Week In Review: October 27 - October 31

Quite the busy week that began with cooking and taste testing different pumpkin-y foods and ended with our fun daycare Halloween party. Here's a look:

The kids made pumpkin muffins, watched me cook pumpkin seeds, had pumpkin pancakes, and sampled pumpkin pudding. The pudding was the least favorite of all of the pumpkin food.

We watched numerous Halloween movies, including "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" and "Curious George Boo Fest." I'm more than happy to not watch CG Boo Fest for a nice long time. Seeing it every day, at least once a day, for an entire month is enough for me!

They turned the Magformers Magnetic Building Construction Set - 62 Piece Designer Set into a carnival. They used a Lego elephant to perform in their circus and Lego people (DUPLO Community Figures set Compatible with Lego Duplo (16 Pcs)) as the spectators.

The kids went into the front yard to collect the gigantic leaves falling from our sycamore trees.

The kids studied the leaves, drew their own leaves, and traced the leaves. Max also measured one for the kids and reported his findings as "it's a REALLY big leaf!"

We made ghost cups for outside decorations: http://ashlen-kidspert.blogspot.com/2014/10/ghost-cups.html

The kids made paper bag pumpkins. Stuff old newspaper inside a lunch bag (we had white ones left over from our ghost puppets, you could easily use brown bags so you don't have to paint the stems), use a orange, green, or brown pipe cleaner to close the bag, paint the outside orange. I had to help a few of the younger kids paint their paper bag pumpkins, but all of the kids did a great job with this project.

One of their favorite snacks: Scrabble Cheez-Its. It takes quite a while for the kids to eat their letters because they have to ask me "what letter is this?" before they eat it.

We had a Halloween Cupcake Day. The kids played with the play food cupcakes, coffee beans, we read "If You Give A Cat A Cupcake" and we decorated Halloween cupcakes.

The kids LOVE these coffee beans. They pour them, scoop them, count them, pretend to feed the dolls, and shake them in the cups. Easiest two hours of entertainment I've ever handed them.

The kids love this cupcake set: Melissa & Doug Bake and Decorate Cupcake Set

Cupcake decorating always gets messy!

Some kids just eat the frosting....

Harrison got to spend a morning at Iowa Orchards with his school. Elizabeth got to tag along. She thought she was hot stuff for going with the "school kids" and spent the afternoon bragging to the daycare kids she got to go "to pumpkin patch school."

I took a day off and went to Harrison's school Halloween party, took the two littlest minis to lunch, set up for our Pre-Trick or Treat party, and hosted 30+ people for our party and trick or treating. It was a fun and exhausting day. Read more about it here: http://ashlen-kidspert.blogspot.com/2014/10/pre-trick-or-treat-party.html

We ended our week with our Daycare Halloween Party: http://ashlen-kidspert.blogspot.com/2014/11/daycare-halloween-party.html

Next week we'll be going into full Thanksgiving mode. We'll talk about Thanksgiving, what we're thankful for, read our Thanksgiving books, and the kids will have a chance to make Trees of Thanks.