Counting Candy Corn

Our girls had such a fun time working together on this counting candy corn activity.  This activity is a little too easy for O(6) and a little too difficult for E(3), which made it PERFECT for them to do together!


O showed E how to put our homemade sandpaper numbers in order, and then we all counted out the appropriate number of candy corn to put below each number.




Simple, fun, educational, and yummy!

Halloween Eyeball Work

Here is another one of our Halloween "works" that is on our Montessori school shelves.  E(3) puts an eyeball in each opening on the container.  She used chopsticks the first time, but they were not ideal for this activity.


I found the plastic eyeballs at the Dollar Tree and the container at our local thrift store.

Halloween Activities

We took our Halloween bin out of storage during the last week of September, but we've been gone from home so much that we haven't had time to do many of the activities.   However, I wanted to share the activities with everyone before Halloween was over.  I hope we'll be doing a lot of fun Halloween activities this week!

Here are the puppets that O sewed a last year.




The Halloween I Spy bottle

The Halloween Sensory bin...E(3) loves this and plays with it daily.

Mr. Pumpkin Head....E has also enjoyed this!

The pumpkin felt board is my favorite, but the girls haven't been very interested in it...yet!

Pumpkin Polishing

Pumpkin polishing is E(3)'s current favorite work on her Montessori school shelves.  She loves to "fray" (spray) the pumpkin with water and then wipe it with a cloth.

In this picture, she's wearing a Nicaraguan outfit that our friend just gave her...she LOVES it and wears it everyday while pretending to be a Nicaraguan Queen...love it!  (she's also wearing my reading Olympics medal from 3rd grade :)

E decided that one pumpkin to polish was not enough, so she asked to polish the fake pumpkin, too.  Fun times!

Our First Halloween Work

This simple and fun Halloween work has been on our shelves for a few weeks, and E(3) has really had fun with it.

 I bought the jack o'lantern cup from The Dollar General.  E puts the toothpicks into the straw one at a time.
This work teaches concentration and attention to detail, and it is good practice for developing her fine motor skills.

She preferred to pick up a bunch of the toothpicks at one time, so I prompted her to pick up just one at a time.  She's looking into the straw to see the toothpicks.  This was a fun and simple work...the best kind!

Halloween Balloon Countdown

Since O's birthday balloon countdown has been such a hit with both of our girls, I have started thinking about  a time we could do this activity (other than birthdays).  I don't want to overdo it, but I think 3 times a year would be perfect AND I think Halloween would be the perfect holiday for a balloon countdown!

Here is my plan... (I don't usually share ideas before I do them, but I decided to this time just in case anyone else wants to give this a try).  I'll use orange and black balloons and alternate colors on the balloon garland.  In each balloon will be a few pieces of candy (a big deal around here since they don't get it that often) and a slip of paper describing an activity.  I LOVE candy corn and candy pumpkins, so that is what I'll put in the balloons.

Here is the list of activities so far...

a trip to a pumpkin patch to buy a pumpkin
carve a jack o'lantern
make glow in the dark slime (putty)
make pumpkin pie playdough
watch a (non scary) Halloween movie outside via the projector and eat pumpkin poop (cheeze puffs)
nighttime driveway bowling with glow sticks
bake and decorate Halloween cookies
paint faces
make and eat caramel apples
make a Halloween ghost tree

When I was talking this idea over with O(5), she asked if they would get a can of whipped cream to spray in their mouths (that has been her absolute favorite birthday balloon activity/gift...she said "that was the best day  ever" and today when I let them have another mouthful of whipped cream she said "you really are a good mom!")  Anyway, I said that a can of whipped cream didn't seem very "Halloweeny," and she said "It is if you put orange and black sprinkles on top!"  So, we may add a can of redi-whip and Halloween sprinkles to our list of Halloween activities/gifts :)

O's Halloween Puppets

O(5) and I have really enjoyed having "O and Mama Craft Time" after E(2) goes to sleep at night. We usually spend about 30 to 45 minutes crafting and reading. One our first projects was sewing Halloween puppets from a Family Fun craft kit (that I bought after Halloween last year from WM). O loves to sew, and this was lots of fun for both of us.

We made one puppet per night for 3 nights of "Mama and O Craft Time." After she finished the puppets, she decided to draw pictures of them in her drawing journal.

I spelled the words for her for the ghost and witch drawings.


I had to bite my tongue to not correct her when she was writing the "E" in Wendy. I'm so glad that I didn't correct her...I love the 6 lines on the E!

I encouraged her to sound out the words herself when she was writing "Scott the Skeleton." I love how she wrote it! What a treasure these imperfections will be once she is reading and writing with ease!

Our Halloween Ghost Tree

Making a ghost tree for Halloween has been a family tradition since I was a child. Usually, we use wrap dum-dums with kleenex to make the ghosts, but this year we did things a little differently (and SO much better!)...

My mom found a bunch of white cloth napkins and wrapped organic lollipops (from Trader Joe's) with them to make the ghosts. The girls get to choose one ghost off the tree each day and eat the lollipop. I don't mind them having a lollipop a day since they don't have any artificial colors or flavors in them! The girls are thrilled with this, and so are we!

Halloween Spooning Work

E(2) enjoyed this spooning work using white beans. I drew eyes on the beans to make them look like ghosts using a black sharpie marker. I should have drawn eyes on both sides of the beans because E did not like it when they were accidentally turned over backwards! She did a great job spooning the beans from one bowl to the next, and I'm looking forward to setting up more spooning activities for her.

Halloween "I Spy" Bottle

E(2) has had fun finding the objects in our Halloween "I Spy" bottle that I made last year!

After this bottle was such a hit last year, I had plans to make "I Spy" bottles for Christmas and Valentine's Day. I never found the time to do that last year, but I'm determined to make it happen this year...I'll let you know if I'm successful :)