Halloween Activities

 In October, Jaden and Cody were assigned pumpkin book report projects. Their task was to read a book, create a pumpkin that looked like a main character, and write up a report presentation about the book on SeeSaw. Thankfully, the boys are usually excited about school projects like this. I bought the craft pumpkins but then provided very little guidance after that. It was fun watching their creativity at work.

The boys were very pleased with their completed pumpkins. They even opted to enter their pumpkins in the school library's pumpkin contest.

We spread out our pumpkin carving process into two days this year-- one day to clean out the insides, and the next day to carve the jack 'o lantern face. The kids chose their pumpkin face template from our favorite website: www.thepumpkinlady.com. We love all the many, many options on this website and especially that the downloads are free!

Jaden was especially excited that his pumpkin template shared his same name! Cody carved Miloh, and Adley made Jerry. Three pretty good lookin' pumpkins!

Due to COIVD, we didn't attend many Halloween events like what we've typically done in the past. Even our church's annual Trunk or Treat event was cancelled. What a bummer! Thankfully, our neighborhood was still up for handing out candy and letting the kids trick or treat. We heard that some neighborhoods around the country even cancelled that!

 The only costume I had to make this year was Jaden's. Cody wanted to be a carrot (not sure where that idea came from!?), and we found a decent priced costume at walmart.com. Cody was thrilled to be a carrot!

Adley chose to wear her Owlette costume which had been a birthday gift from Uncle Matt and Aunt Kim earlier in the year. All we needed was red pants to round out the outfit. Easy peasy!

Jaden's bumblebee costume didn't take long to create. I used black duct tape for the shirt, a hanger and black nylons for the wings, and pipe cleaners stuck into a stocking cap for the antennae. At the last minute, we added a paper stinger. Jaden loved his bumblebee! 

Prior to trick or treating in our own neighborhood, we attended a Halloween parade in Grammy and Papa's neighborhood with all the cousins. The parade was a bit of a bummer. We had to wait a long time for the parade to begin, and then most cars were out of candy by the time they reached our spot. The positive sides, though, were that we were able to see some fun decorated vehicles, see all the cousins' costumes, and spend time with family. So, all in all, still a wonderful Halloween!

Fun with RJK

Here are some of Adley's recent letter activities...

 LETTER R

This particular letter was a favorite of mine to do with Adley. She was really enthusiastic about the activities we did, and there were lots of fun ideas with this letter. We started the week by making Adley's tactile letter book page-- using red tissue paper for "R is for Red."

Then, we did the sound cover page which Adley always LOVES. She has made so much progress in her ability to hear the beginning sounds of words. Her favorite part is stamping in all of the remaining pictures once she has completed the sheet correctly.

Most of our R activities for the week were connected with the word rainbow. First, we went on a rainbow color hunt outside. Adley searched for each color of the rainbow and then marked the paper on her clipboard as she found each color.

Then, Adley searched for colored objects inside the house and sorted them by color.

My favorite activity, and probably Adley's too, was doing a wordless rainbow scavenger hunt. For this indoor hunt, I drew picture clues that led Adley around our house, looking for colored strips of paper. I love this scavenger hunt design since Adley could follow all the clues independently.

Adley got so animated whenever she figured out the clue and found the color strips!

Another day, Adley made a rainbow painting with glue, salt, and watercolors.

We also enjoyed this rainbow counting activity. Adley's job was to count the dots on one side of each rainbow and then match the card with the corresponding number. This was a fairy easy activity for her but good practice couting all the tiny dots!

Our last rainbow activity was listening to the book The Rainbow Fish on youtube and creating a rainbow fish picture using a celery stalk as a stamp. Her picture turned out so cute! I didn't even tell her to do so, but she made sure to use every color of the rainbow.

R also stands for robot, so another day, Adley and I made our own robot out of shoeboxes, aluminum foil, and foam shapes. Adley liked playing with her robot, but we quickly found out he wasn't very sturdy.

Adley also played a dice game called "Roll a Robot" in which each number she rolled stood for a certain part of the robot. The actual game was to play with an opponent and race to build your robot first, but we just made it a cooperative game.  

At some point during our letter R week, Adley asked to write all of her letters. This was the first time she had ever written out the full alphabet. I'm also pretty sure it was her first-ever attempt at W and Z. As you can tell, we have a girl who loves to write!

LETTER J

Adley was thrilled to use some craft jewels when we learned about the letter J.

She also liked making this jellyfish suncatcher.

One day, we went outside to do a jumping activity. Adley helped me draw various shapes on our driveway. We had to stick to the top of the driveway since it was actually raining a bit that day. I asked Adley to jump from one shape to the next. This was good shape review! Then we moved to the shapes doing other movements, like tiptoe walking, running, sliding, etc.

The most exciting part of our letter J week was creating a homemade jungle. I cut construction paper into leaf shapes, and Adley cut all the fringes. We attached the leaves to paper towel tubes to make tall trees.

Then, we used green crepe paper to make our jungle canopy and hanging vines.

Ta-da! Our completed jungle. :)

Crawling through the jungle was the best part!

LETTER K

We kicked off letter K week with a tactile letter book page made of kleenex.

Then, Adley played a simple graphing game that she absolutely loved. First, Adley rolled the die that was covered in colored kites. After identifying the correct color kite, Adley put a stamp in the corresponding color column on the graph. She enjoyed talking about which color was "winning."

Adley asked to continue rolling and stamping until all the color columns were full.

That same day, we also made and decorated a quick kazoo. Adley LOVED the sound her kazoo made! Be sure to watch the short video below. :)

Our final K activity was to watch a read aloud story on youtube called The King, the Mice, and the Cheese. Then, Adley made a king's crown to go along with the story.

More letter fun to be continued soon...