Hallowe'en mobile

This was created at our local Ontario Early Years Centre.

Materials:

• white, orange or black construction paper
• orange or black crepe paper
• orange or black string or yarn (yarn shown)
• paper towel roll (shown one is cut to about 20cm in length)
• stickers, crayons, markers for decorating
• glue
• scissors
• masking tape
  

Instructions:

• Have an adult cut out fun Hallowe'en themed shapes and have child decorate with stickers, paper, markers etc.
  
  
  
  
  
• Attach one length of yarn to the back of each shape using masking tape (vary the lengths to make the mobile more interesting)
  
  
  
  
  
• Attach the other end of the yarn to the paper towel roll, using masking tape. Cover the roll with crepe paper to hide the taped yarn. Place a last piece of yarn through the paper towel roll and knot. This last piece will be used to hang the mobile.
  
  
  
  
• Hang your mobile and enjoy! [Remember that long lengths of string / yarn present hazards to young children. Safety is your responsibility.]
  
  
  
  
  
  

Dynamic Fall centrepiece

Materials:

• One or more unopened common milkweed pods.
• One short and wide glass / crystal vase (or rose bowl).
  

Instructions:

• Take the unopened milkweed pod and place in the bottom of the vase.
• As the pod dries out, it will crack open.
• As the long silky hair, attached to the seeds, dries out, they expand, forcing the pod to open more and accelerating the drying of the pod contents.
  
  
  
  
• With time, the pod will completely open and the seeds will be suspended throughout the vase on the fluffy silky hairs. (Little hands may also be happy to assist with the process!)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

CAUTION: Place out of reach of curious little hands and / or paws, unless you wish for a milkweed filled house!

Autumn collage

Materials:

• construction paper
• white glue
• things found on the ground at Autumn (leaves, acorns, flowers etc)
  

Instructions:

• Send your youngster out to collect things specific to Autumn (leaves, acorns, flowers etc)
• For pre-schoolers, have the child tell the adult where on the construction paper they'd like to glue items down. Have the adult apply the glue to the paper and the child place the item on the glue.
• For older children, have them glue items to the paper as they see fit.
  

Gift idea: pop-up colouring card for kids

(This post assumes you're familiar with my more detailed instructions of how to make Horizontal Fold Pop-up cards.)

Recently, Ask Moxie had a post titled "Q&A: Does 'no gifts' really mean no gifts?" Should you feel uncomfortable going completely empty-handed, making a personalized colouring card like this (optionally including a selection of appropriately themed stickers) is a nice compromise.

Materials:

• 2 sheets of 8.5" x 11" cardstock or construction paper
• X-Acto type knife
• glue (stick-glue or white glue or rubber-cement)
• template with measurements (PDF file*) or template without measurements (PDF file*) (use this legend to decipher the folding symbols)
• optional: a selection of stickers to include in the card for the child to use
  

Instructions:

• create the front cover of the card (text on the lower half of the letter sized cardstock)
  
  
  
• create the inside of the card (text on the upper half of the letter sized cardstock, offset to allow for the pop-up mechanism)
  
  
  
• create the decoration for the pop-up portion of the card (in this case, the recipient is turning four)
  
  
  
• print off a copy of the inner template
  
  
  
• I transferred the template onto the inside of the card using the pinpoint method
• trim the pop-up decoration to size
  
  
  
• create the pop-up portion following steps three and four from making Horizontal Fold Pop-up cards
  
  
  
• glue the decoration onto the pop-up portion of the inside of the card
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• if desired, add additional designs to be coloured on the front of the card
  
  
  
• glue the inside of the card into the outside of the card
• optional: include a selection of stickers for the child to use to decorate the card

Write your message to the birthday child and deliver!

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(*) When printing out PDF documents, be sure to set "Page Scaling" to "none" (you'll want the document to print at 100%). You may need to adjust the template on your paper depending on your printer's "offset" settings.

Firefly / glow bug

(This idea came home from school.)

Materials:

• empty and dry clear plastic water bottle
• construction paper (approx 20cm x 20cm / 8" x 8") cut into the shape of wings
  
• things with which to decorate the wings of the bug (shown are glue and glitter, could also use stickers, markers, paint etc)
• small piece of paper the size of the top of the cap of the bottle (shown is a circle approx 3cm in diameter / just over an inch in diameter)
  
• things with which to decorate the face of the bug (shown is marker, could also use stickers, markers, paint etc)
  
• glue
• glow stick / light stick approximately the length of the bottle (shown is approx 20cm / 8") -- the more glow sticks you have the brighter the bug glows!
  

Instructions:

• apply decorations to the construction paper cut out for the wings (see view below)
  
  
  
  
  
• glue the wings to the bottle and wait until glue dries (I prefer to let the glue set overnight) -- you can continue with the face part, as there's more gluing there and more overnight waiting too
  
• decorate the face of the bug
• while the bottle cap is screwed snuggly onto the bottle, glue or tap the face of the bug with the face oriented appropriately relative to the wings and let the glue dry (I prefer to let the glue set overnight)
  
  
  
  
  
• when it's dark, or when you have access to a dark room, activate one or more of your glow sticks and put them in the bottle
• close bottle cap

Enjoy your firefly!

Coffee filter butterfly

(This idea came home from school.)

Materials:

• cone shaped coffee filter
• pipe cleaner
• things with which to decorate butterfly such as bingo dauber (shown), crayons, paint, stickers, glitter
  

Instructions:

• have adult open up coffee filter to be flat
• have child decorate coffee filter as desired
  
  
  
• have adult wrap pipe cleaner up around the middle of the coffee filter to make a body and antennae, and voila!
  

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