Happy Halloween!

I got this witch hat to wear for our Halloween parade around the block. In the weeks before Halloween, Thomas loved it and wore it around the daycare all the time. It was adorable.

The week before Halloween, we kept up with the crafts. I taped paper to the window and drew the outlines of different Halloween shapes on it, with black marker: cats, pumpkins, a moon, a bat, a witch's hat.

Then the kids painted it. They had a blast!

Here, Leila studies the art. :)

We made these ghosts with paper towel and masking tape. Then the kids drew faces on them.

We also made paper jack-o-lanterns out of orange and black construction paper, and then decorated our front door with them!

We had lots of Halloween stickers to make extra decorations. You can never have too many Halloween decorations, in my opinion!

The kids used these Halloween stickers to decorate witch's hats too. Aren't they beautiful? Oh, and spooky?

The alphabet leaves below were recycled from last year's crafts. We like to talk about the sounds the letters make, and we like to make short, 3 letter words with them.

One day we went to High Park to collect REAL leaves. The kids each had their own paper bags with their names written on them.

Actually, it was a little tricky to find different coloured leaves, because the big trucks had been around to clean them up. I really wish they wouldn't 'clean up' like this! One of the most beautiful things in the world, to me, is a forest floor carpeted with leaves. (Actually, I love leaves to be left on the ground everywhere, but I would settle for just this forest!)

Anyway, we managed to find enough of a variety of leaves to take home.

And I got some beautiful shots of Amadea. If you are having a bad day, please continue to look at the picture below until you feel better. Shouldn't take long. ;)

Later, we used Podgy (decoupage) to glue the leaves, front and back, to paper.

It is such a great fall craft, and produces such beautiful art work.

See?!

The kids had a hoot the day before Halloween, getting wrapped up in (clean) toilet paper as mummies! This is Noah the mummy.

Notice Amadea in the photo above. She started snapping pretend pictures with Leila's princess camera and focused on that task right until the very last of the mummies was wrapped. I'd like to say she was my photography assistant, but I think I was her assistant for this activity, since I was doing more mummy wrapping than picture taking.

Here, I got some good shots, of Amadea getting good shots, of Thomas. (It's Thomas in the photos above and below, by the way.)

Then Thomas, as Noah had done, broke free of his toilet paper mummy suit, which looked to be much for fun than being a mummy. It was Leila's turn next, but she only let me wrap her legs, because she just wanted to break out of it, as Thomas was doing. She just couldn't wait for that part!

I present to you, the littlest mummy, Amadea. Actually, she called herself "baby mummy".

Is this not one of the cutest things you've ever seen? She was very keen to be wrapped up.

Okay, when Thomas thought the best part of this activity was breaking out of his mummy suit, he was mistaken. 

Because this was the best part. By far. Oh, what a fun and glorious mess! (Can you spot Minnie Mouse Amadea in the background?)

Here are some Halloween sandwiches I made for Halloween: ghost pitas with raisin faces, and jack-o-lantern pitas with pea faces.  

A friend of mine made these amazing "zombie fingers", but I guess the kids were not quite ready for this. They were a little spooked! (Leila and Dea were okay with them, because they didn't really understand what they were supposed to look like.) They are made by flattening bread, spreading cream cheese on, and rolling them up. Then you spread some jam on one side (for blood) and an almond on the other (for a finger nail).

Finally, Halloween day. Leila didn't know what she wanted to be (we have a whole dress-up bin of potential costumes), but in the morning, she finally settled on being a fairy princess. Thomas was a S.W.A.T. team guy in the morning. (He came with a few costumes to choose from too). And Dea was Tinker Bell.

We played ghost toss. We had, earlier in the week, wrapped up lollipops in tissue, and used masking tape to make them into ghosts. Here, Amadea is throwing one of these "baby ghosts" into the "mommy ghost", which is essentially a garbage bin (clean!) made to look like a ghost.

After the game, they got to uncover a ghost and eat the lollipop inside. I think this made their entire day.

We were going to have our own little parade around our block. We brought musical instruments and were planning on marching around the block, wishing everyone a Happy Halloween! But when it came down to it, not one of the three of them wanted to even get out of the wagon. It was cold and rainy and miserable outside, and it seemed to drain their energy.

Thank goodness we had also planned on going to Noah's school to watch his parade. It was supposed to be outside too, but with the poor weather conditions, they moved the parade to the gym. It was much better to get inside and get warmed up! In the above left photo, the kids hear a voice coming from the P.A. system.

My girl Leila was the cutest little firefighter! This was Noah's old costume when he was 2! Thomas opted to wear his Superman costume in the afternoon. And Dea was still Tink.

The kids got to see Riley, who was parading around with her JK class. She was so happy to see Thomas, Leila, and Amadea too!

And here is Spiderman Salim. All the daycare kids know him too, since we've spent time playing with him at the park, and on play dates.

And let's not forget Noah, the Hulk! He is all about Superheroes these days, and Hulk is his favourite, hands down. Scary, huh?

 

Finally, it was time to head home. It was getting late, and if I didn't get them home soon, I was afraid the wagon would turn into a pumpkin! (Let me put it plainly: all hell would break lose.) :)

But there's always a little time for splashing in puddles!



After school, B. joined the party. He and Noah played ghost toss, since they had missed it in the morning.

Then we put a bunch of foam spiders, ghosts and pumpkins on the floor, to make a path.

If you are wondering where the rest of the gang is at this point, they are still napping. They were exhausted!

Notice the tic-tac-toe board on the floor in the picture above. I made it by taping scotch tape to the ground, and the kids played spider/ghost tic-tac-toe.

Our lovely dinner set-up.

 And our lovely dinner. meat patty spiders with carrot legs, on a web of spaghetti.

The kids also got owl masks and vampire teeth.

Someone is enjoying his spaghetti! Err....ummm....I mean spider web!

Everyone got a chocolate eyeball treat!

Salim and his big brother Rustam also joined the party near the end of dinner.

We played Pin the Hat on the Witch!

And then everyone (sort-of) posed for a group picture. We are lucky we got one before little Tinker Bell started running away! It was a great Halloween. Hope yours was great too!