Tagged with 'printables'

Adam and I are always looking for activities to do with the girls, and there’s plenty of learning and fun to be had this Halloween.  It can be as simple as counting and sorting Halloween candy, drawing a spooky picture, or making a paper plate spider web. The learning is always there – you just have to look for it!

1. Pumpkin Coloring Contest

Get out the crayons, print out this pumpkin picture, and watch your little artist’s imagination come to life! Points for the silliest, spookiest, and most creative pumpkins.

2. Paper Plate Spiderwebs

Fall trees aren’t just full of leaves – they’re also full of spiders! Garden spiders are most active in the fall so you’re likely to see more of their elaborate, beautiful webs in the trees in autumn, too. Join the fun and spin your own spider webs out of a paper plate!

1. Cut the center out of a paper plate.
2. Let your kids color the outer edge of the plate with beautiful fall colors like red, orange, and yellow.
3. Using a single hole puncher, punch 12-14 holes around the edge of the hole.
4. Tape one end of a length of yarn to the back of the paper plate and wrap tape tightly around the other to form a ‘needle’.
5. Demonstrate how to weave the yarn back and forth through the holes to create the web, then hand the plate over to your child.
6. Once, the web is spun, remove the pin from the end of the yarn and tape that end to the back of the plate, too.

Add a pipe cleaner spider for the perfect fall finishing touch – cut four black pipe cleaners in half and twist to create an eight-legged creepy crawly!

3. Frankenstein Fun

Start with a blank sheet of paper, then guide your kids, step by step, to draw Frankenstein’s head. Instructions are below:

1. Draw a large rectangle, short sides up and down, long sides on the sides, to form the head.
2. Add a rectangular ear on either side of the head.
3. Add a zig zag line just below the top of the head to make hair.
4. Draw two parallel lines coming out of the bottom of the head to form the neck.
5. Add the start of another rectangle beneath the neck to form the top of the body.
6. Draw two circles for eyes and two half circles inside the circles to form pupils.
7. Add rectangular eyebrows at an angle over the eyes.
8. Add a rectangular mouth.
9. Using the bottom of the mouth as the base, draw three triangles, then connect the pointed tops of the triangles to the top of the mouth’s rectangle to form teeth.
10. Shape a nose between the eyes and the mouth
11. Once the outline of Frankenstein is complete, kids can go crazy with details – add bolts, scars, etc. Outline the creation in Sharpie, and color him in with crayons, colored pencils, markers, even watercolor paints. You’ll be surprised how differently each of your children’s drawings are!

4. Spooky STEM Sculptures

Put all that Halloween candy to good use, with STEM sculptures! Use candy pumpkins and toothpicks to create STEM structures designed to introduce early math and science principles like gravity, balance, angles, and more. Younger kids can try building a simple tower with a three-pumpkin base supporting a single, floating pumpkin. Challenge older kids to create a taller tower, pyramid, spiral, or spider web!

5. Skeleton Puzzle

This double sided skeleton puzzle not only makes a great Halloween activity, it’s also a great way to teach your kids about the name of bones!  It also makes a great front door decoration to help greet your trick or treaters. 

Happy Halloween!

Be a dinosaur hunter! Dinosaur-loving kids will get to count and practice color recognition with two exciting printable scavenger hunts.

Click the images below to print yours out.

Kids love to play and search for hidden items. Now, you can put them both together for learning and lots of playful fun. If you’re doing this activity with younger kids, ages 3 and 4, you will need to hide the dinosaurs in plain sight.

Review the colors before you start. Look at the scavenger hunt sheet with your child to be sure your child knows which dinosaurs are which colors before you begin.

Also, tell your child that he or she will be looking for the right color to match. Meaning, children don’t need to match the species of dinosaur, just the color. (Although you can do that later your own with older kids.)

Supplies Needed:

• Cardstock or printer paper
• Mini Dino Counters 
• Plastic sheet protector (optional)

Directions:

• Print out the scavenger hunt sheets. You have two options:
  1. PICTURES ONLY for 3- and 4- year olds
  2. WRITTEN NUMBERS for 5- and 6- year olds
• Gather the right number and color of dinosaurs listed on the scavenger hunt sheet.
• Hide your dinosaurs. Make sure you hide the dinosaurs in plain sight to start, especially for 3- and 4- year olds.
• Give the printable to your child.
• Have fun searching, counting, and sorting!

Keep the fun going with more dino activities 

• Have your child hide the dinosaurs for you to find.
• See if your child wants to find the dinosaurs by species instead of by color.
• Sort all the dinosaurs into color groups. Count them up!
• Use the dinosaurs to pretend to play dinosaur hunter. Bury them in the sandbox and play paleontologist.
• Add in colored playing dough. See if your child can match the dinosaurs to their matching color playing dough.
• Compare which dinosaur is tallest, shortest, smallest, or biggest.

Won’t these activities for ages 3 to 6 be so engaging? Especially for dinosaur fans.

My little learner had a blast. He didn't want to stop playing dino hunter. Little did he know that he was actually practicing counting and recognizing colors!

That’s the beauty of playful learning!

Happy dino hunting!  

Learning is Where We Play: