Halloween Fun

When I was a teacher, I loved planning fun learning activities to go along with each holiday.  October was always filled with Halloween story problems, spooky writing prompts and Fall fun and games for my students.  They loved it and it definitely made our learning experience more fun.  Now that I'm a full time mom, I spend time planning holiday activities for my toddler to do at home.  She gets so excited to do fun things together and loves that I change them up regularly.  I know Olive will be in school full time in just a few years so I am very motivated to make the most of our time at home together.

Here are our current favorite activities:

HALLOWEEN SORT

I found these little pumpkins on super clearance at CVS last year and the whole bag was $0.50.  I saved them for Olive to play with this year and tossed the candy that was inside each pumpkin.  I also picked up these skeletons in a package for $0.99 at Wal-Mart.  I let Olive pick out her pumpkin and she choose this purple one this year.  The whole set of things cost me $3 and I'm looking forward to pulling it out every year for her to play with.

We have had a great time with this assortment of Halloween goodies.

We've played hide and go seek with them.

Practiced opening and putting back together the pumpkins

Hidden things in the pumpkins

Lined them up

Sorted them

Counted them

Made patterns with them

Practiced tossing them into the pumpkin

STICKERS

My parents sent Olive some cute foam stickers and I picked up some at the Dollar Spot at Target.  Olive made her own little pumpkin patch.  We practiced fine motor skills trying to get all the stickers off the paper and onto the card stock.  We also practiced colors.  I had her ask for the crayons by color name and then she added some personality to her little patch.  We displayed it on the fridge and she's happy to see her art work on display.

 We also have a bunch of other stickers that she's stuck in coloring books, decorated independently with and just enjoyed playing with by herself.

PLAY OUTSIDE:

We have been out and about a lot lately.  Olive's had a great time playing in the leaves, collecting rocks and acorns, playing at the park and going on walks.  I'd love to do a little nature scavenger hunt with her to work on her vocabulary and let her gather anything that is interesting to her. 

 WHAT FUN THINGS ARE YOU DOING WITH YOUR FAMILY THIS MONTH?

 We are hoping to get to do these fun things before the month is over:

Cookie cutter sort

Make Halloween sugar cookies together for our neighbors & Kevin's co-workers

Go to a Halloween party/hayride

Decorate play dough pumpkin

Watch some fun Halloween cartoons

Eat some s'mores

Paint - pumpkins, hand prints, foot prints and free style

Pick out a pumpkin

Trick-or-Treat

My favorite Halloween pins waiting to be attempted from Pinterest:

 via thisreadingmama

 via iheartcraftythings

 
 via ourbestbites