Halloween Party: Make it fun, not painful

Halloween Party: Make it fun, not painful

Belinda @ Kids Matter

What child wouldn’t love a Halloween party? For that matter… a lot of parents are quite fond of them as well! But… when you think of “party” do you get the idea of something huge, costing lots of money, and taking up an absurd amount of your time? Maybe that seems like more work than you feel you can afford both financially and time wise. How about if I told you that doesn’t have to be the case? What if you could have a party for 4-8 children for under $50 and it take no more than three hours of your time including the actual party time? Is it sounding better? Well, let’s get started!

Decorations

What do kids love most? BALLOONS! Decorate with streamers and balloons and you’ll have a hit on your hands! Don’t spend money on expensive fancy balloons; just buy ordinary solid color balloons. If you want to decorate them blow them up before the party and draw Halloween characters on them. Balloons and streamers will cost you about $4.

Food and drinks

No need to get all into planning a big feast. It’s a fun holiday and all the kids care about are the sweets! Schedule your party for between lunch and dinner or after dinner on a night when there is no school. Buy the prepackaged decorated sugar cookies. Use your time for preparing games, not baking. Games are much more exciting! Cookies will cost you about $8, more or less, depending on how many you want each child to have. I wouldn’t go more than two a piece, or then you will be dealing with sugar rush chaos! As for drinks, I would stick with something simple like apple juice or the prepackaged kid’s drinks.

Music

You have to set the mood of the party and kids love music! Take a few minutes and visit this link at Dream English Halloween to get some FREE music. If you don’t care for these search the internet for free Halloween music.

Activities/Games

Every Halloween party has to have pumpkin painting! Don’t worry… there will be no messy paint spills to clean up with this one. You can either purchase one pumpkin for each child (approximately $5/each) or double the kids up on the pumpkins. Buy a package of black Sharpie markers ($4) and before the party pre-draw face outlines for the kids to fill in.

Face painting is such a great activity for children. How often do they get to put paint on their faces without getting into trouble? This is really a treat for them! If you are doing your shopping at Wal-Mart pick up their KIDS CRAFT Face Paint Mega Set for $6.57. Don’t forget the brushes if you don’t have any at home. (That’s at most another couple dollars.)

GAMES!!!! The excitement rings throughout your house! Mummy Wrap is a great game the children will love. Grab a roll of toilet paper from your bathroom and some scotch tape. If you are participating in the game the kids will have a ball turning you into the mummy! If you choose not to get in on the game allow the kids to mummify whoever wants to do it. Spooky Memory Game is a free game you can printout from Spoonful. Follow the directions for printing and playing as provided on the website. Find the Eyeball is an icky game and we all know how children love to get icky! Cook a package of spaghetti from your pantry. You can even throw in some food coloring while it cooks. Be sure to over cook the pasta. Drain it thoroughly and coat it with a little vegetable oil so it is really slimy. Purchase a pack of ping pong balls ($3) and with your black Sharpie, draw an eyeball on each one. Allow the marker to dry and the pasta to cool. Drop the eyeballs into the pasta and have the kids find the eyeballs (without looking of course).

Treats

At the close of the party, hand out treat bags filled with yummy candy. Treat bags will cost about $1 or you could use the old fall back… sandwich bags! The candy you choose will probably be the most expensive item for the party besides the pumpkins. I would suggest a bag of Sather’s Kiddie Mix ($4.48) and then some type of little chocolate bars. You want to leave the candy until the end and let them have the sugar rush at home!

Don’t be afraid to use what you have in your home to cut down on the costs. Most of us have paper plates and napkins or paper towels for the cookies. No need to get all fancy, again, the kids only care about the fun and sweets! If you are like me you have a cabinet full of sippy cups to cut down on the messes by the wee little ones or if you opt for the prepackaged drinks that is one less thing you have to think about… cups.

Have a great time with your Halloween party! Laugh, enjoy, and create memories that will last a lifetime!

Monday Meanderings - Affordable Gifts

Well, January is almost over and if you are like me, you have already been to a few kid's birthday parties. With your kids being invited to so many parties, it can get expensive to supply gifts to everyone. I have scoured the Internet to come up with affordable gift ideas that you can use.

First up is Teaching Good Eaters. She put together several activities but I especially love the monster kits. How fun to "build" your own monsters.

Next we have Poopscape Projects with a great homemade Shrinky Dink project. You could put together a kit that includes the pre-cut and roughed plastic and some colored pencils, along with directions on putting together pieces.

The Artful Parent has a tutorial for dying play silks using kool aid. I just love the colors and the process seems simple to follow. You can also go to Tried and True to print out a graph of mixing kool aid packages to get certain colors. Very handy and affordable.

Creative with Kids is making me flash back to my own childhood. How cute to make the Paint with Water Pages. You could make several of the pages and also give the child a couple of paintbrushes and a small lidded container to carry water in.

Well, there are a few ideas to get you started. Each birthday party that your child gets an invitation to, does not have to cause you to panic. Put together a gift that you can afford and your child will be happy to give and make for their friend.

Monday Meanderings - Winter Fun

We are past Thanksgiving and Winter is well on the way. Here are some great activities that I found online that really encourage a happy Winter.

First we have Art. Paper. Scissors. Glue. with a great bubble print snowman. I love this activity, it is a great texture to create snowmen.

Do you have a white refrigerator? Surprise the kids by turning it into a giant snowman! Got to "Crafting" my talents for all the details. If you want to spend a little more time and money, attach the pieces to magnets and the kids can do it over and over again.

Going to a baby shower this winter? Anyone can bring a diaper cake, why not bring a diaper snowman? Check out Blowout Party for the details. I love this!

Planning on building gingerbread houses this winter? Want a genius idea for the kids? Put enough supplies in muffin tins and each child gets a muffin tin to build from. No more arguing over supplies, everyone is happy!

Have a great week!

Monday Meanderings - Halloween Costumes

Here are some more great Halloween costumes!

This pink flamingo costume is one of my favorites! It is made by Tangled and True. She does not post directions but it looks pretty clear cut. Pink shirt and pants, pink tutu, pink hat and pink feathers. The eyes could be Styrofoam balls and the bill, a stuffed sock with black felt on the end.

Here is a great owl tutorial from Pure Joy Events. This costume begins with a regular hoodie and is no sew! It doesn't have to be pink, it can be any color.

Parents Magazine has a great tutorial for an adorable Little Lamb. It is no sew and easy to put together.

This Lego costume cracks me up every time I look at. We can thank Family Fun Magazine for the specifics on how to put this together.

Okay, I have not looked for these balloons so I am not sure if they are affordable or not, but this was too cute not to post. Coolest Homemade Costumes has this Paratrooper on their page and I want to be this!

Monday Meanderings - Halloween Costumes

With Halloween fast approaching, I thought it would be a good time to post some homemade Halloween costumes that you can make inexpensively!

First we have Mom Inc Daily with an adorable Octopus Costume that she was able to whip together in no time. Not to mention, the supplies were cheap.

This next costume is on my list of possibilities! Geek Mom did an amazing job of turning her son into a tractor. Wonder if I can talk my son into being a tractor?

On Coolest Homemade Costumes they have this adorable Oompa Loompa costume that would be easy to recreate.

I will be back next week with some more great homemade costumes!

Monday Meanderings: Talk Like A Pirate Day

I love a chance to be a kid so Talk Like a Pirate Day is just what I need today.
Here are some great pirate activities for you and your family to enjoy!

Handprint and Footprint Art has a great pirate handprint craft. I love handprint and footprint crafts. It gives me something cute to see the change in my child's size.

Great Resource Childcare did several pirate activities but I really love the paper plate pirates that they made. There are no directions but they look pretty easy to make.

Here are some great Pirate Printables from 2 Teaching Mommies.  It includes Roll and Graph, Size Sequencing, Letter Match and so much more.

The Imagination Tree give a great lesson on making a treasure map and putting a realistic look of age on the paper.

The Fickle Pickle put together the cutest Pirate Birthday Party. I love the pirates games: Walk the Plank, Roll the Cannonballs and Swab the Deck.

Arrrgh Matey!

Happy Birthday Neil Armstrong!

August the 5th is Neil Armstrong's birthday, so at my house that means: "Space Party"! This year's party is a little bittersweet. After 30 years and 135 shuttle launches, the Space Program has been shut down. The shuttles are going to be on display in Virginia, New York, California and Florida. It would make a great trip for kids to see the actual shuttles that NASA has used for the last 30 years!

Shutting down NASA's Space Shuttle Program does not mean the end of astronauts or space exploration, it will just be different. If you grew up watching the space shuttles though, it is a sad occurrence.

Back to Neil Armstrong's birthday though! We celebrated it last year also and you can see those activities here. Last year's post also has some facts about that first walk upon the surface of the moon.

This year we did new activities. The first one is "Permanent Footprints". If you read last year's post then you know that the footprints that Neil Armstrong made on the moon in 1969 are still there! There is no wind or rain on the moon so footprints last forever. We talked about how to make permanent footprints on Earth and then we tried a few different activities to see what would last forever.

1) Step in water and make footprints. It is very hot here so these footprints lasted less than 5 minutes.
2) Paint our footprints. Since my son knows that I still have all of the hand and foot print activities that he has ever made (they are too adorable to get rid of), he knows that these are permanent to our family. We looked back at some of his footprint crafts and measured his current foot against them to see the growth.
3) We took Model Magic clay and made footprints. He loved doing this and we discussed how we had previously used it to make fossils.

Next we made a Rocket. This was lots of fun! We used a sheet of construction paper to make our rocket.

Fold the paper in half long ways and cut it into two even pieces.

With one piece of paper, trace a circle on one end and fins on the other end (I ended up not using the fins I had cut because they were to big for my rocket.).

Take the top of of your film canister and set the top aside. Roll the paper around your film canister, leaving the open end at the bottom edge of the paper. Tape the paper around the canister to stay.

Now tape your fins on, if you choose to use them.

Now fold your circle into a cone and tape it on.

Congrats, you just built a rocket! Now turn the rocket over and fill the canister about halfway with water. Cut an antacid tablet (like alka-seltzer) in half and drop a half in the water. Put on the top quickly and set on a steady surface. Look for it to fly!

Since I could not get a good picture of the explosion, we took a video instead!

Hawaii Craft

On August 21st, 1959 Hawaii became the 50th state of the United States. This will be a great time to make a lei with the family and even share in a tropical dinner. If you can't go to Hawaii, bring Hawaii to you!

For recipes, a good place to start will be Kids Cooking Activities.
They have a variety of recipes for theme dinners with kids and the Hawaiian Luau is no different. I love the recipe for the Creamy Tropical Drinks that are served with little umbrellas.

If your family is not very adventurous, you could always prepare a "Hawaiian Pizza", which is a pizza with tomato sauce, cheese, ham and pineapples. It is always tasty.

For a Hawaiian craft we decided to make a Lei. There are many wats to make leis but since my son is only three we went with an easy craft.

Supplies:
Yarn
Paper flowers or artificial flowers (with a hole punched in them)
Straws that are cut into 2"-3" pieces

Thread 4 pieces of straws onto your yarn then alternate between one flower and one straw piece until the lei is large enough for you. At teh end, thread on 4 more pieces of straw and then tie the yarn into a knot.

Neil Armstrong's Birthday!

Today is Neil Armstrong's birthday so I thought it would be great to share some activities with your kids about the moon. It is hard for young kids today to understand the excitement of the first man to walk on the moon so maybe a history lesson should be where we start.
Important Facts:

• In 1966, aboard Gemini 8, Neil Armstrong became the first man to perform the first manned docking of two spacecrafts with pilot David Scott.
• Armstrong's second and last spaceflight was as mission commander of the Apollo 11 moon landing mission on July 20, 1969. On this mission, Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin descended to the lunar surface and spent 2.5 hours exploring while Michael Collins remained in orbit in the Command Module. Armstrong is a recipient of the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.
• His quote as soon as his left boot touched the moon's surface "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind" is one of the most famous quotes of all time.
• 450 million people around the world heard that quote as it was aired live from space.
• 15 minutes after Armstrong stepped onto the moon's surface, Buzz Aldrin joined him.
• While preparing for liftoff from the moon's surface, they discovered that in their bulky spacesuits they had accidentally broken the ignition switch for the ascent engine. They proceeded to use part of a pen to fire the engine. Neil Armstrong still has that pen on display.
• The footprints that were left on the moon during that first space walk in 1969 are still on the surface of the moon. This is possible because there is no wind or rain on the surface of the moon so footprints last there forever.

The set up for craters

The craters

For some activities we did a few different things. First we discovered how craters are formed. This idea comes from Universe Today. We put a small layer of flour in the bottom of a cake pan and then covered it with cocoa. We were then supposed to drop marbles on the surface to act as space rocks but since we had no marbles we used out bear sorters/counters. Be forewarned, this is messy when things drop in the flour/cocoa but my son had a lot of fun doing it.

Top view of star ball

Side view of star ball

The next thing we did was make Star Balls. We took card stock and cut out 7 identical circles. We then took 6 of the circles and folded them in half and cut a slit horizontally to the fold that extended about halfway through the semi circle. Take the one remaining circle and fit it into the slits of the other six circles.

A game to play is called "Man  in the Moon". All but one child stands in a line on one side of the yard. The one single person is the Man in the Moon. He chants:

"I am the Man in the Moon.
I will catch you soon,
If you are (name a clothing color or the first letter of a name)."

Once the chant is said everyone that fits the description tries to run to the other end of the yard. If they are caught they must then assist the Man  in tagging the other players. You continue the game until everyone has been tagged.

For dinner, we made Moon Crater Pizzas. I took English muffins and sliced them in half.

We then talked about how the English muffins look like the craters we made earlier. Once that discussion was over, we spread some pizza sauce on the English muffins and covered that with pepperonis.

I had taken some time earlier to cut some of the pepperoni into halves (for the half moon), the rest were left whole to represent the full moon. Next we sprinkled on the cheese and baked it.

Hope you had fun celebrating Neil Armstrong's birthday with us.

Monday Meanderings - Back to School Fun

Well if your child has not started back to school yet, the time is quickly approaching. I did some searching for fun Back to School party ideas. I remember when I was little, my Mom would make a huge deal about the first day of school. She always took our picture and kept a school album for each of us with our back to school pictures along with our report cards. When we got home from school she would always always have a favorite snack ready for us.

Here are some websites to look at to bring some fun to back to school.

Amazing Moms has some great ideas for a party prior to the first day of school. Kind of a way to get the kids excited about the inevitable time that they will return to class. I love the real apple invitations that they suggest.

As usual, Family Fun magazine never fails to come through with fun ideas. I love the thought of the Bus Stop Bagel Bash!

I really want the teacher that wrote the information for Back to School Kinder Themes to be my child's teacher. She has some great ideas about keeping track of all the new students that teachers get each year.

Monday Meanderings - Water Play

Since the dog days of summer are now upon us the only way to stay cool is with a little water play. I have rounded up some ideas around the web to help you keep the kiddos occupied and cool.

First up is Amazing Moms with lots of great ideas. When I was young we did a variation of the ice ball surprise but instead of balloons we used plastic bowls.

TLC has some great ideas on their website also. I love the idea of the bubble pie.

Last but not least is Blisstree. The Water Balloon Toss with a Twist sounds like an easy way for me to stay cool as the balloon would probably pop every time on me.

When you go out to play in the water with the kids, do not forget the sunscreen. Now get out there and get wet and have fun doing it. Some of these ideas would also be great to use for a summer party, whether it be a birthday party or just a gathering of good friends. Enjoy what is left of summer as Fall and Winter are trying to knock on our doors.

Monday Meanderings - 4th of July Fun

The 4th of July will soon be upon us and this is a great time to celebrate with family. You can have a cook out, a pool party or go see a parade. Here are some ideas I found online to have some fun.

All Star Activities has some great ideas for lots of holiday fun but on the 4th of July they run the gamut of easy punch recipes and the more detailed watermelon that you see above.

Family Fun magazine always has some great ideas and the 4th of July is no different. They have great crafts and games to play.

Celebrations.com has some great recipes for your 4th of July party. These great recipes even include 5 different S'mores recipes.

I hope you take some time this 4th of July to enjoy good times with good friends and family. Be careful and keep a close on any kids when the fireworks are being used. Happy 4th of July!!

Family Game Night

Do you have a family game night at home yet? If not, there is no time like the present to start one. I have a few suggestions below to get you started without resorting to the same old board games that we have all played our entire lives. Don't get me wrong, I love the classic board games like Life, Monopoly, Connect Four and Battleship but they are not always easy to play with the younger set whether it be the  rules, the counting or game length. Not to mention, sometimes it is just fun to make up games strictly for your family.

Our first game will be "Family Trivia". Get some index cards and write out some facts/questions about your family. Some of the questions can be easy and some will be a little harder. Some examples could be: Who hit a home run in the family softball game at last year's reunion? (Answer: Uncle John) Who collects My Little Pony? (Answer: Cousin Emily) You can get as detailed as you would like. If the kids are pretty young, you could use photos of family and ask them to tell you one fact about them. For example, you have a picture of Aunt Sheila and the fact about her is that she lives in Kansas. Not only is this a good game for current time but it can help to keep some memories alive for your family. Cousin Emily may not always collect My Little Pony toys but it will be fun to remember when her entire room was covered in them. You could even make up new questions for a yearly version of the game.You can store the cards in an index box or a photo storage box. As you make the cards, be sure to make an answer key to keep with the cards, not to cheat by but to remember the answers years from now when the softball games are long forgotten.

Iron Chef - Home Style

Pick out a food. For example if you pick cupcakes everyone could make cupcakes and decorate them. If the kids are fairly young you could base it entirely on decorating the cupcakes since they may be to young to use the oven. At the end of the challenge then the person with the funniest or the prettiest or the most original cupcake design would be the winner. Maybe a good prize could be their choice for bedtime story or their choice for movie night.

Animal Charades

This is a great game for toddlers and older. You can get pictures of animals that everyone recognizes. Put them all in a bucket and when one is pulled out the other players have to figure out the animal they are strictly based on their actions. They are not allowed to speak. If they are toddlers and they have been acting it out for awhile with no successful guesses you may want to let them make the animal sounds to make some progress in the guessing.

These should be a good start for your Family Game Night. You do not always have to have the newest electronics or the coolest movies and games to have a good time with your family.

Monday Meanderings - Birthday Parties

Well I thought we could go over some of the great ideas that I found online for fun birthday parties. I think the current craze for birthdays is quite extravagant and most people can not afford to go over the top for parties. I would rather have a more intimate party for my child, where he and his friends can play together and have a good time. Birthdays are about having fun and celebrating, not about going broke.

I hope you can find some good ideas for any birthday parties that you have coming up soon.

The first party has a Race Car theme and was featured on Makes and Takes. The snacks and "tire cake" are very cute and there are even some great activities to do at the party that will not break the bank.

The next part is a sock monkey theme from Oh My Gluestick! The monkeys are too cute for words and she has the downloads available on her site.

The next party is a mermaid party compliments of The True Confessions of Mrs. Olson. The accessories are just adorable.

The next party up is a Bug theme and is versatile enough for boys or girls to enjoy. I love the party favors that Journey to Josie made.

As you can see, it is not hard to come up with a great affordable party. Just pick a theme that your child loves and then get a little creative. Let us know about some of your great birthday parties.

I want to close with a link to one more great blog. Party Planning Mom is a great place fro affordable party ideas. She does not just do kids parties though because as we all need, Mom & Dad need some special time also.