Mummy Lantern
Builds on: Fine motor skills

What you'll need:

1 empty glass jar

2 large googly eyes

6 (1.5") pieces of tape

white party streamers (about 9" long)

glue

1 tea light candle

What to do:

Show your little how to fold a piece of tape to make a double sided roll of tape (sticky side out) and have them make the remaining 5. Stick one roll of tape to the end of one streamer and attach that to the side of the jar towards the bottom. Have your little wrap the streamer around the jar at an upwards angle. Tape this end to the jar. Start the next streamer just above the start of the first streamer and let your little wrap away. Continue this until the whole jar is covered or until your little feels it looks enough like a mummy. Let your little glue the googly eyes on resisting the urge to straighten them or "fix" them. Place the tea light inside and light it in a dark room or at dinner time for some spooky ambiance. If you'd like to make your mummy a little less tidy you can tear the ends off of your streamers just before taping them and place the tape a little farther from the end so they dangle from the sides a bit like ours did in the picture. 

Felt board Monsters

Felt Board Monsters

Builds on: creativity, confidence and imagination  

I actually got this idea from And Next Comes L for a felt board activity and decided to make some of my own monsters. It was a total hit! Hoots, Roos and even older kids love seeing what kind of monsters they can create together.

What you'll need:

6 different colored sheets of felt

1 sheet of white felt

Black paint pen

Scissors

Felt board

What to do:

Cut out one large monster body shape with arms and legs from each of the colored felt sheets. It's best to have a different shape for each color to make it more interesting for the kids.

Using the white felt cut pairs of different sized shapes for the eyes. Color small solid circles to make the eyeballs as pictured. While those are drying use the left overs of the colored  and white felt sheets to cut out decorative pieces like hair, horns, clothes and teeth. What ever you can think of. 

Spread the pieces out on the felt board or in a bucket near by for the kids to create with. Encourage them to make the monsters any way that they want.  Enjoy some quiet time!

Alphabet Monsters

Alphabet Monster

Builds on: fine motor skills, creativity, letter recognition

I love this activity because it's something that can be adapted to your child's growing literacy skills, as well as, helping to build confidence in their own decision making by giving them full creative control over their work. No eyes and crooked eyes are welcome!

 

What you need:

empty raisin canisters (cleaned)

colored paper

glue

googly eyes

scissors

markers

What to do:

Place all of the materials out on the activity table. Explain that the canister is going to be the monsters head. He'll need eyes and a big mouth to eat lots of letters big and small. Ask the kids what color skin they'd like and pick out that color in paper. Have them help you by putting glue all over the canister so that you can wrap the colored paper around it. You'll need to help them by cutting off some excess paper at the bottom and draw a big open mouth on to the paper to cut out later. 

Have the kids glue their eyes on where they want them and paint or draw features like ears, freckles or hair. Set aside and let dry. Once it's all dried up you can use scissors to cut out the mouth you had penciled in before. 

*I used stencils to make bats, ghosts, spiders and cat shapes, writing a letter of the alphabet on each them for my monsters "food". If you follow my blog I can send you a sheet with these shapes that you can print out to save time.

Sit at the table with your monster and monster food. In a silly deep voice speak for your monster saying " I'm hungry! Feed me!" Have your kiddo pick out a letter and name it together before feeding your monster. Once they get a little better at letter recognitions the monster can ask for a specific letter to eat, challenging your kiddo to find the correct one. Work on letter sounds once they've mastered letters and site words once they start reading.