Thanksgiving Learning printables

TURKEY COLOR BY NUMBER

http://pinterest.com/pin/195765915023558845/
http://crisscrossapplesaucelearning.blogspot.com/2011/11/color-by-number-turkey.html

So I thought the one I originally pinned would be too easy for my second grader. Thankfully there were a few others to choose from and so I chose the subtraction page for her. Then we printed them out and I gave them to the girls to color and show off.

As you can tell they are taped to my cupboards for decoration since you can't really find much to deck your house out with.



PILGRIM COLOR BY WORDS
http://pinterest.com/pin/195765915023728370/
heidisongs.blogspot.com


Again, super easy for my second grader...but we enjoyed coloring them our own way more.


THANKSGIVING BOOKLET
 http://pinterest.com/pin/195765915023500926
http://littlekinderwarriors.blogspot.com/2011/11/thanksgiving-fun-freebies.htm

I thought this booklet was kinda cute. I liked how it wanted the child to figure out the missing word and spell them out. Although I wish I had looked through it fully and just printed pages I want. I thought it was silly that they couldn't eat hot dogs for Thanksgiving...why not?? Anyway we'll skip that page and maybe add a few of our own ideas in.

Scooby- Doo pumpkin

http://pinterest.com/pin/195765915023771708/
http://www.cartoonjr.com/scooby-doo-pumpkin-patterns/scooby-doo-pumpkin-pattern/

Alright, I'm a day late and if people are following me and wondering where I've been, the answer is simple: Stomach flu. Yep the plague hit our house after visiting family who were still contagious and didn't know it.

So if you haven't guessed from previous posts,  the girls are really into Scooby-Doo! right now. So our pumpkins must be carved according to costumes. I went to the main page of the pin and printed the Scooby pattern. So... I can never actually see the stupid dots when I use a pattern the "correct" way. So I make up my own. I end up trimming the paper down and tracing the lines on with a sharpie.  After that I carved the pumpkin out.

For Velma and Daphne I had to find a coloring page, crop it to just their heads  and enlarge it in paint (go to print set up- make sure the page prints vertically, and enlarge the image until it is the full page). Then I cut out the images piece by piece and sketched in what I needed. This is where it got tricky, because I wasn't sure where to carve without knocking the whole thing out. I think it was the combination of feeling better from the stomach flu but then getting allergies from the weather change. So I cut the hair outline out, leaving a small gap so that the whole thing wouldn't fall in and called it a night. The girls did a great job on their pumpkins, right??

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! We hope you had a safe and fun one!

Shaving cream rain cloud

http://pinterest.com/pin/195765915023286130
http://classroomcollective.tumblr.com/post/16986789221/weather-fill-the-cup-with-water-put-shaving

Alright it has begun to rain here in California. Nothing crazy- but it's finally feeling a little like Fall. To explain to Hailey how the rain for lack of better term works I showed her this pin. We took a clear cup of water and filled the top with white shaving cream.

Then I took blue food coloring and began to drop the food coloring onto the clouds. I explained how the clouds fill up with moisture in the air and eventually the cloud becomes so full that it has to rain

 (and then the food coloring began falling out!).

Learning to tie shoes

Part of Kindergarten homework is a month worth of activies that the stuedent does and checks off.  This is the 3rd time "tie your shoes" has shown up and the first time I've attempted to teach my youngest how. Through the help of two pintrest pins we're on our way.

first I took an empty cereal box, cut it open and folded the longest piece in half. I taped it down and traced a shoe onto the board. Then I kind of drew a "shoe" onto it. After that we added holes with a pair of scissors and  laced the shoe up. After that we took a black sharpie and colored half the laces (this way the kids get the idea of which string it which side)

http://pinterest.com/pin/195765915023699000/

 Once our little cardboard shoe was made, we watched the video- 3 different techniques on how to tie shoes.

http://www.onecraftyplace.com/2012/10/16/teach-your-child-to-tie-shoelaces/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OneCraftyPlace+%28One+Crafty+Place%29

Out of all of them the bunny ears was the easiest for her!

Pumpkin and Mask Decorating

http://pinterest.com/pin/195765915023632362/
http://nurturestore.co.uk/pumpkin-decorating-with-children-ideas

So like I've mentioned earlier we grew enough pumpkins in our garden to accommodate all the girls that were invited to the party. To make it fair we numbered each pumpkin and numbered pieces of papers in a bowl. The girls had to chose from the bucket and that determined their pumpkin.

Once everyone had a pumpkin they went back to the table where they added feathers, google eyes, glittler, marker, pom poms, pipe cleaners, or their Halloween masks. I was amazed at how long the kids took the decorate, but used hardly any of the stuff. Make sure the tables are covered with newspaper or something that you do not mind

 The girls being silly

MASKS
http://pinterest.com/pin/195765915023524584
http://www.firstpalette.com/tool_box/printables/masquerademask.html

All we dud was print the masks and have the girls decorate them however they wanted.

Decorate a pumpkin and mask
Monster Door
Photo Booth Props
Games and Crafts
Erupting Pumpkin
Monster Door
Photo Booth Props
Games and Crafts

Halloween Party food

 Our party was a pot luck Halloween inspired party. It was a lot of fun and I admit less stressful! Okay, only slightly  less stressful because I was so busy all week that I was still getting things ready when the kids started coming. Anyway, here are the things I made from pintrest along with the suggestions from pintrest others brought.
I don't have an extensive amount of space in my apartment, so I took my kitchen island (it's always against the wall and next to a counter) and covered both of them with a tablecloth.

 COOKIE
http://pinterest.com/pin/195765915023687366/
http://www.mrsfields.com/gifts/Jack-O-Lantern

My husband almost bought this cookie for our Halloween party when he saw it online.  Quite frankly I'm not a fan of Mrs. Fields online cookies. The one time we got them for Easter they were crumbling in your mouth (in a bad way) and just did not taste right. If I'm going to eat Mrs. Fields it must be fresh. I also knew that it was fairly easy to replicate this. I started by greasing a pizza pan. Then I cut open the package of Pillsburry sugar cookie mix (I had to change the cookie flavor because a girl at the party is allergic to dairy). I used a greased rolling pin to flatten most of the dough, then used my hands to shape it into a pumpkin. I did not take it all the way to the end because it WILL expand.

I baked it at a lower temperature (325) for about 15 minutes. It came out a nice golden brown. When it cooled I iced the cookie. I did not have any green icing, but I did have green food spray. I added orange colored sprinkles to the rim.

CAKE
http://pinterest.com/pin/195765915023287193/
http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/pull-apart-spiderweb-cupcakes/325ad00b-96d4-4e9b-8750-d219bbe53ce6?nicam4=SocialMedia&nichn4=Pinterest&niseg4=BettyCrocker&nicreatID4=Post

I started the cupcake cake by baking 14 vegan chocolate cupcakes. While they were cooling I took a cookie sheet and covered it in paper to make it look nice.  When they were cooled I arranged the cupcakes on the tray (they kind of looked like a snow flake). I took the orange icing and smoothed it all over the top. Now this is where I strayed from the original. I took a Betty Crocker pre-made icing tube in black and made the web. They made black rings and ran a tooth pick through it.

http://pinterest.com/pin/195765915022735506/
http://www.aturtleslifeforme.com/search?updated-max=2011-11-02T21%253A10%253A00-04%253A00&max-results=7

I'm now reminding people who don't visit often of two things: I don't always get the pins right because I don't have these objects on hand and 2) I do them from memory sometimes.  So, I made the green vanilla pudding yesterday morning. I set it into the green cups I had (it would have looked cooler if I had had clear) and after they set awhile added chocolate sprinkles to the top. Here is my mistake: I forgot to add faces to the cups BEFORE putting the pudding in so when I went to draw on them with sharpie everything was smearing because of the condensation.

WITCHES BREW:
http://pinterest.com/pin/195765915023710442/

I only got the idea from pintrest, I then saw that Target sold both the cauldron and two punch mixes for $8. All I had to do was add soda. Which fizzed all over the place when I mixed it (the girls thought that was hilarious) . Two days before I made the ice hands by freezing water in a glove. First, the glove didn't want to come off when I was ready to use it, then it didn't want to fit in the cauldron and I had to break the fingers. It fit after that.

Other pintrest inspired foods at the party that we brought:

The Veggie Skeleton Man

Mummy Dogs

Another angle of the food (you can almost see the witch wands, but not really.

Other foods we had: Orange and black tortilla chips, cupcake flavored goldfish, grapes, bananas, oranges, and Halloween Rice krispies:

Here is what else we did at the party if you're curious:
Decorate a pumpkin and mask
Monster Door
Photo Booth Props
Games and Crafts
Erupting Pumpkin

Erupting pumpkin

http://www.growingajeweledrose.com/2012/09/erupting-pumpkins-experiment-for-kids.html
http://pinterest.com/pin/195765915023695146/

We are very into science in our house. So it only felt fitting to have at least one science experiment at the Halloween party. We had seen an erupting volcano before, but a pumpkin? Oh this we had to do. Luckily we had grown well over enough pumpkins in our garden to accommodate all the girls at the party as well as the erupting pumpkin. Before the party I cut, scooped and carved it. While the girls' (all nine of them) gathered in the entry way of my kitchen I sprinkled a bunch of baking soda at the base of the pumpkin. Next we chose some green food coloring to add a little color- who wants white?

Then I added the vinegar and it began to foam. I really wish I had been able to get it on tape because the girls' were all amazed and it really was cool to watch it foam and go everywhere.

Decorate a pumpkin and mask
Monster Door
Photo Booth Props
Games and Crafts