Spooky season might be coming close to an end and whether you want to “creep it real”, “eat drink and be scary”, or think “life is gourd”, here are some last minute family activities.
BOO-ks
My oldest loves to read, and my baby is exploring books, too. There are many books related to fall and Halloween that are nice to sit down and celebrate the season with (as calmly as possible for little ones). Invoke the imagination of spooky season from the comfort of your favorite chair. Reading stimulates the imagination, and an imagination can change the world. Here are some of our favorites
(Some of our home library)
- Touch and feel books are great for little ones. The Not-so-scary Hairy Spider has different textures on each page and a message to be yourself. Autumn in the Forest educates about the changing season while having lift-a-flap surprises (and if you read the others in the series you get to watch the same scenes changes from spring to summer and winter). Pop-up peekaboo! Pumpkin has hide-and-seek surprises with fun Halloween images of felt friends owl, ghost, and black cat.
- Cute educational books are a fun way to talk about the season and learn. Ten Flying Brooms is a not so spooky counting story where ten broomsticks set out to find their missing witches. Little Boo follows a pumpkin seed eager to be scary – it’s perfect for learning about how seeds grow and how waiting is hard. Goodbye Summer, Hello Autumn has beautiful illustrations, short sentences, and watches a girl discover the changing season (its series covers other seasons as well).
- Silly stories to make you smile. When the Leaf Blew In shows cause and effect with silly actions and facial expressions of farm animals. The Leaf Thief explores adapting to change with a squirrel who loves counting leaves only some are missing, and is wildly dramatic and misunderstands. The Littlest Mummy is sweet and spooky, she just can’t seem to moan and groan and look scary for the family Halloween bash. She might be too little for some things, but she’s not too little to make a friend.
Fall Tree Art
Fall tree painting. Draw or print a simple tree with branches, then get yellow and red paint (and brown if you like). Combining yellow + red gives orange…and a lesson in primary color mixing. Use any size paint brush and dot the paint around the tree to give it fall leaves.
(my son’s leaves)
Nightmare Berries
My son has discovered one of my favorite Halloween films (for good or bad) and he loves Jack Skellington. And since I have an official Nightmare Before Christmas Cookbook, we are going to make ghost or Jack Skellington white chocolate covered strawberries. If you do these, let me know how they go!
- 1 cup white chocolate chips
- 12 large strawberries
- ¼ cup semisweet chocolate chips
For tips on melting, types of chocolate, and dipping them see this page White Chocolate Covered Strawberry Ghosts
Once you’ve dipped the strawberries and they’ve cooled, used the melted semisweet chocolate chips and a toothpick or wooden skewer to draw eyes and ghoulish mouth for ghosts or paint on Jack Skellington’s signature face with a piping bag. Jack Skellington Chocolate Covered Strawberries Recipe
(from getawaytoday.com)
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