Hungry Monster People Toss

Here is one last easy Halloween game to play with kids.

Perhaps you have done a bean bag toss at a Halloween party before.  Well, since it is Halloween, we decided to do a people toss instead.

I made a monster face on a piece of cardboard, taped it to a basket, and leaned it against a wall. Jason looked at it and said "It's not your best artwork, huh?"  Thanks for the support hon.  (As a side note, I like to do these on flat pieces of poster board or cardboard and tape on a box or basket because then they are easier to store and reuse.)

We gathered up playmobil people, fisher price little people and imaginext people as our victims.  The kids lined up and took turns tossing 5 people into the hungry monster's mouth.  Each time they made one in, instead of cheering, we decided to scream like the people getting eaten.  I know, that's a bit gruesome, but it was also a bit funny.  We did several rounds and the kids had fun.

Happy Halloween!

Lair of the Spider Queen: Halloween Game

This is a fun Halloween party game, or anytime game! The kids get really excited to play every Fall. 

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This afternoon when my kids came downstairs from quiet time they found that our hallway had been invaded by spiders.  They had to use some super adventurer skills to get through safely.

Similar to the laser beam challenge from Maren's spy party last year, I taped white streamers around the hallway and poked spider rings through the streamers, making a fun obstacle course for the kids.

The kids decided it was the lair of the spider queen, and if you knocked down a string of web (streamer) it meant you had been caught and eaten.  When Joshua knocked one down he insisted the spider had only eaten his leg, so he could keep going.

Then the kids thought we should make the entrance to her cave a bit spookier, so we hung some streamers and Maren made a sign.  The kids had a great time playing adventurers for a long while.

This would be a fun halloween party game, or a fun game for a rainy fall day.

   

If you liked this game, be sure to check out the rest of our Halloween ideas on the blog. Also check out the ideas we're collecting on Pinterest.

Follow Erin (Chicken Babies)'s board Halloween Ideas on Pinterest.

Easy and Fun Monster Meals

Occasionally when Jason is not going to be home for dinner, I like to do a "fancy restaurant" with the kids to help pass the time.  Usually I just type up a menu of whatever leftovers and easy things we have to eat in the fridge, put a tablecloth on the table, and use my fancy waiter voice.  But, since it is October, I decided to do a Monster Meal Menu, just to make things more fun.

Originally I had grand plans to make some of the really cute foods I had been seeing around pinterest for Halloween, like the jello worms or edible spider webs, but I just didn't have time to make them before dinner.  So, I just used what I had and gave things spooky names to make it fun.

I told the kids they had to pretend they were monsters going out to dinner.  I used my fancy monster restaurant voice, and took their orders.  I refused to tell them what each item was, even though last Christmas I had broken down and told them when we did something similar.  This time I just wasn't going to do it.  They had to just guess.  Here is what I had on the menu, with what they are in parentheses.

Maren's order

Main Dish (all meals served with Witch's Brew and Fingers)(colored ginger ale and breadsticks)

Dragon’s eyeballs, tongue, and crackers (mini babybel cheese, ham, crackers)

Mummy (english muffin pizza)

Rat tails with ketchup (thinly sliced hot dogs)

Fruit and Veggies (choose 2 or 3)

Rat Droppings (raisins)

Ghost (banana)

Witch Warts (grapes)

Blood Blisters (grape tomatoes)(you could serve this with "pus", aka Ranch Dressing. Ha! That's gross.)

Chunks of Zombie Hearts (chunks of watermelon)

Dessert

Witch hat (hershey kiss on a cookie)

skeleton bones (mini marshmallows at the end of pretzel sticks)

ghost poop (mini marshmallows)

The kids ordered and then ran outside to play while I got their plates ready.  The plates were very easy to assemble. Most things required no preparation, just imagination. 

To make dragons eyes, I used Betty Crocker food coloring pens on those cute little babybel cheeses (although the food coloring didn't soak in very well, so I would recommend dabbing it with a paper towel to avoid messy hands). I also used the food coloring pens to put a face on the ghost banana.

To make the fingers, I shaped pillsbury breadstick dough before baking, and after it had cooled off a bit after baking I pushed a candy corn into the tip for a fingernail. 

 For the Witch's Brew, I put a few drops of food coloring at the bottom of each glass, then covered it with ice. I kept the glasses on the counter by me so they couldn't look too closely.  I told the kids they could have water or ginger ale (Christopher won't drink anything but water) and they were surprised to see the ginger ale magically change color when it was poured into the glass.  I think that may have been their favorite part of the meal, actually.  They wanted to try the trick on daddy when he got home later.

To make the mummy pizza, I toasted an english muffin, then spread some pizza sauce on top and layered on strips of string cheese. Sliced olives made the eyes. I broiled it to melt the cheese and then it was done. It only took about 5 minutes to make. 

For desserts, I made witch's hats with an upside down fudge striped cookie, a hershey kiss, and a bit of frosting I had leftover from another dessert. 

The kids had fun eating like monsters and asking for more "warts" and "zombie hearts". 

This was a good reminder to me that my kids like simple things just fine.  I had wanted to do a lot more with decorating the table spooky or having candles, but just didn't have the energy or time for it, and had considered not doing anything since I couldn't do everything I had imagined, but the kids didn't miss it. They enjoyed it and thought it was fun even without all the extras.  

It just goes to show that all kids really need to have fun is a bit of imagination to turn regular items into something special! That's good for me to remember.

More Favorite Halloween Books

Here are some more Halloween Books that I like to read with my kids that you might want to check out of the library or add to your collection (everyone collects books, right?)  Maybe I should also do a post about Halloween Books I don't like to read and that you should avoid buying at all costs.  hmmmm.

Five Little Pumpkins illustrated by Dan Yaccarrino

My kids love singing this one and looking at the pictures, plus it goes fast so it's great when I'm in a hurry.

The Spooky Old Tree by Stan and Jan Berenstain
I've loved this book since I was a little kid, and I love reading it to my kids.












Spooky Riddles by Marc Brown
Another one I remember reading when I was little.  The kids get a kick out of it.  

The Widow's Broom by Chris Van Allsburg
My older kids love this story about a widow who finds a witch's broom.









Goodnight Goon by Michael Rex
Older children who remember Goodnight Moon will appreciate this parody.












Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich by Adam Rex
This book is full of monster nonsense.  It's great for older kids to read to themselves.  It's a bit long as a read aloud for me.






(last year's halloween book list)

Glitter Sticker Alphabet Cards

I had looked into buying some montessori sandpaper alphabet cards as a tactile way to help teach Christopher to write the alphabet but didn't want to spend a lot of money on them.  When I was at Joann's the other day, I found a sheet of large glitter alphabet stickers on clearance for $1.50 and I thought they would make a good substitute.  I used blue cardstock for the consonants and red for the vowels. Christopher helped me put the stickers on.  Christopher likes tracing over them with his fingers and hopefully this will help him later write them with a pencil. They might not last as long as the store bought sandpaper ones, but they work for us.

Candy Corn Math - place values

This is a great elementary school math game to help kids understand and remember place value!

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Joshua's math workbook has been focusing on place value recently, which really isn't all that exciting to do on paper, so I thought I'd help make things a bit fun. We set up 3 pumpkins to represent ones, tens, and hundreds (the hundreds were the furthest away, and you can add more buckets for practice with higher numbers too).  Then I gave him 10 pieces of candy corn.  He stood on the mat and threw the candy corn into the buckets and then we wrote down how many he had in each bucket.  

The first time he got 2 hundreds, 1 ten and 1 one.  Then I had a turn tossing and he wrote down my score and we saw who had the larger number.  

We did this a few times and then decided to make it a bit trickier.  We each did 3 rounds in a row, and then he added up how hundreds, tens and ones he had combined and added up mine as well to see who the winner was.  

Whoever won got to eat the tossing candy corn.  And yeah, I let him win, because who really wants to eat candy corn that's been handled that much and on the ground that much.  Only kids.  Of course, Maren and Christopher had to also have a turn tossing the candy.  Christopher didn't really get the whole place value thing, but he did a good job counting how many were in each bucket, and that's about all you need for a preschooler.  For Maren I probably should have made each bucket be something like a x4 or x5 so she could practice her multiplication and then have her add all the numbers together, but I didn't.  Maybe next time.  

This works well for older kids too. All you have to do is add thousands, ten thousands, hundred thousands, millions, etc . . .

And while we're on the subject of candy corn, I just feel I should mention that the only kind of candy corn that is any good to eat is Brach's candy corn, and if you've never had it and you are basing your poor judgement of candy corn on inferior brands, you shouldn't.  That's all.