Halloween!

We do a lot of activities for each holiday and I thought I would highlight some of the ones we do for Halloween. We start by visiting a pumpkin patch. Luckily, the church across the street from us has one that we can get to by walking. We let the kids wander around playing with the pumpkins. We talk about the different colors, shapes, sizes, and weights - all great math concepts.

Pumpkins, pumpkins, everywhere

We take our pumpkins home and the real fun begins. We float the pumpkins in the bathtub with the kids to learn about buoyancy. They love that they can easily move the pumpkin in water, especially one that is too heavy for them to move otherwise.

We are working together, but still can't get it to move.

We open the pumpkin and let them help clean it out. This is a new experience for the first few years, since they aren't likely to remember what happened a year before. The idea of sticking your hand in where you can't clearly see, feeling the heat from the inside of the pumpkin (they have been sitting outside), and then feeling the slime is more than most kids can handle. We still encourage them to try.

 I love playing in slime!

I needed more encouragement.

We also let them paint their own pumpkins. While I usually don't get photos of the kid doing messy art, my husband happened to be home this day, so we have one photo. This is another great texture experience and having their art displayed outside is unique and intriguing.

Close supervision is required when finger painting with toddlers.

Other Halloween ideas for kids over 18 months old include cooking some pumpkin seeds, planting pumpkin seeds, making pumpkin pie, hammering golf tees into the pumpkin, and letting the kids carve the pumpkin. There are many great art ideas you can find online as well. What are some of your favorite Halloween activities?