pumpkin features)
red paint
yellow paint

We talked about what colors make orange - red and yellow of course!  I put a squirt of each color on a paper and let the boys mix it together.  They started off using their paint brushes and then got their hands in it!  We kept adjusting the color until we got the perfect "pumpkin orange."  The boys rubbed the paint to cover the entire plate.  Michael especially loved rubbing his hands through the paint and mixing it together. 

Once the paint dried, we looked through the book to decide which pumpkin each of my boys wanted to make.  Buddy chose the scary pumpkin, Michael chose the sad pumpkin, and Mighty pointed to the happy pumpkin.  We talked about what features each pumpkin would need (turned down mouth, angry, slanted eyebrows, etc.)  This gave a great opportunity for the boys to notice what makes a face portray a certain feeling and also to reference a book.  I drew and cut out the features and gave them to the boys to glue on their paper plate pumpkin. 

The pumpkins came out really cute!  AND we hit on a lot of great language!  Hope you try this one with your little ones!


Love, Language & Pumpkins,

Marisa

Halloween Is A Week Away!

Hello my friends!  It's been a while... okay, a long while.  Since I last posted, the hot days of summer have dwindled away, the fall season has crept in, my littlest boy, Mighty, turned 1, my biggest boy, Buddy, is now 4 years old and back in preschool.  Those are pretty much the major events.  I have been wanting to sit down and share what we've been up to lately because HALLOWEEN is only a week away and we've been getting in the spirit!

Last year, Halloween became one of my (if not my most) favorite holidays.  Working in an elementary school for over 7 year, I have accumulated quite the collection of children's books.  I LOVE children's books and am always looking for new ones to add to my (which has become "our") library.  I have lots and lots of Halloween stories, and a few favorites that I enjoyed with the students I work worked with and am now able to share with my own children.  It has become tradition in our house to read Halloween stories every night (along with some Halloween Oreos) starting a month before Halloween.  We all enjoy reading our favorites over and over again and there quite a few stories that the boys can recite from memory.  Since we read most of these stories last year, it's interesting to see how being a year older has changed what the boys take away from the stories themselves.  Some stories would scare Michael (2 years old), and now he listens bravely and recites all the BOOs and screeches with us.  Buddy (4) is interested this year in what letter different Halloween creatures start with and identifying numbers in the stories that count up or down.  Mighty (1) just listens and sips on his bottle, watching his brothers' reactions and taking it all in.  Over the next week, as we count down to Halloween, I'd like to share with you our favorite Halloween stories, as well as some activities we've done to go along with them.

At this point, I think it would be fair to say that the vast majority of parents recognize that reading to your child is very beneficial to their development.  Reading books is an amazing start to helping your child's speech and language development - reading the same books again and again, as well as, creating experiences (crafts, conversations, games, acting it out) related to the stories you read together can help your little one even more!  So here we go...

I'll start with a classic!  Five Little Pumpkins is a fun, simple and catchy rhyme that is pleasing to hear and lots of fun to act out!  There are a few different versions and it has been retold and illustrated in quite a few books.  The one we read is by Tiger Tales and Ben Mantle.  It goes like this:

Five little pumpkins sitting on a gate
The first one said, "Oh my, it's getting late!"
The second one said, "There are witches in the air."
The third one said, "Good folk beware!!!"
The fourth one said, "Let's run and run and run!"
The fifth one said, "We'll have some fun."
Then, "Whoooooooooooooooo!!!!" went the wind
And OUT went the light
And the five little pumpkins
Rolled.... OUT OF SIGHT!

We recite this poem daily and I love the hear Michael laying in his bed trying to fall asleep chanting it.

We act out the poem as we read it using corresponding expressions for each pumpkin and doing movements that follow along with the words.  Everyone makes the "whoooooo!!!!" sound, we shut off  the light and then roll our arms for the rolling pumpkins.  Very simple, but the boys love it.

Our very first Halloween craft was to make five little pumpkins and we did so using:

paper
orange and green paint
toilet paper rolls
pipe cleaners
paint brushes

I drew a pumpkin on the paper then gave the boys the paint and toilet paper rolls, pipe cleaners and paint brushes (to be used to apply the paint) to create their pumpkins.  Using different tools to paint made it a little more interesting and gave the pumpkins different textures.  We talked about what color a pumpkin is (Michael is still learning his colors) and decided which pumpkin from the story each boy was making.  Once we were done, we had five pumpkins to use when we read our poem!

Love & Language,

Marisa