H is for Halloween

It's here!

Almost.

Halloween weekend and all its activities has arrived. The actual day looks to be cold and raining... So we've been stuffing in as much fun as we can into this cold weekend.

We went to a local pumpkin patch.

Painted paper plates and turned them into decorations.

Tried threading a spiders web.

And made some fun masks (can you tell which ones Mommy did?)

We didn't skip out on school stuff entirely.

We tried some shape building with popcicle sticks, but its a challenging concept for Roo.

H is for House and Hearts. We also filled an H with Halloween stickers.

You might notice the Doctor's office venue. (Roo was extra crabby, tummy ache, and not eating. I was worried it was strep again or a stomach virus. Turns out her two year molars are finally breaking through! Doctor recommended popcicles and Ibuprophen and sent us home.) But that didn't keep us from school work that day!

These last two projects were entirely Roo's idea and gave me a reminder that sometimes it's best to just follow her lead. Anyone with a two year old can tell you that if they don't like an activity, there is very little you can do to make them focus; but if they enjoy the activity and it involves as many senses as possible their focus will be held much longer and give you time to really teach.

The first was shape matching. I pulled out her shape sorting toy and had her name each shape and color before dropping them in. After we finished that she dumped them out to play again, but started stacking the like shapes on top of each other. I realized what she was doing and let her practice matching and some gross motor skills to get them to balance.

The last one was after we added glitter to our masks. I was dumping the excess glitter into one plate and turned around to begin sweeping up what was on the floor. That's when Roo came to play in the glitter plate. I scolded her at first, glitter is very hard to clean up! But I realized she was using her index finger to trace patterns and shapes into the glitter. She's been obsessed with the texture of glitter when it's all piled up together, so it makes sense for her to gravitate to the plate full of glitter. We've tried other tracing trays before and she wasn't as interested. So I softened and added more glitter to the plate.

This project is obviously not for any moms out there that hate mess, especially glitter mess! It covered her hands and clothes and of course it didn't all stay in the plate but got on the table and floor too. But honestly, the course glitter I used can be easily swept up and the stragglers picked up with a damp cloth. So my lesson for this week was to let Roo lead more and not let fear of a potential mess get in the way of her learning experience.

Oh and for anyone interested, I did get her bat costume made! It's really going to be a black ballet leotard and tutu, black tights, (And probably a black jacket, a pink vest, some black leggings, some long socks, mittens, and a hat) and the wings I made. I made an arm warmer type sleeve out of velour and cut a wing shape out of organza. I pinned the wing to the right side, wing tips pointing in, with some gathers. Fold the other half of the sleeve up, right sides together. and sew a simple seam. (If you'd like to see a more in depth tutorial email me and let me know!)

She loves them and enjoys them more than the wire wings I could have bought at the store because she can "Flap, flap, FLY!" Pictures of the whole costume will be on my Instagram and Facebook after Halloween night.