Monsters

The week before Halloween we had a pumpkin theme, so with Halloween being on a Monday, we spent the week of Halloween learning about monsters. A lot of activities were some that we've done in the past, but they were exciting again. Here are a few things we got pictures of that week.

Monster Projects

Pipe cleaners and googly eyes added to playdoh make for some very creative monsters. Some kids wanted one-eyed monsters, others wanted eyes all over....such fun. We also made paper-bag monsters as we have done before and drew pictures of monsters.

Monster Games

We have a variety of 'monster' toys like the one Ethan is holding. The are some kind of stretchy stress toy that the kids love to play with. Brielle liked playing a game where I would call a letter as I tossed it to her and she would think of a word to start with that letter.

Monster Food

We turned our lunch and snacks into various monsters. In this one I used celery for horns, hard boiled eggs for the eyes, a grilled cheese cut with a cookie cutter for the face and a slice of pepperoni for a tongue. I have a food safe marker to decorate. I discovered that my kids love hard-boiled eggs. We hadn't had them for a while, so they were new again. I made extras to have for breakfast, but we ended up going through them.

Monster Books

The all time favorite was Scary Fright Are You All Right? I don't know what it was about this book but the kids loved it. I don't remember even putting it on hold. Ethan came home with it after a trip to the library with Dad. It is a short chapter book that we re-read over and over.

The Halloween Goblin

And, not exactly for the monster week, but leading up to Halloween... We used this idea from oopsey daisy. The 13 nights of Halloween. Each day during the kids nap 'The Goblin' came to our house. There was a note left in our little mailbox that gave a clue as to where a picture was hiding. Brielle wanted to hang them up in her room and I often found her counting them to make sure we had them all up.

preschool packs

http://mamasmonkeys.blogspot.com/2011/10/not-so-scary-monsters-tot-pack.html

http://overthebigmoon.blogspot.com/2011/10/autumn-gnome-pre-k-pack.html

Our Thankful Tree

We started our tree on November 1st (well, actually I think I was a day behind in getting it up, so it was probably the 2nd, but don't tell anyone.)  I've seen lots of really decorative and beautiful trees.  We used butcher paper and created a huge tree on our kitchen wall.  It isn't fancy, but at least the kids could tell it was a tree.

Each morning at breakfast we wrote down something we were thankful for on a leaf and added it to the tree.

I'm kind of sad that November is over and it is time to take it down.  It has been a good reminder this month of all the things we are thankful for, and will be fun to do again next year.

This is Halloween, This is Halloween...

Halloween FINALLY came!  For me Halloween season started back in the middle of September when Disneyland put out the pumpkins and changed the Haunted Mansion over to the Nightmare Before Christmas.  Since then we've been singing a lot of 'This is Halloween' at our house.

Halloween continued as we went to our first pumpkin patch up in Morro Bay, and then our second at Cal Poly Pomona.  It is tough work trying to choose the perfect pumpkin.

But we finally narrowed down our selection.

The fun continued as we painted our pumpkins

And then, after a month and a half of anticipation we made it to the Halloween Weekend!

Saturday we made pumpkin pancakes with cinnamon syrup

Which make for great spider webs

or jack-o-lanterns

Saturday night we went to our ward's Trunk or Treat.  Ethan enjoyed the bobbing for apples so much he had me re-create it at home.  

On Sunday night continued family traditions as we made Dinner in a pumpkin and donuts, and carved the pumpkins.  Brielle and Gavin both wanted skeletons, which they had a lot of help from Aunt Megan and Papa Finlay to make.  Ethan wanted a scary Monster, and Lissy chose the semi-colon face, which she says is a princess.

And Monday the kids got to experience trick-or-treating.  They even performed by singing 'Doe, a Deer' to earn themselves some extra candy.