Shreveport - Bossier City
Some fun and simple party activities for the kids:
1) Hold a "guesstimation" contest, which is a Halloween decorated jar of candy corn. Have kids guess how many are in the jar and winner get the jar of candy corn plus a prize. This teaches approximation and spacial awareness skills.
2) Turn a clothespin bag into a "monster" and clothespins into little "bats" for a toss game. use spray paint clothespin black and glue one eyes and wings (construction paper).
3) Use leftover plastic Easter eggs to make hairy troll monsters. Use Easter basket grass, eyes and whatever else you have on hand. Get your kids involved in making these...they can be so creative with these little monsters.
Halloween is an exciting time of year for kids, and to help ensure they have a safe holiday, here are some tips from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). Feel free to excerpt these tips or use them in their entirety for any print or broadcast story, with acknowledgment of source.
ALL DRESSED UP:
CARVING A NICHE:
HOME SAFE HOME:
ON THE TRICK-OR-TREAT TRAIL:
HEALTHY HALLOWEEN:
Use your favorite variety of Halloween gift bags - witches, ghosts, Frankenstein, pumpkins - to insert your favorite houseplant. Airplane plants, Mother In Law's Tongue, etc. and other similar house plants work great as hair and tentacles coming out of the bags for a the Halloween theme. Give as gifts and user as house and office decorations.
Pick a pumpkin with a smooth, firm shell, free of cracks and splits, and has a sturdy stem. Make an opening for a candle, or glow stick for a safer Halloween, by cutting the top off as desired. Scoop out the pulp and thin the inside with a sculpting tool or spoon until shell is abut an inch thick all the way around.
1. Cookie Cutters: Tin-lated-steel cookie cutters can make designs easily.
2. Mallet: Tap the cookie cutter with a rubber mallet to cut through the pumpkin. A hammer with a thick borad over the cookie cutter will work great to.
3. Power drill bits: Create different size holes for patters.
4. Craft Saw: Use to carve.
5. Grease Pencil: Mark your designs and trace templates.
1. To keep bugs off your pumpkin, spray the outside of the pumpkin with 16 ounces water and 1 tablespoon bleach. Let it sit for one minute, the wipe off with a clean towel.
2. Display cut pumpkins in a cook, dry place out of direct sunlight to make them last longer. Most pumpkins last up to 2 weeks.
3. If the shell or stem gets wet, dry it off immediately.
Buy Back:
Have them pick out their 10 favorite pieces to be enjoyed in the upcoming days and then buy the rest off of them. Maybe $5 for the bag. They can put it in their piggy bank feel rewarded for giving up their candy and you can take the candy into your office and get it out of the house.
Some dentists will buy candy by the lb from kids and give them a new toothbrush. LOVE THIS!
Switch Witch:
Create a fantasy Halloween Witch that switches candy or a present on Halloween night.
Candy Fairy:
Create a fantasy, like the toothfairy, that a special fairy comes during the night to take all the candy and leave a special present.
Ah, the joys of Halloween. That longed for moment when everyone can finally dress up in their favorite costumes to wow and scare their neighbors, friends and family has finally arrived. After thinking about what to wear for a full year, the night finally arrives when your plans can be put into place for a memorable night with those you love.
Of course, even though Halloween is meant to be a fun filled evening, you as the parent need to ensure that your children are safe particularly if they are spending their evening going door to door asking for treats and delivering tricks.
In order to ensure that everyone has a safe and fun Halloween consider these five safety tips:
1. Be a chaperone. Even though it's likely that your child or children will want to have a Halloween that is adult free you should resist this urge to give in, especially if they are young children. Why not get a few of your children's friends together while the adults keep an eye on them from afar. This way they can still have fun and you can rest assured that they are safe as you all walk together going from door to door.
2. Know where they are at all times. If for some reason you can't act as a chaperone and no one else can fill in for you that you trust, then set a perimeter that your children can go around. By doing so you will know where they are heading and where they will be coming from.
3. Trick 'o' Treat in large groups. By making sure that there are more than three together means that it is less likely for them to be targeted by a potential predator. Three or less means that one could stray from the group leaving one vulnerable, while more than three means that there will always be at least two people together.
4. Communication. Another way of keeping tabs on your child or children is by making sure that they have access to a cell phone. Before they venture out make sure that they know how to use it and that they know the home phone number by heart. They may not need to use it, but for your peace of mind it's better to have them prepared.
5. Set a time. Give them a time that they must be home by. Depending on their age you may be more or less lenient. Only you as the parent can decide the time frame, but this will help you to ensure that they know they have to be home for a set time. If they don't arrive at the time stated you can either ring them on their cell phone or head out to search for them in the set perimeter you gave them.
By putting these measures into place you can ensure that everyone has a memorable Halloween that can be enjoyed by all. Even though your child's safety is important that doesn't mean they have to miss out on having fun. That can still be achieved through simple means, that you as the parent enforce. So instead of worrying about the potential dangers lurking in the dark you can rest assured that they are safe as they spend the evening giving people a scare.
This article has been brought to you by Best Stun Gun
Your Halloween breakfast does an about face!
Why serve a run-of-the-mill muffin when you can dress it up as a goofy, spooky - and scrumptious - fiend? Whether you serve it as a Halloween breakfast or a special anytime snack, the Muffin-Top Monster, from Adrian Fiorino's Insanewiches: 101 Ways to Think Outside the Lunchbox (St. Martin's Griffin, 2011), is a welcome surprise.
For kicks, try using other cereal and candy for decoration.
Ingredients:
2 large store-bought muffins, any flavor
2 tablespoons almond butter
6 green jelly beans
1 red jujube
Small tube green frosting
2 green Froot Loops®
8 strands fiber cereal (like Kellogg's® All-Bran®)
Instruments:
Bread knife, spoon, toothpick
Directions:
1. Cut the tops off 2 muffins using the bread knife.
2. Flip 1 muffin top over so the rounded side is facing down.
3. Spread with almond butter using spoon.
4. Line jelly beans along the front edge of the flipped muffin top.
5. Place the second muffin top on top of the jelly beans so the rounded part is facing up.
6. Above each eye, place four fiber cereal strands as the eyebrows.
7. Poke a toothpick into the jujube.
8. Stick the jujube into the upper muffin top as the nose.
9. Dab frosting onto each Froot Loop so they will adhere, and place them onto the upper muffin top as eyes.
Serves 2
Text and photographs copyright 2011, by Adrian Fiorino. All rights reserved.
Halloween kids' projects for you and your little goblins.
Pasta Skeletons:
Kids can bone up on anatomy and create a fun Halloween decoration at the same time when they make a skeleton out of noodles. With an illustration of a skeleton as a guide, they just need lots of dried pasta, white glue, and construction paper to assemble the pictures. We snapped some of the pasta in half and used alphabet-soup noodles to make labels.
Ghost Necklace:
Craft a ghostly necklace using simple supplies: Draw ghost outlines on parchment paper with white glue; let set five seconds. Fill in with more glue. Let dry two days, and peel off. Draw face with felt-tip pen. Punch small holes at top; weave string through.
You can do use shrinky dinks to create ghost charms. Buy shrinky dinks at Hobby Lobby or Michael's. Remember they shrink so be sure to cut it larger before heating. Also, get the clear kind you can easily draw on.
Pumpkin Seed Necklace:
Scoop out a pumpkin and place the seeds and pulp in a bowl of water. The seeds will quickly separate from the fibers and float to the top. Remove seeds and rinse them, then place them, in a single layer, on a paper towel or cookie sheet. Let dry at room temperature 6 to 8 hours. Do not let seeds dry too long before stringing them, as they will become brittle and hard to work with. Thread a sewing needle with silk beading cord, and pierce seeds, stringing them in the patterns shown at top (tie knots in between for spaces) or your own. Knot cord.
Martha Stewart Living, October 2001
Martha Stewart Living, October 2001
Silhouetted in an open door, a pumpkin spiked with orange- and chocolate-flavored lollipops resembles a folk-art Sputnik. A paper bat hovers over the mysterious pod, inviting passersby to enjoy the mischievous illusion -- the pumpkin is carved from synthetic foam -- before helping themselves to a treat.
Pumpkin How-To
For this project, it's best to use a synthetic foam pumpkin. (The moisture found in real pumpkin flesh will turn the lollipops' paper sticks soggy.)
1. Cover every other rib with low-tack masking tape, and then, using a flexible tape measure, make dots every 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 inches down the side of the pumpkin. Punch through dots with an awl, or use a power drill with a 9/64-inch bit; remove tape.
2. Fill holes with orange and chocolate-flavored pops, alternating flavors from one rib to the next and keeping sticks a uniform length to maintain the spherical shape. Top with a black paper bat bearing a message in opaque ink; place pumpkin on a table outside your front door and in a sheltered spot.
Keep plenty of pops in reserve -- you'll be surprised how quickly they disappear.
Make your own…there are great ideas online through different parenting magazines.
Shop for props/costumes at local thrift stores and consignment sales and resale stores - or local stores - Shopping.
Exchange your child's costume with another parent by using our FREE Classifieds. Trade your child's costume from the previous year and find something different for the current year.
You probably have dress-up clothes - go through that and have the kids get creative with something they already own.
Spider and Spider Web
Dress up as a spider web - a white sheet, with black webbing attached - and dress your child a little spider - all black w/ legs. This works great if your child is young and is carried around.
Don't spend a fortune on costumes when you can make them yourself.
For example, the year after my daughter 'graduated' from K-5, I had a gold graduation gown in my closet collecting dust. A little fancy ribbon around the edges and some glued-on jewels, and she had a gown fit for a princess! We used a 50cent crown you can buy on the party isle at walmart, and I wrapped the fancy ribbon around her sandals and hot glued it on to serve as princess slippers. Likewise, for my son, I lucked into an Indian brave top at a local consignment sale for $3.00. He wore kaki pants with it, his sandals, and for a headband I cut up some white rags I had, whipped out the craft paints, and decorated a headband any brave would be proud to wear. For two kids I spent maybe $10, and they had a ball in their costumes.
Submitted by Julie
Host a Halloween costume party for your kid’s friends.
Have other parents help with snacks, goodies and games. This is a great way to get together with your mom’s group. Families can bring a decorated pumpkin for a contest. It can be fun to pre-bake sugar cookies with Halloween cookie cutters. The kids can decorate them when they get back from trick-or-treating.
Fun alternatives to handing out candy:
Stickers, bags of pretzels, trinket toys, coins, toothbrushes, popcorn, pencils...oriental trading and the dollar store are great places to find stuff.
Eat a healthy dinner.
Try to get a healthy dinner into your kids before you go out. This way they will not just fill up on candy and have complete sugar melt-downs right before bed.
Find us on Facebook
Twitter
RSS