Pumpkins

In order to fully enjoy Halloween I wanted to do a bunch of Pumpkin activities. 

The first up was the Local Pumpkin  Patch :) They have an awesome set up with rides and play areas. We made a whole trip out of it with cousins and had an awesome day! 

Pumpkin #1 was decorated with thumbtacks. I had seen the idea on Pinterest, but simplified it a bit. Maybe we will try it again in a few years and see if Man Cub tries to be a bit more organized in the placement of the thumbtacks. 

 Pumpkin #2 was decorated with Mod Podge and tissue paper. I don't have a lot of good pictures because it took a bit of assistance :) Man Cub loved using the paint brush and the end result was super cute. 

 Pumpkin #3 was another pinterest idea :) Melted Crayons!! Man Cub wasn't to excited about the blow dryer, but once the crayons started melted he got into it.

 Pumpkin #4 was decorated with Glitter and Glue. Man Cub really loves glue :) and once again this pumpkin turned out super cute!

Pumpkin #5 was the last one pumpkin and this was supervised by DH. I am not into cleaning the guts out of a pumpkin :) so DH put it all together and helped Man Cub carve up the pumpkin. And as you can tell Man Cub had a great time!

Books - Halloween

We have an awesome library right down the street from us and one of the things I have been trying to do is take advantage of being within walking distance of the library :) In the beginning of October I put a bunch of books on hold that would help introduce the Halloween theme to Man Cub. 

1. The Runaway Pumpkin 

An adorable story about a family and the pumpkin that runs away through their farm. 

2. Five Little Pumpkins

A cute rhyming book that has a good counting theme.

3. Brooms are for Flying

Man Cub loved this one!! It has a super simple wording that is fun to act out :)

4. What do you Do when a Monster says Boo?

Not necessarily a Halloween book, but it works. A cute story about a brother and his little sister monster. 

5. Dem Bones

Foot bones connected to da ankle bone, Ankle Bones connected to do Femur bone, etc ...

6. Big Pumpkin

All about a witch who wants to make pumpkin pie, but can't get the pumpkin off the vine. All sorts of Halloween characters come along to help. 

7. The Pumpkin Book 

This is a little old for Man Cub, but he enjoyed looking at the pictures of Pumpkins.

Signing Time - Halloween

I am not sure if I have talked about this much on my blog, but we are huge Signing Time users :) Little Man Cub has what would be considered a significant speech delay. He is learning to talk, but it's slow and we were starting to see some behavior issues stemming from aggravation at not being understood. Enter Baby Signing Time. All of a sudden he could communicate what he wanted!! and the amazing part was that as he learned signs he was also learning to say the words!! It was a serious game changer :) So we invested in the entire set of Baby signing time videos, books, flash cards, and music CDs and got started. It was wonderful to see the change it brought to our Man Cub; he was finally able to let me know what he wanted to eat, where he wanted to go, what he was playing with, etc ... It was so good that when a sale on Signing Time DVDs came up I invested in Series One of Signing Time. 

Signing Time has been a serious answer to prayers for us and has become a huge part of our lives. Halloween came around I really wanted to teach Man Cub to say Happy Halloween and to ask for Candy, but I knew that he wouldn't be able to say it. Well, after a quick Google search I discovered Signing Time Holiday Videos on YouTube!! 

Here is the first Holiday Video we have used 

And now Here is Man Cub showing off his new words :) 

He normally uses both hands for Halloween, but he  was being bribed with getting to watch a show and got detracted :/

Preschool - Halloween Week

I'm linking up at Homeschool Creations for Preschool Corner again!!

It was Halloween week and I really wanted to enjoy it, so most of our activities are Halloween themed :)

Sunday  -  we made another pumpkin!! This pumpkin was decorated with glitter and glue.

Monday  -  we had our October sensory tub and some Halloween stamps

Tuesday   -   Halloween pattern cards ... Man Cub didn't really understand how to complete the pattern cards so they ended up being more of a matching game. 

Also as a bonus he got to carve a pumpkin with daddy at night!!

Wednesday  -  HALLOWEEN!! For Halloween morning we headed to the local zoo; the zoo was decorated for halloween, had bouncy houses, and a special nocturnal animal show. In the evening we headed over to Grandma's for some trick-or-treating dressed as Peter Pan and a Lost Boy. 

Thursday -  Lift the flap and Match puzzle

Friday -  It's a bit of a stretch to call this educational, but DH and Man Cub took our old 1977 Cadillac out to get some work done when it caught on fire!! Yup, FIRE!!! Well from there Man Cub got to see a police man, a fire truck, a tow truck, and then a quick trip to the tow yard to see a fork lift ... see educational :) plus he now listens very well every time I say something is hot. Afterwards we went out to lunch at Chick-fil-a; not educational, but delicious! 

Disney Family Night: Up

We are continuing with our Disney movie nights (thanks Counting Coconuts) in preparation of Disneyland; on the agenda this time was Up. I printed out a house template for all the kids (and Auntie Stephy) to color and cut out. Then we attached balloons so we all had our very own up houses! Later on during the movie the kids got chocolate bars when the Up characters had chocolate bars :)

Busy decorating!

the completed houses floating in my room. 

Preschool - Fall/Halloween Activities

I am finally participating in my very first preschool link up!! Hopefully I follow the rules :)

This week we have been concentrating on getting into the season. At the pumpkin patch last week I picked up a couple $1 pumpkins so we could spend a lot of time decorating. 

Monday was a wonderful rainy day! So we read The Big Storm: A Very Soggy Counting Book by Nancy Tafuri and played in the rain (we are calling it sensory play!).

Tuesday we used our fall stickers to make a picture.

Wednesday was storytime at the local library. They read fall books and then got to glue leaves onto a plate; Man Cub gets excited whenever he gets to use glue :)

In the evening we decorated our 1st pumpkin. I bought some tacks and let Man Cub go to town. It took him awhile to figure out how to get the thumb tacks in, but he didn't get discouraged!

Thursday .... bust we didn't do anything. Oh well :/

Friday we decorated our second pumpkin. This pumpkin was decorated with mod podge and tissue paper. 

We also enjoyed a wonderful afternoon at the park with some friends!

And we have a bonus this week! Saturday we decorated our third pumpkin; this time we put some old crayons on the top and melted them with the blow dryer. Man Cub wasn't to keen on the blow dryer, but had fun watching :)

Disney Family Night: Dumbo

We are heading to Disney for vacation later this year .... I am so excited. But I realized the Man Cub may not get all the rides and characters :( Then I saw Counting Coconuts awesome family nights! It' a great way to introduce the Man Cub (and cousins) to some of the older Disney movies. First up was Dumbo; I made some circus themed food, set out a seal toss, and made a Casey Jr. train out of boxes. 

Peanut mix, corndogs, carmel apples, cotton candy, and popcorn (actually pirates booty)        

 the kids loved the train! it was so simple to make ... Grandpa got us some apple and pear boxes from the grocery store. I added black plates for wheels and cut up an extra box for the extra parts on the engine. Throw in some zoo animal and have fun!!

The seal toss! This game is actually a hand-me down school activity from Grandma, but goes perfect with the theme of the night. 

enjoying their treats :)

Overall it was a very successful night and I can't wait to host another!

Stamping

Man Cub is turning three this week!! I can't believe my adorable baby is growing up so fast :) Over the summer I have started doing "preschool" with him. I put "preschool" in quotation marks because we really aren't being official about it :) Basically he gets to watch one Signing Time(or Potty Time) DVD a day and I put out one activity a day. Some days the activities take a lot of prep work and some days its markers. I set the activity out around 10 and clean it up during nap time, I don't worry if he spends a lot of time on it. It's kinda Montessori-ish in a way ... I don't force the activities! If he loves it he can work on it all day, if not he can move on :) 

One of my first activities was stamping. It is a simple skill and he had a ton of fun! 

Materials:

Dinosaur Stamps: from Oriental Trading Company (bought at Diddams) $5 for 6 sets of 6

Paper: $5 for a giant pad of generic paper (bought at Big Lots)

Bath Paints

So we are still enjoying winter ... or at least rain in this neck of the woods. I am still trying to keep the Man Cub busy, and I have been finding some awesome ideas online! This latest idea is super easy and really quick to clean up. We made bath paint. This was so fun and extended bath time by about 30 minutes. The Man Cub was pretty wrinkly by the time I got him out :) 

The Bath Paint requires 4 things...

1. cheap foam shaving cream
2. food coloring
3. a muffin pan (or any bowl would work)
4. paint brush (or basting brush if you are like me and don't own a paint brush)

Dispense shaving cream into muffin pan, add food coloring and mix until you get the desired color. Give to your child while the are in the bath and let them decorate the walls. When finished you just rinse it all off (including your child)!!! See simple :)

Sensory Bottles

Well, winter is officially here :( and keeping the Man Cub inside is driving me bonkers. He isn't being bad, just under foot all the time!! Luckily I had some projects I've been meaning to do with him. The first thing on my list was sensory bottles. I was a little skeptical about this one, I mean really how entertaining can filling a bottle be? Boy was I wrong, this lovely project took up almost an hour!! Anyways it was pretty simple, a bunch of small items from the dollar store and some emptied water bottles and you are all set.  

All of our supplies!

Can you see the excitement on the Man Cubs face?

The whole table :)

Admiring his work!

yes we ate lunch with them

The final line up .. Sparkles, pom-poms, ribbons, fish, and beads. 

Pinterest Love - no mess paint

Once again I am joining Pam over at Everyday Snapshots for Pinning it Down. 

I know its important to let our little ones experiment with new things, but I hate a big mess! So when I found this magical idea for no mess finger paint .... wow PERFECT :)

Pinterest Love - Brownies and an Oil Drip pan

I'm back for another week of

I feel like I have been trying so many new things!!  

My first pinning project was so simple I feel a little silly even blogging about it, but the Little Man Cub loves it! I  saw this pin and thought I could so make that :) Anyways I ran to a car supply store and bought a $10 oil drip pan and used some picture hanging Velcro strips, and done!!!

I need to put together some fun games, but for now the Little Man Cub stole my pictures off the refrigerator and has some colorful numbers from Grandma. 

My second project was to copy my mom. A few weeks ago she made some awesome brownies and I needed to try them out. I think I actually used a different recipe, but with the same delicious results!!

we forgot to take pictures of the finished product ... we were way to busy eating :)