Spooky Ideas for Halloween

[Deanna Ayres]

It's been a while since I last posted, wow what a crazy fast summer! Between work and vacation, back to school and life I haven't had as much time to write as I'd like. But guess what!? Halloween is right around the corner!! How exciting :) 

I figured I'd share some of my plans and ideas for Halloween with everyone and hope to see you share some of yours.

My kids love Halloween a lot more than I do, I am more of a Christmas kinda gal myself. But every year they come up with things they'd like to try on Halloween. So we look at Pinterest, their costumes, their toys and brainstorm together. So this year this is what they came up with.

1. Creepy Pumpkin with a twist
   I have this thing about actually lighting a candle in the carved out pumpkin so we were toying around with a variety of ideas like electric tea lights, christmas lights, a flashlight, glow sticks and so on.. but it didn't seem to come together quite right. Then my oldest daughter (thank goodness she is a smart cookie) runs to her room and comes back with her Laser Peg bucket and says MOM we can use these! Brilliant idea.. We looked at the LP network and found this one and modeled it exactly like it. It looks super spooky and we have the pendants, so we need no outlet! Win one for the kiddos and a big one for using educational toys creatively!
2. Spooktacular Health Snacks
   Since I am a big fan of few sugary snack and more healthy snacks I am always on the lookout for healthy fun ideas to munch on. So we took to pinterest and found the cutest banana ghosts and tangerine *pumpkins*. So easy to make for the kids and they love it. For the banana Ghosts you cut the banana in half after you peel it and use chocolate drops (tiny ones) for eyes and another drop (slightly bigger) for the mouth. BOOOYAAA :) for the tangerine *pumpkins* you peel the tangerines and cut celery in tiny sticks that you stick in the middle. Donekin.. okay bad joke. But healthy, cute, funny and they get to help - then eat it. 
3. Glamourous Creepy Photo Shoot
   Oh yeah.. Kids have the greatest ideas. I thought they wanted to dress up.. but no. They got out the fake "spiderwebs" and started decorating the fireplace (yes that will be a pain to take off again) Then my little creative spirit got her reclining chair she got last year for christmas and set it up in front of the fireplace. Next they brought out their Vamplets and their little blood bottles (according to my creative spirit it's cherry juice, her Vamplet is vegetarian). Then they found clothes they thought would look neat, fixed their hair and started getting into creepy mood (apparently that's a thing). Sound simple so far? It is.. Check out the end result with the help of a little photoshop for color and teeth lol..and
   
4. Ghost Feet & Hand Spiders 
   
   This we haven't tried yet but it looks so much fun. It is simple, straightforward and you can attempt it with toddlers and up. All you need is construction paper, finger paint, something to hang it up with and willing hands and feet of your children. Mine never say no to messy activities, so I am looking forward to it. This is what it is supposed to look like
5. Spooky Days
   
   We have a ton of costumes at our house but even those are never enough. So my kids have become very adept at making their own. Much to their dismay though we have a busy schedule and can't always be dressed up (plus the school called me one day and said I had to bring actual clothes and my daughter wasn't allowed to sit in costume) so we decided to have dress up days. Since it's October the theme is spooky and they have so much fun getting in character and playing it out.. this is Skylander inspired self made costume by my 8 and 10 year old:

So in conclusion, these are our leading up to Halloween fun and spooky ideas. I am a big advocate of fostering your children’s creativeness and including them in any planning for holidays. It teaches them to work as teams, think outside of the box, use their skills and even learn about health at the same time. I also use the internet as a research tool and have them look up things (under supervision of course) to prepare them for school and life with technology.

So what do you do with your children? Share your ideas, I'd love to hear them! Follow me on Twitter https://twitter.com/deanna_ayres and let me know your thoughts on learning and playing with your children.