ABC and 123: A Learning Collaborative: Halloween

Showing posts with label Halloween. Show all posts

Monday, October 6, 2014

Top 10 Universal Studios Inspired Halloween Costumes for Kids

Despicable Me

There are so many adorable options for dressing your little ones up as minions if they are your Despicable Me favorites. This year I am loving the idea of three little ladies dressed up to look like Gru's adorable daughters. This is an especially fun family dress up option.

The Simpsons

Image Credit: Coolest Homemade Costumes

The Simpsons would be another interesting family costume idea. Who can resist this adorable Baby Maggie!

Curious George

Image Credit: The Chirping Mom

Curious George and The Man with the Yellow Hat are dress up classics. The Chriping Moms put together a simple, yet adorable version of this famous duo. If you don't have two little ones to dress opt for the Man with the Yellow Hat and carry a favorite stuffed monkey.

Dora the Explorer

Image Credit: The MomBot

Dora and Boots are preschool favorites.

Po
peye

Image Credit: Crafty Bitch

While visiting Universal last summer we were able to introduce our four young children to Popeye and his best gal Olive Oil. This little sailor is the most precious Popeye ever!

Dr. Seuss

Image Credit: Moms Best Nest

Each year at Halloween we greet several Thing 1 and Thing 2 pairs at our doorstep. Dr. Seuss fans looking for something different might want to dress up like Sam I Am.

Shrek

Image Credit: The Truthful Mom

At Universal Orlando Shrek and Fiona are the fairy tale favorites. This little hat totally makes this costume

Image Credit: I Want Some Fun

Older children might not appreciate this Elliot costume for how awesome it is, but it certainly brings back childhood memories for mom and dad. The ET Adventure at Universal Orlando is our kid's favorite ride, making this costume a top contender on my four year old's dress up list.

Hulk

Image Credit: Costume Works

One of the most intimidating attractions at Universal Orlando is The Hulk, yet somehow every little boy is drawn to it - if only to stand beneath it and listen to the roar. I suppose that's pretty true to form for Hulk - loud and intimidating, but irresistible!

Transformers

Image Credit: Dollar Store Crafts

This construction is seriously amazing. My six year old is scheming to figure out who he could get to create this for him. He is also very curious how this friend got out of the costume when he was done.

What costumes are you lining up for this Halloween?

Does your family try to all dress according to a theme?

Do you focus on book characters? Movie Characters? Animals?

We would love to hear from you!

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Happy {Almost} Halloween Tulle You: DIY Costumes

Disclosure: The following post was sponsored by Hub Network through their partnership with Circle of Moms. While I was compensated to write this post about Hub Network's First Annual Halloween Bash Costume Contest, all opinions are my own.

It will be here before we know it!
October.

Do your children get into costume? Are you a DIY family or do you love choosing a favorite character off the racks at the store? While in many school settings students are not allowed to come to school in costume and/or are required to choose a character from a book, dressing up is still a very exciting part of our October traditions!

Growing up a big part of the Halloween fun for our family was brainstorming costumes, digging through the dress up box for the perfect pieces, and making ourselves into clever characters for the big night of trick or treat! I will admit there have been years I've relied on the generic end of season clearance costumes that fill our dress up boxes to outfit our four for Halloween. However, our favorite costumes are always the ones we spent time creating together. Our extended family gets into the homemade dress up spirit too and some of their costume ideas are pictured below as well.

In the past four years my daughter has been Abby Cadabby, Tinkerbell, Cinderella, and Super Woman. Each of these costumes would not have been complete without a fluffy, over the top skirt made of tulle. To encourage your creative juices in preparation for this Halloween I have rounded up the tulle-inspired costumes created by members of our family.

Belle

Tinkerbell

Cookie Monster

Snow White

Cinderella

A pretty peacock

Super Woman

Santa

Ariel

Minion
(This is actually a wreath, but there has to be a creative soul out there that would love to figure out how to turn this into a timely Despicable Me costume!)

This season, Hub Network is hosting Hub Network's First Annual Halloween Bash Costume Contest. They are searching the U.S. for the spookiest, silliest, and most inventive costumes. Submit your one of a kind costume ideas for a chance to win a prize valued at $25,000.

Show Hub Network your best costume by registering before 9/29. Each entry must be a unique creation. One winner from each state will be flown to L.A. to appear in The Hub Network's First Annual Halloween Bash! Martha Stewart, the Halloween Expert herself, will appear as a judge at the Hub Network's Halloween Bash.

Here at ABC & 123: A Learning Cooperative we are sure we have the most inventive readers in the blog world and we can not wait to see what spooky, silly, creative costumes you come up with this year!

Disclaimer: My crafty cousin in costume crime, of Justine's Crafty Creations, has put together several of these tulle costumes and modeled them on her sweet triplets!

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Happy Halloween

Here's to having a wonderful, transforming, rockin', storm trooping trick or treat day.

Thursday, October 25, 2012

A Little People Halloween Makeover

We have had a few very rainy days recently here in West Michigan. Since our little boys couldn't be outside we were looking for a different distraction. We came up with a simple, seasonally themed, activity to encourage hours of creativity and imaginative play.

To begin we set up some of our favorite Little People pieces into a village. Then we collected all the "spooooooky" things we could find around the house. With toys and materials collected the transformation of the town was up to the boys. They worked together to makeover the town of Little People into a fall festival. Piles of toliet paper became "ninja mummies." My three year old did lots of cutting practice as he turned orange twine into spider webs. We planted cookie cutter pumpkins in a special patch. Battery powered candles made fun additions when we turned the lights off on the town and played by candle light.

When our older children came home from school they were excited to add their own touches to the set up with egg carton bats and plastic rats. They all went to bed tonight dreaming of how they could add on to the scene tomorrow. Finding a new way to play with the toys I feared the kids might be outgrowing was quite a treat!

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Teaching with Ticia: 5 Little Pumpkins

My kids are crazy about Halloween. They love to think up costumes, they plan out decorations for our house for months. They love the imagination and creativity behind it.

So, I always try to do lots of activities during Halloween, and one of my favorites when I was teach was "5 Little Pumpkins." It's a fun cute poem that you can do many different activities with.

Art Project

Supplies needed: printable, orange paint or ink pad, markers

It's simple and fun. On each page create a fingerprint pumpkin using paint or an ink pad and decorate for the words. My kids enjoyed doing this and took the time to really decorate it all.

Math

This is one of many similar poems that are set up perfectly for some nice easy beginner subtraction. Stuart J. Murphy has a book called "Monster Musical Chairs," that teaches the same principal. After your art project is all done, go through and write the math problems for each page. 5-1=4, etc......

Reading

Go through each page and look for your sight words for the year. Circle them with crayon. If you have a multi-age class have them look for parts of speech, what adjectives are there?

Science

Learn about pumpkins, how do they grow? What is their life cycle? Do they float? Currclick has a great science unit that we used last year and the kids loved.

Social Studies

Compare the Big Pumpkin to The Enormous Turnip. How are they similar, how are they different. Follow on Language activities, find synonyms for the word "big," and put them in order by size (big, giant, enormous, gigantic, etc). You'll notice not everyone puts them in the same order. Is there a right order for the words?

Friday, September 28, 2012

Skeletons: Lessons About Bones

Teaching Two has several clever ideas for teaching children the basics about our bones.

My Life and Kids included Martha Stewart's pasta skeleton's in her list of top 5 crafts for October.

There are many interesting suggestions for teaching all about skeletons listed at Little Giraffes. I especially like their song and poem ideas.

The site, Be a Bone Builder, has a printable worksheet for identifying and labeling the bones in the human body.

Science Center explains a biology lesson that introduces students to the function of the main bones in the human skeletal system and the cells that make up those bones.

Teachers.net details a lesson intended for second grade students that teaches them to draw and label bones in the human skeleton.

Fairy Dust Teaching displays their white on black skeleton paintings that reinforce the concepts they are learning in science.

Apartment Therapy featured a birthday party all about the human body. The skeleton cake would make a tasty treat to follow up a bare bones lesson.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Halloween Idea Wrap Up

Halloween Idea Wrap Up

With trick-or-treating fresh on our minds, we'd like to recap all your fabulous Halloween projects, lessons, and crafts! This will help us all out next year, when the pumpkins are fresh on the vine and the scent of donuts is wafting through the air!

This is a little different from past linky parties, in that we've broken it up into categories. Please find the header for each below: Costumes, Tasty Treats, Lessons, and Crafts. Then add your project to the appropriate linky. You may add more than one link, the more we have the better a resource this will be for next year.

We will leave all the linkies open for two weeks so you have time to hop on! Then we'll all have lots of Halloween themed activities to refer to, so it won't matter if you are lesson planning on the middle August...you'll know just where to look for help:)

We want to see all your awesome costume ideas! Have you made a super cute costume, like Karen at Sippy Cup Central Mom's WordGirl and Captain Huggy Face, based on the characters from PBS show WordGirl? Link up your tutorials AND your cutie pie kids in their Halloween best:)

Costumes:

Did you whip up something delicious for Halloween? We'd love to see how you added some frightful fun to your baked goods and other treats! These marshmallow ghosts are easy to make and great for kids to do! Come show off your cute and spooky edible creations!

Tasty Treats:

How did you incorporate the season into your lessons? Janea at I Can Teach My Child made a Jack O'Lantern Shape Sorter out of an old formula container and some blocks she already had. Show off how you combined learning and Halloween!

Lessons:

Got a cool craft or project perfect for the month of October? This hanging bat is not only a cute decoration but also incorporates handprints! Show us your best crafts so we have tons of ideas to refer to next year!

Crafts:

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Pumpkins and Jack-O-Lanterns

Welcome! New to ABC and 123? Please check out our FAQ in the sidebar.

We love this tangled yarn pumpkin craft idea from I Can Teach My Child. After creating a pumpkin, enjoy eating a pumpkin - a grilled cheese pumpkin!

Put together your own pumpkin bowling game with this idea from Ten Kids and a Dog.

This pumpkin plate collage from Pinky's Please Touch Museum is sure to bring a smile.

Ten Kids and a Dog crafted a giant orange jack o lantern windsock out of yarn.

Pump kin Songs, Rhymes, and Fingerplays from Teaching Heart.

Playing with Pumpkins: Educational Activities for Toddlers from Suite 101

Apples and Jammies has posted a pumpkin unit including math and science activities, and a pumpkin themed book list.

Your Therapy Source has a suggestion for a fine motor pumpkin activity.

These peanut butter pumpkins from Children's Learning Activities look pumpkin-y delicious.

Here is our own round up of Halloween and Pumpkin Themed books from October 2009.

Also, we have shared many pumpkin crafts, pumpkin math, pumpkin recipes, and a few pumpkin experiments.

Monday, October 18, 2010

Free Printables for Halloween

Welcome! New to ABC and 123? Please check out our FAQ in the sidebar.

Tara, who writes Little Cooks with Books writer is getting over being sick, no fun! Send her some get well wishes:) She'll be back later this month to share with us all a fun Halloween book and cooking activity.

So we've got a guest post from our friend Malia to share with you today. She's found some great Halloween printables to share with you! These are great timesavers and there's still plenty of time for you to snag them and get them ready before the 31st!

Hi! I'm Malia from yesterdayontuesday.com ( http://www.yesterdayontuesday.com). I'm a SAHM of two roomies aka kids and wife to a hunk that I met at work a dozen years ago. I like blogging about cooking, crafts, vintage finds and fun freebies. Speaking of free... Here's a little round-up I recently did of some Halloween Printables. Hope you enjoy them!

1. Keep Calm and Scary on from Craftily Ever After

2. SBOO-KY Treat Bags from Pretties Parties

3. Halloween Cards for Kids from A Little Hut

4. Open at Your Own Risk Printables from Pumpkin Petunia

5. Circle Tags and "Boo" Oval from Paper Glitter

6. Fun 5x7 Card Template from Living Locurto

7. Halloween Placecards from Fantasy Jr

8. Eat Drink and Be Scary from Craftily Ever After

9. Cupcake Toppers and Wrappers from Momma Go Round

10. The List in Orange from Sprik Space (available in other colors too)!

11. Halloween Candy Wrappers from How Does She?

12. Pumpkin from Matthew Mead

13. Owl Garland from Matthew Mead

14. Tutorial and printables to make "A Witches Britches" Banner at Restless Risa

15. Poison Labels from HGTV

16. Halloween Tic Tac Toe from My Computer is My Canvas

Wishing you a ghoulishly good time playing with these!

Thanks for sharing Malia! We'd love to have YOU do a guest post too! All you have to do is contact us with your idea to get the ball rolling!

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Storybook Character Halloween Costume Ideas

Welcome! New to ABC and 123? Please check out our FAQ in the sidebar.

October 31st is going to sneak up on us quickly here! Although we recognize that not all children get dressed up to trick or treat, in recent years it seems that many schools encourage the kids to dress up as their favorite storybook character for a day. So, here are a few fun suggestions from our readers to get your creative costuming juices flowing!

Fancy Nancy from Peppers and Pollywogs

Fancy Nancy from Inspiration Surrounds...Creativity Abounds