The Very Busy Spider

I adore this multi-sensory book, children can feel the pictures as well as see them, while they hear or read the easy, rhythmic text. Added to the visual excitement of Eric Carle's vibrant collages of familiar animals is the tactile experience of feeling the spider's web as it grows from a simple line into a complex and beautiful creation. Your kids will rejoice to discover that even the tiny, humble spider has an important role to play in nature's scheme of things. This is an absolute favourite in our house at any time of the year, but even more so in the lead up to Halloween.

This is a very simple yet effective craft activity to make a spooky spider's web with a spider to hang at your front door to greet your Halloween Guests!

Start by painting a paper plate. We used orange to go with the colours for Halloween.

Make sure the whole plate is covered. Then let the plate sit and dry.

While you let your plate dry, get busy making your spider. Pull out any books, pictures, or even look up a picture on google images of a spider. Be sure to point out that a spider has 8 legs. It's a great opportunity to talk about different animals and how many legs they have.

We used an old foil baking tray for the body of the spider.

Then the boys added some eyes and coloured craft match sticks for the legs. Use PVA glue as it sticks much better. You can use paper/cardboard you have to make your spider.

When the paper plate has dried, use scissors to cut slits, approx 5cm in around the plate.

To spin your web you will need some wool. Attach the start of your web to the back of the plate and attach it with some tape so it stays secured.

Then start to spin your web. Weave the wool in and out, over and under as you please.

Keep spinning until your plate resembles a web!

Then leave the end of the wool hanging from the web and attach the spider. Now you have a very cute home made Halloween Door decoration.

Paper Bag Pumpkin

Looking for a simple Halloween craft activity that can double as decorations on a party table? This paper bag pumpkin is simple, cute and lots of fun to make. After reading one of our favourite Halloween Books Too Many Pumpkins we got busy making our own!

What you need:

• Paper Bag
• Orange Paint
• Black Marker Pen
• Green tissue paper
• Newspaper

Instructions:

• Draw a scary pumpkin face on a paper bag in black marker pen
• Stuff the bag with newspaper or any other paper you have spare
• Paint the bag with orange paint
• Wrap green tissue paper around the top

Pumpkin Carving

Today we set aside the afternoon to carve our Pumpkin. After initially resenting the fact that I had paid $20 for this pumpkin, the learning that took place with this activity was worth every dollar! Such an amazing opportunity to use lots of descriptive words: orange, heavy, big, small, oozy, slimy. Master 4 has been very particular about the design that he wanted on the pumpkin (thankfully it wasn't too hard!) after we spent the weekend reading a number of Halloween related books.He planned his pumpkin face, talking about shapes and drawing it on a paper to plan. Before we started we weighed the pumpkin on our scales (8.4kgs ) and measured around the pumpkin using a tape measure. This brought about lots of mathematical language with Master 4.We discussed what we were going to do: measure, weigh, count. He was very excited when we weighed him and he realised that he weighs as much as two of our pumpkins!! So the three of us had great fun scooping out the inside of the pumpkin as it has a very distinct smell when cut open. Both boys enjoyed touching the rough exterior, helping to scrape the insides of the pumpkin, and collecting the slippery seeds. We roasted the pumpkin seeds to taste for afternoon tea along with a pumpkin faced sandwich I made the boys.

Activities that you can do with a pumpkin are:

• Cut different sized pieces of pumpkin and see if they sink or float?



• Weigh and measure your pumkin before and after you have scooped the contents out



• Weigh the contents of the pumkin



• Roast the seeds and talk about the change in texture before and after they are roasted



• Make Pumkin Soup, Pumpkin Bread, Pumpkin Scones

Pumpkin Pop-Up Card

I remember being on a course last year about Children's Literacy and we were told, research finds children learn less from pop-up books than they do from old-fashioned volumes illustrated with photos.It is thought that while pop-up books “may have their place as entertainment,” their “bells and whistles” approach appears to be counterproductive to learning. “When attempting to convey information to young children,” they add, “less is more.” Well yes I can see their point from a learning aspect, but in our house we love pop-up books. I don't particularly have a lot of them on our shelf, but the few we do have my boys really enjoy. Maybe it is the novelty, a change, either way they still bring ooohs and ahhs as each new page pops up.

This week for Halloween I bought a fun pop-up book called Snappy Little Spooks. The boys really enjoyed it and we decided to have a go at making our own pop-up Jacko-lantern card. Even better, Master 4 came up with the plan to make a thank you Halloween card for his little Friends who are hosting a Halloween party we are attending on the weekend.

What you will need:

a square piece of black paper or cardboard

print out of a Jack-O-lantern

Stickers

Marker pens

Scissors

Glue

Instructions:
Cut out a square using black paper or cardboard. (cardboard is best!)

Print off a Jack-o-lantern template or draw your own.

Fold your square in to quarters.

Glue the jack-o-lantern onto the bottom half of the square. Draw a small rectangle from each side of the jack-o-lantern.

Fold on the vertical line that runs between the pumpkin.

Partially cut around the pumpkin so it will lift. Make sure you don't cut over the rectangle on each side.

Open so your card is flat.

Now fold the card on the horizontal line at the pumpkin. Make certain to let your pumpkin out!