I love fall. Fall does something wonderful to my soul. I feel restful and calm, and yet my soul sings and lives loudly. I become alive in fall, more than any other season of the year. I feel like a seedling that aches for spring so it can sprout and grow and bloom. That's me in the fall. I plan and wait for this most awesome time of the year.
I wait and watch as the leaves begin to turn. We may not get the bold colors of the east coast, but in our little part of Southern California, we have a ton of trees that line our neighborhoods. They're glorious to watch all year as they change throughout the seasons, but especially in fall. Gorgeous beautiful trees! I watch as the days grow shorter and the sun hangs lower in the sky. The sun shines a warm golden hue upon the trees and casts long shadows upon the ground, showcasing thinning leaves. I love the crunch of leaves as I take long leisurely walks. The weather gets cooler, school starts, Halloween decorations go up, kids get costumes and candy and not to mention the food...Comforting casseroles, soups and pot roasts are slow cooked. Oh... I can go on and on about why I love fall, but the one big reason I love fall, is that my FAVORITE holiday is Halloween! It's a fun holiday for kids and adults and I try to capture the fun of the holiday season by counting down the days to Halloween.
A few years ago my kids and I started doing this countdown to Halloween and we loved making it a special part of each year. Like most kids, they look forward to Christmas too, but they love Halloween as well so Last year, I formalized my countdown activities by making a 'countdown calendar' and the 'envelope activities' so it would be easy to repeat each year. My kids and I love it and I hope you do too.
COUNTDOWN TO HALLOWEEN: THE CALENDAR
The first thing I had to do was get organized. I put together a countdown calendar which helped guide me through the activities and also helped with planning so I didn't have a lot of big activities lumped together. The calendar was for my reference only. The kids see a big basket full of wrapped and numbered gifts and envelopes. They get to open one gift or envelope each day until Halloween. (Note: I have a rule that they cannot open anything until their homework is done during the school week. It becomes motivation for them to finish the day's homework, so they can open the next countdown envelope/gift. It's win-win.)
My kids are still young, 6 and 8 so these activities are geared to that age group, but you can adjust your activities based on your children's ages and interests.
The calendar includes 5 main categories of fun; Movie Nights, Halloween Book Nights, Craft Activities, Cooking Activities and Envelope Activities. All these activities are intended to create good memories as a family and enjoy the fun fall season. These activities are not meant to be expensive, in fact, most include things I had here at home. So with just a little creativity and planning you can make some really fun activities for little or no money.
Each activity is numbered to coincide with the counting down to Halloween. The first activity is number 31 and descends down to Halloween Day as Number 1. (Example: Here is my calendar for this year.)
1. Popcorn and a Movie Nights: I remember watching "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" as a young girl when it came on TV each October. The movie signaled the Halloween holiday season. We didn't have DVDs or Netflix or Internet back then to watch holiday movies whenever we wanted. These movies were special because they only came on once a year. Watching holiday cartoon shows as a kid was part of the fun. My kids love movies nights and we have a movie night once a week normally. The boys get settled in on the couch in PJ's and popcorn and we watch a movie together. Halloween countdown honors our movie nights each week by incorporating Halloween-themed movies for the month of October. I pulled these right from the movies we had here at home and wrapped them in paper along with a microwave popcorn packet.(One boy gets to open the movie the other the popcorn...no fights.) Number these little "gifts" with the numbers according to your countdown calendar. For example: Say it is Friday Oct. 4th and the calendar says it's a movie night. Label this movie and popcorn, Number 28 according to the calendar above. Makes for fun family time!
Cost: Free
2. Halloween-themed Book Nights: This is basically the same idea as the movie night idea. I like to make book nights on Sundays or any day where I know I will have something scheduled and won't be able to do an actual activity with my kids. Plus there are days where I am just plain pooped to do anything. This is a small little something to do that doesn't require a lot of work per se on your part. Reading to them at bed time may already be a part of your nightly routine, so you could pick a fun Halloween themed book. Again I pulled these books right from their shelves and wrapped and numbered them, so it was free. If you don't have a lot of Halloween themed books to read, you can always check some books out of the library. Cost: Free
3. Craft Projects:
My boys still love to color and draw and glue or glitter anything so I still pick up the little $1 Halloween crafts that are widely available at Michael's, Target and Joann's during the months leading up to Halloween. These things are awesome and always make my kids happy. Some years, I put together a few odds and ends from my own craft stash to make a few fun craft projects for them to do. I consider the little dollar crafts filler, so I always pick up a few extra to give to the boys on days where I need a change of plans against the countdown calendar. Even if you don't use them, you can use them next year or give them to their friends to do on play-dates. Depending on how many craft nights you plan on the calendar, this is also a low investment activity. If you don't make your own crafts, the $1 bins are just great. I spent less than $10 on last year's craft days. (Wrap and number these crafts according to your countdown calendar.)Cost: ~$5 per child or free if you put your own crafts together.
4. Cooking Activities:
The picture to the right was from last year. I found these aluminum cake tins shaped like jack-o-lanterns at the Dollar Store. I included these cake tins, a cake mix, and some $1 fall-
Cost: Price of a box of Cake Mix. I pick up a few boxes when they go on sale. I can get them for less than $1 on sale. The sprinkles, tins and cupcake liners are all about a $1 each. The dollar store is a great place to go to get inexpensive Halloween baking stuff. I live at that store! :)
Some of the other cooking activities include making Halloween cupcakes. Buy some cute Halloween themed cupcake liners with picks and sprinkles. Halloween cookies cutters and a box of sugar cookie mix, icing and sprinkles. Another idea is to make candy necklaces. Get some shoestring licorice and a box of Apple Jacks (since they are orange and green) and have the kids make their own necklaces.
Cost: Free or low cost when you use ingredients you have on hand and buy on clearance.
5. Envelope Activities:
The envelope activities are meant to be family activities that will create good memories for my boys. Most of these are free activities but some of them will require a little investment for a fun day out. The envelopes contain cards that have various activities on them. The envelopes are numbered according to the countdown calendar.
Here are the cards I made for my kids last year. I went a little overboard and scrapbooked each card so they'd look festive, but you can make them more simply if you prefer. The idea was so they can be reused each year. As my boys get older, I'll have to pull some cards out and come up with others.
Decorate the House for Fall: I'm always excited when the first day of fall comes around. In fact, I mark my calendar with a big red circle noting the importance of the day in my household. So not surprising, based on my extreme love of fall, the first envelope that my kids open to kick off the countdown is this one. (Envelope #31) Decorating takes us a week or so but for ease, I have marked the countdown calendar to begin this on Sept 29 instead of the first day of fall but you can just as easily do this on Oct 1 to kick off October. It's up to you. I'll be posting some decorating ideas in upcoming Fall blogs.
Cost: Free
Get Halloween Costumes: I do realize buying costumes can get pretty expensive and usually I'd be up to making the costumes myself if my kids weren't still on their Star Wars kick. They want the costumes from the stores. So because of that I usually put the 'Get costume envelope' early in the month of October. If you wait too long, they will all be picked over and they won't get the ones they want. The benefit of having two boys however, is that the younger one has a full stash of older costumes from his big brother and a lot of times he will just wear his brothers old one. This year I think they both want to be clones from Star Wars...again. But we'll see. Here's an old pic of my kiddos from a few years ago when they went through the superhero phase. Too cute!
Cost: $$ Depends on whether costumes are made or purchased.
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| Halloween 2010 |
Go to Tanaka Farms for Pumpkin Picking:
Tanaka Farms is a local working farm in Southern California. During the fall season, it has fun wagon rides, corn mazes and pumpkin picking right out of the fields. Since this year I'm growing my own pumpkins, we may not go to Tanaka farms to pick pumpkins but if anything happens to them before harvest time, we'll go. I think it's important for my kids to know where food comes from. And not just from the store but how it comes to be in the stores. Living in a suburb of a very large city, we often forget about all the work that goes into providing food for the masses. I know from my own garden that what you grow doesn't always make it to harvest because of insects or other critters that eat up your veggies. I won't be getting any tomatoes this year due to the critters that ate every green tomato I had one night. Ugh! Anyway, my kids love it as you can see from the pictures below. Last year, they filled up a whole wheel barrow with pumpkins. Cost: $ variable depending on how many pumpkins you purchase.
Go to Pumpkin Park for Playdate:
We have a local park that has a pumpkin chariot on the playground, kind of like the one from Cinderella. Because of that, we affectionately called the park "Pumpkin Park". It makes for a fun active day for my boys with their friends.
Cost: Free
We have a local park that has a pumpkin chariot on the playground, kind of like the one from Cinderella. Because of that, we affectionately called the park "Pumpkin Park". It makes for a fun active day for my boys with their friends.
Cost: Free
Collect Leaves from Bunny Park: One of the great things about living here is that we have a lot of beautiful parks. "Bunny Park" is also an affectionate nickname given due to the massive amount of bunnies present at the park. A teaming hoard of rabbits will reveal themselves if you bring a bag of carrots or left over salad scraps. My kids love to watch them eat and hop around and I have to admit, I do too. Aside from the cute bunnies, the trees are beautiful too and have tons of leaves to collect and talk about. Many moons ago, I got my degree in Biochemistry and even though I don't work in that industry anymore, I still love Science and nature. I make it a point to take my kids out to enjoy nature and I tell them all about trees, leaves, seed pods, life cycles and changing seasons. I even throw in a bit of Chemistry when I can. Lots of fun and they are learning too. I'm glad my boys are inquisitive and love to collect leaves and talk about them. This is one of my favorite things to do with them. In fact, we end up collecting leaves all season long and well into winter since a lot of leaves don't actually change 'color' out here in California until winter. If they see a pretty leaf, they will pick it up and bring it home. We use all the leaves they collect to decorate the house and front porch.
Cost: Free
This is basically a wild card envelope where the kids get to choose what to do that day. Sometimes there are things that come up that we may not have known about the previous year that the kids want to do. Like going to a Movie or repeating a low cost activity we've already done.
Cost: Variable
Make Tortilla Jack-O-Lanterns: My boys love to make these Smiling Jacks. My oldest son 's Kindergarten teacher made these for her class a few years back and he came home, so happy, waving a sheet of paper containing the recipe saying, "Mama we have to make these for Halloween!" Since then, we've made these 'Smiling Jacks' a part of our Halloween traditions. The boys love these!! Plus it's so fun to see how they fry up. The golden brown bubbles transform the faces of each creation. Some look funny, others look a little bit scary, but they're all equally yummy. Here's a picture from last year. Cost: Free with ingredients you have on hand.
Tortilla Jack-O-Lanterns (Smiling Jacks)
Flour tortillas
Canola oil for frying
Cinnamon-sugar for topping (1 cup sugar plus 1 t cinnamon)
Cut face shapes into tortillas with plastic knives and/or cookie cutters.
Fry tortillas in oil until lightly brown. Transfer to a paper towel to drain.
Sprinkle with cinnamon-sugar. Eat!
Go to a Pumpkin Patch:
Pumpkin patches start popping up in late September around here and every time we drive past one, my kids go nuts wanting to go. These roadside carnivals are expensive. No beating around the bush on this fact. So this idea may not be a good option for some. But if you look online, most of the established pumpkin patches who operate each year, will have coupons or specials for unlimited rides on certain days. If you do a little bit of homework and check out your local paper for deals you can plan a day of it for a small investment. We try to do one each year so that the kids will have great memories of going to the Pumpkin Patch each Halloween. The reward for me is, I get to take pictures of my kids with bright orange pumpkins. Here's a pic of my kids from last year.
Cost: $$ variable
Take a walk to look at Halloween decorations:
This is so much fun. Rather than driving a car around to take a look at Halloween decorations in our neighborhood, we walk. We leave at dusk and watch the decorations come on. The air is cool and the leaves crunch beneath our feet as we see the scary and elaborate decorations of our neighbors. Our neighborhood likes to decorate so it makes for a lot of fun. My kids don't like to be scared so it gives them a chance to see all the houses they want to go trick-or-treating at and the ones they don't if they are too scary. In a few years, I imagine they will want to go to the Haunted Houses.
Cost: Free
Buy Halloween Candy:
My kids love to pick out the Halloween candy we hand out to trick-o-treaters, so we make it an event. After they finish their homework that particular day, we head out to the store. They make their choices and when we get home they pour the candy into our big Halloween bowl. I plan this activity fairly close to Halloween so they don't eat it all before the big day but I do let them sample their candy choices. We all sample a little...Yum!
Cost: $ small investment
Canola oil for frying
Cinnamon-sugar for topping (1 cup sugar plus 1 t cinnamon)
Cut face shapes into tortillas with plastic knives and/or cookie cutters.
Fry tortillas in oil until lightly brown. Transfer to a paper towel to drain.
Sprinkle with cinnamon-sugar. Eat!
Pumpkin patches start popping up in late September around here and every time we drive past one, my kids go nuts wanting to go. These roadside carnivals are expensive. No beating around the bush on this fact. So this idea may not be a good option for some. But if you look online, most of the established pumpkin patches who operate each year, will have coupons or specials for unlimited rides on certain days. If you do a little bit of homework and check out your local paper for deals you can plan a day of it for a small investment. We try to do one each year so that the kids will have great memories of going to the Pumpkin Patch each Halloween. The reward for me is, I get to take pictures of my kids with bright orange pumpkins. Here's a pic of my kids from last year.
Cost: $$ variable
Take a walk to look at Halloween decorations: This is so much fun. Rather than driving a car around to take a look at Halloween decorations in our neighborhood, we walk. We leave at dusk and watch the decorations come on. The air is cool and the leaves crunch beneath our feet as we see the scary and elaborate decorations of our neighbors. Our neighborhood likes to decorate so it makes for a lot of fun. My kids don't like to be scared so it gives them a chance to see all the houses they want to go trick-or-treating at and the ones they don't if they are too scary. In a few years, I imagine they will want to go to the Haunted Houses.
Cost: Free
Buy Halloween Candy:My kids love to pick out the Halloween candy we hand out to trick-o-treaters, so we make it an event. After they finish their homework that particular day, we head out to the store. They make their choices and when we get home they pour the candy into our big Halloween bowl. I plan this activity fairly close to Halloween so they don't eat it all before the big day but I do let them sample their candy choices. We all sample a little...Yum!
Cost: $ small investment
Haunted Jail:The haunted Jail is a local free carnival our Sheriff's put on for the community each October, usually the Friday before Halloween. The Haunted Jail is a fun event where the community comes out to support our local Sheriff's Department, kids dress in costume to play games, go through through the Haunted Jail mazes, jump on bouncers and eat food. Our local fire department brings fire trucks and ambulances that the kids can sit in and try on hats and learn about our various local heroes and the work they do. The sheriff department has their vehicles too. Last year they added a few craft booths. This is a low cost event where you just pay for food and make a small donation for next year's Haunted Jail event. Look through your local paper or city websites to give you ideas of the free or low cost activities to do with your family and support your community. I love this event because I feel connected and happy to live in such a great community with great people.
Cost: cost of food and small donation
(Envelope#2) Pull out the pumpkin carving kits and let them go at it. We carve pumpkins the night before Halloween. After their works of art are complete, we light em up. Sprinkle some pumpkin pie spice to the inside of the pumpkin top/lid to add a little scent as the candle burns.
Cost: Free
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
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