Indoors Activities

Halloween Candy: Creative Ways to Use Them

November 1, 2012 by Betty

Now that Halloween is over, what are you going to do with all those candies. Between the candies my kiddos got from a harvest party and the ones we bought for trick-or-treaters, we have three beach buckets left. I could save all the candies and let them eat it, or, being a homeschool mom, I wanted to use it as a teaching tool. This subject is not on math, science, or health, but on the act of service. I wanted to get the kids started into this holiday season with the mind set of serving others rather than receiving. There is a program called Halloween Candy Buyback where local dentists can register and buy back Halloween candy from neighborhood kids. The dentists then send them to the troops overseas. I just thought that this is just a great way for me to teach the kids about serving others and about the men and women in our armed forces, our American Heroes.

Here’s what you need to do. Go to Halloween Candy Buyback. Once you’re at the site, type in your zip code to find a local dentist in your neighborhood. Give the dentists a call for their specific times that they’ve set aside for this event. Then have your kids pack up the candies and visit the dentist with them.

Wait…before dropping off those candies, here are some fun learning activities you might want to consider especially if you have young kids.

Buddy used those candies for his patterning lesson in math.

Both Buddy and Chico lined up those candies to make a candy graph. Since Buddy is older, I gave him harder questions as he compared the candies on his graph. With Chico, we talked about the ideas of more and less.

I asked Mei to sort the candies. I demonstrated to her by putting one of each kind of candy in each container and asked her to put the same candies in those containers. She did a great job in her sorting lesson.

There’s also counting by ones, twos, tens, even hundreds if you have that many. For language arts lessons, you might use names of the candies to reinforce letter sounds, beginning sounds or even reading all the names of the candies depending on your child’s levels. How about nutrition lesson? Learning what’s in candy might help your child understand why too much candy is not good for our bodies.

This is what our local dentist from the program gave the kids. New toothbrush and a new toy for each child and $1.00 per pound of candy (we got $8.00 back!)

Hopefully this will give you some great ideas on what to do with your Halloween candies. I’d love to hear what you do with your candies. Please share in the comment section.

Filed Under: Fall, Homeschool, Indoors Activities Tagged With: what to do with your Halloween candies

Easy Pumpkin Carving Ideas

October 30, 2012 by Betty

No-carve pumpkin designs are definitely easier and cleaner than your carved ones, but with the right tools, carving a pumpkin is not too difficult.

Tools:

You should be able to find these at Walmart or Target stores. They even carry these carving tools at the Dollar Tree stores. Amazon.com also sells them if you prefer to shop online. I got these tools at the local dollar tree for…well…you guessed it…a dollar (no tax in Oregon).

Instructions:

1. Cut a hole in the top for the lid. Make sure to angle the saw inward so the pumpkin lid remains seated on top instead of falling through.

2. Scoop out the seeds and strings. My boys used their hands to pull them out.

3. Some people like to scrape out some flesh around where you’ll be carving to make the carving job easier, but, Bubba didn’t do that.

4. Using a washable marker, draw your design and carve. There are tons of free templates available online. But we wanted to make it simple and easy so we just used a washable marker and drew our own designs.

Here’s one design:

Just a two-teeth happy face.

Using his hands, Chico pulling out seeds and strings.

Over here, pumpkin carving is a family affair.

You noticed the little pumpkin got a round nose instead of the triangle one that I drew? Well, I changed my mind. So that’s the beauty of using washable markers. You can easily wipe off and redo your design.

Kitty and Happy Face sitting side by side.

As a companion to this activity, your family might like to read The Pumpkin Patch Parable by Liz Curtis Higgs . This children’s book is great for Christian families that wish to bring the Christian perspective to Halloween. To read the complete synopsis see my post on 10 Fall Books for Children. Another great book I highly recommend is How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin? by Margaret McNamara. A great way to introduce estimating and counting your pumpkin seeds.

Have a happy and safe Halloween!

Filed Under: Fall, Indoors Activities Tagged With: easy pumpkin carving, fall activity, halloween activity

Fall Leaf Rubbings

October 17, 2012 by Betty

If you have not done leaf rubbings before, it’s a fun and easy activity for you and the kiddos. For you, it’s not messy making cleanup a breeze. Also, you can transform the product into notecards or thank you cards. For the kids, it’s an art project that is easy to learn and fun for all ages! Here’s the process and how I made the thank you cards.

Materials:

fall leaves (preferably flat ones)
tape (any kind)
scissors or sliding paper cutter
crayons (without paper wrapper)
thin white paper
colored construction paper (or other colored card stocks for notecards): Optional

Put a leaf or leaves facing down so veins are facing up. Put white paper on top of the leaves. Tape down the paper corners to hold it in place.
Rub the side of crayon where the leaves are.

Beautiful leaf rubbings framed or simply tacked onto your bulletin board for a touch of fall.

I trimmed some leaf pictures and pasted them onto precut construction-paper notecards.

For further study of leaves, being the homeschool mom, I printed out this leaf-part diagram and used it as a study tool. I went over it with my kids before starting this craft project. They decided to color this page after their leaf rubbings.

Click Leaf Part Names for a copy of this leaf coloring page.

For beautiful pictures of fall leaves, check out children’s books Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert and Leaf Jumpers by Carole Gerber. For a list of fall books for children, read 10 Fall Books for Children.

What fall activities does your family enjoy? I’d love to hear from you. Please share in the comments.

Filed Under: Crafts, Fall, Indoors Activities Tagged With: Fall Leaf Rubbings. Fall Leaf Notecards

Fruit Stamping

September 26, 2012 by Betty

I made some fruit stamping with my 2^nd graders back when I taught public school. This is a fun way for them to learn about shapes and use their imagination on creating other shapes.

Today I tried it with my three kiddos since we have lots of fruits from our recent fruit picking outing. First, we just made geometric shapes, and then we used those shapes to make different designs like flowers and trees. It’s a little messy but sooo much fun! Just make sure everyone wears a smock. Here are the results: