Holiday Activities

Holiday Activities

Monster Faces and Facial Expressions with LEGO

Leave a comment

Halloween is an ideal time to have some fun with faces and facial expressions. Did you know that being able to figure out faces is a complex and highly important social skill? It can be a challenge for adults, as well as kids.

monster facial expressions with LEGO Faces are a big part of Halloween. Jack-o-lanterns, masks, face makeup, characters, and costumes, all include faces.We can all take advantage of the opportunity we get at this time of the year to help kids learn about faces and what expressions mean. As is the case with so many skills that children develop, being able to ‘read’ the expression on someone’s face needs experience and practice. Witches, monsters, vampires and other Halloween favorites are scary because kids understand the look on their faces.

monster facial expressions with LEGO Today’s play-of-the-day is using LEGO to make some monster faces. The only materials needed are a big bunch of LEGO and a few of the flat bases, depending on the number of children. Monsters can have very different faces, with more than 2 eyes, 1 nose, and 1 mouth. But it’s not the numbers of features that make a monster face, it is also the expression. The bricks are nearly all rectangles, but there’s no limit on the different ways to use them. You can ask your child what makes a scary face and how to tell. What do the eyes do and the mouth to make a scary face? Your child can look in a mirror and make some faces too.

Gwen Dewar, in Parenting Science, wrote “The evidence is accumulating: Good social skills may depend on the ability to decipher facial expressions, particularly…in the eye region,” (DeClerk and Bogart, 2008). This makes sense when we think of relationships. We connect to each other using words and other clues such as tone of voice, body position, and certainly, facial expressions.

Do you agree that making monster faces with Lego is a great play activity to help kids learn about faces?

Holiday Activities

Halloween Fruit “Candy Corn” Snack or Breakfast

Leave a comment

This is an easy Halloween snack to make, and it looks like candy corn in a glass with the layers of yellow, orange, and white, but you can also make it in a bowl. Best of all, it’s not only yummy but very nutritious.

halloween fruit candy-corn snackCandy corn is supposed to look like kernels of corn, with the bright colors of fall. Maybe it’s a Halloween favorite because it looks like pumpkin teeth in a jack-o-lantern smile. For some trivia fun, it’s been around since 1880 and more than 25 million pounds of it are sold annually! In any case, it is a seasonal favorite for this time of year.

Halloween nutritious fruit snackeFor the bottom yellow layer, put a few pineapple slices in a glass or, because not all kids like pineapple, some banana. Next a layer or small pieces of orange. Mango is another fruit that is orangey and would be quite a taste treat.  Many versions of this snack have a  layer with whipped cream or cream topping, but the white layer can also be creamy yogurt. It’s like having fruit with dip only this time the is dip served on top. If this is a breakfast treat, spoon some cereal like granola onto the yogurt layer before mixing in.

While big adult hands will be needed for the slicing, little kid hands can spoon the fruit and yogurt into the glass, cup, or bowl. After eating, kids can also help with the clean-up. Involving kids in food prep and cooking helps them develop a healthy attitude to food. Food becomes a part of daily life and routine, like having a shower and dressing for the weather. There’s also a higher likelihood that kids will eat what they have helped make. Kids will get plenty of sugar at Halloween time and this can be a treat without the trick of the sugar high.

What other great Halloween snacks and nutritious treats can you suggest?

Holiday Activities

Old Socks Make Bootiful Ghost Puppets

Leave a comment

The play-of-the-day is making some ghost puppets for telling ghost stories; that should be easy, right? Like Halloween, there are some tricks to the craft.

sock puppet ghostTrick #1 is to find an old white or light grey sock. Usually, this wouldn’t be a problem at our house because there’s a bag of old and worn out socks or newer but only one-of-the-pair loners. But the bag had no white socks. We’d used some of them in the winter to make snowballs for throwing indoors. Maybe they melted? Then, we’d used some in the spring and summer to make Olaf the Snowman. That left only black socks, which would make bats and spiders, but not ghosts. To save the project, we temporarily used a good pair–of mine.

Trick #2 is where to put the eyes. To make the puppet talk, the heel part of the sock must be in the front. The puppet looks better with the heel hiding in the back, but I know from experience, that the thumb needs the space of the hell in order to make a mouth that moves. Also from experience, the eyes can’t be too low or they end up moving as part of the mouth. If they are too high, they look too far away from the mouth. It’s a good think these eyes were only getting attached with safety pins instead of being sewn or glue on because we had to try 4 or 5 times to get them in the right spot.

Trick #3 is optional. We used a bit of white yarn to tie around the top of the sock to make the pointy part of the head.

Now comes the treat part. Puppet play encourages lots of conversations. Kids can talk to their ghost by themselves, use them to tell a story, or talk to another puppet. Sometimes, kids will use different voices and carry both sides of the conversation.

Another treat is the opportunity for kids to imagine. Imagination is a skill that kids can develop by imagining. For kids that are hesitant, ask them questions like does their ghost have a name, what does it do, where does it go, and more. Usually, once they get started, kids will become more comfortable with imagining.

Puppets don’t have to stay in one place. They can move around, get some exercise, and maybe even go outside for a fresh air treat or maybe an adventure one!

Puppet play is full of both tricks and treats. Any ghost sock puppets at your house?

Holiday Activities

Sponge Paint Halloween Pumpkin Jack-o-Lantern

Leave a comment

There are so many wonderful Halloween ideas at this time of year and this sponge-painted jack-o-lantern craft from ArstyMomma.com looks easy to do and a treat for some learning fun. The materials needed are simple: either a paper plate or fairly thick round circle–you can cut one from the side of an empty cereal box, … Continue reading Sponge Paint Halloween Pumpkin Jack-o-Lantern →

Cooking and Baking, Health and Nutrition, Holiday Activities

Cooking with Kids: Watermelon Fruit Pizza #2

Leave a comment

This cooking-with-kids activity is fun enough to do twice in one week. Remember the question from Pizza #1 about what other fruit we could use? Well, here it is: Watermelon Pizza #2 in red, white, and blue. For such simple ingredients, it looks bright and colorful, and can be used for holiday celebrating or any … Continue reading Cooking with Kids: Watermelon Fruit Pizza #2 →

Cooking and Baking, Health and Nutrition, Holiday Activities

Cooking with Kids: Watermelon Fruit Pizza #1

Leave a comment

Cooking with kids is an awesome–and tasty–way to combine fun, learning, and family time, plus encourage healthy eating. This watermelon pizza is a great way to celebrate the start of summer! According to the calendar, Summer starts June 21st if you live in the top half of the planet, but in North America the first … Continue reading Cooking with Kids: Watermelon Fruit Pizza #1 →