A few Fall/Halloween activities

We've done a few activities in the last week or so, most of them have been Fall related and I thought I would share.

Well this first one isn't fall related, but M&M really enjoyed doing it. M&M often asks to play with the pennies in her piggy bank, but they are really dirty so I really didn't like her to. So we cleaned all of the coins in there. I got the idea from here. They use a mixture of water, salt and vinegar to "magically" make the pennies shinier. It's really cool to watch! M&M separated the pennies from the other coins using a spoon (her idea.) We just washed the other coins in a tub of soapy water.


Shiny pennies.

This paper plate 'leaf wreath' (say that 5 times fast) came from the idea here. I cut leaves out of red, orange, and yellow construction paper using a template I got online. I'm thinking of having M&M use some glitter glue to make it sparkle a little more.

Getting inspiration from here, we used cookie cutters to make Halloween shapes on paper. M&M had to use a different piece of paper for each one. I'm thinking about making a decoration out of these somehow, we'll see.



Today some cousins came over and we had a craft day. It was much needed because we haven't been able to play outside in a while. They painted pumpkins first. This is M&M's pumpkin. I don't know if you can tell, but she used a house cookie cutter to get the basic shape of a house and then painted windows on it.



They also made pasta skeletons. I found the idea here (scroll down). I loved how she put the fingers and toes on. There's also a Q-tip skeleton here. The pumpkin is one of those packaged foam crafts. Not homemade, but I think it would be easy enough to do with sticky back foam sheets cut out into the shapes you want, like I did with my felt pumpkin.


A side note: I am really impressed with M&M's handwriting ability. She can write the whole alphabet with me writing a few of them first so she can copy it. I'd like to say that I've spent countless hours working with her, but I haven't. I don't know what is average for a 3-year-old, not that it matters, but I'm just curious. Maybe it's just that she's my first child and I can't believe she's writing already! Can you find all of the letters on this page? :)
That's all for now, but there's more to come. I have a bunch of leaf activities that I've been wanting to do, but we haven't been able to go outside and gather them because it wouldn't STOP RAINING! It's going to be clear the next few days so we will head to the park and pick up some leaves and enjoy some wonderful fresh fall air. I can't wait.

Apple Prints and painting tips

Even though I won't be doing Tot School posts right now I will still post about the fun activities that we do.

Today we tried apple prints. I've seen this activity all over blogworld. M&M was very intrigued by the idea of painting with apples. We used red and green paint and stamped away. When we do an activity like this I usually have to do one of my own because M&M will always want me to do hers. This way she will do her own project. It was a short, but successful activity.


There are a couple of things that have made painting projects with M&M go more smoothly. I put down a plastic tablecloth underneath the project instead of using newspaper. This helps the sliding factor and covers the whole table instead of a small part. I also use plastic formula can lids to put the paint on. The paint comes off very easily. Both of these things are reusable. I've been inspired by all of the blogger moms out there that are trying to reuse and recycle.