Field Trip: Apple Hill

Apple Hill favorites: apples (of course), pony rides, fudge factory, and watching other people catch and release at the big pond.

Halloween Crafts

I loved this idea of cutting silhouette haunted houses out and letting the children paste their favorite clip art pieces behind spooky doors and windows.

The girlies loved making these witch socks. I cut shoes from black paper for them to pick (some high heeled, some flat; some regular toed, some elfish) and they chose colors for the stocking and stripes. The glue stick was just slightly smaller than the stripes which made gluing a snap.

These super simple crafts are great for painting and shape recognition. The younger ones love to tell me what shapes they would like but often need a lot of help with those tricky scissors.

It isn't very often that we have juice at daycare... so the kids were extra excited about this craft. It was pretty simple- add about a cup of rice to the inside of the box. Let the kids tear strips of paper and affix using double sided sticky tape. Add a black square with gooogly eyes (under the bandages if possible).

The monster hand garland was my favorite new craft this year. I pre cut my size hands and some face shape ideas in different colors. The children assembled them, then we used a sharpie to make eyebrows (experimenting with moods).

I love these $1 holiday masks at Michael's craft. The children always love them and they work with colored pens or paints. And they almost always are on sale for .40.

Kid's Club at Sunrise Mall: Pumpkin Patch

After many FB reminders and posts from friends we finally went to the Sunrise Mall's weekly kid's club meeting. It was fun! The ladies had coloring pages ready for the children to color while we waited for everyone to check in.
Then the girls made their way over to the little "pumpkin patch" set up. It was pretty cute. There was absolutely no order or line and the girls were a tad timid to fight their way through all of the other children.

Each child picked a package with unknown face pieces inside. It was sort of like Mr. Potato Head meets halloween characters. We laid out the pieces in order on the table, then took the sticky backing off.
Frankenstien!
And Dracula!

Recipe: PB & J Braid

Favorite pizza dough recipe +

layer of peanut butter +

layer of jelly ( I LOVE Trader Joe's Organic grape. A household staple)

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bake at 425 until golden, about 18 minutes in my oven.

I liked this idea, in theory. The finished product was quite delicious, but SO messy. It was a little bit of a challenge for the kids to eat. When everything warms up it gets very gooey and a little runny. I think I will stick to the standard sliced bread next time.

Haunted Candy Houses

I love candy as an art medium. It is pretty nasty to eat, I think. Candy corn especially. But I love the colors and the shape and the different textures- especially those sparkly gum drop things (even more yucky than candy corn). Winco has a nice selection in their bulk aisles which is handy- just a small scoop of each for the kids to share.

I haven't found the perfect recipe for the frosting "mortar" yet. This one sets really well but has raw eggs in it. Others I have tried never become firm, so candy slides off.

Field Trip: Folsom Zoo Sanctuary

The weather gets an A+ this week. No more hurrying to get to the park before it is too hot to be outdoors. Apparently the animals agree, because they were all out and about for us to enjoy! The tiger and mountain lions were prowling around. The bears were playing with their rolling food traps. The deer was enjoying her food buckets. Even the barn owl was out on his perch.

Fire Safety: Hot, Cold or Silly? and Ice Packs

I was updating our first aid and 72-hour emergency kits. I ordered a box of these cold packs and they were delivered (by the "package man!") one afternoon. The girls loved them!

This Hot, Cold or Silly matching sheet was a great activity to help the children think about what things can be hot and what things only adults should use.