Wednesday, October 1, 2008

It's October!

October is my favorite month - fall fairs, crisp air, warm days and cool nights, apple picking, gourds, PUMPKINS (have I mentioned pumpkins are my favorite thing?), Halloween ... September is a close second, but October is definitely my favorite month. We set up our Halloween village recently and broke out the Halloween box (a huge rubbermaid tote full of Halloween books, magazines, toys, CDs and tapes, puzzles, craft supplies, molds/cookie cutters, etc.) and have been having a ball going through everything. Holden has a new favorite book, "The Ugly Pumpkin". He fond this at the library a couple of weeks ago, and has almost worn holes through it so I had to buy him his own copy. It came in the mail today - you should have seen how his eyes lit up! He knows all the words and reads it to anyone/everyone he can. I am going to have to get a video of him reading it, but that will require me figuring out how to use the camcorder. Ok, well, I can take a video, but once it is on that little tiny tape, I have no idea what to do with it. I have tons of those tapes from when McKenna was really little, but have never figured out how to watch them so I haven't taken any of Holden. Poor kid!

McKenna's current favorite Halloween books are the Alice and Greta books, "Alice and Greta" and "Greta's Revenge". I am trying to instill the "Brewmarang Principle" in my kids ... whatever you chant, whatever you brew, sooner or later comes back to you. unlike Holden, though, McKenna has new favorite books every day. But Alice and Greta have been her favorites for years.

Tomorrow is our first pumpkin picking (and second apple picking) excursion of the year. We are all excited. Holden plans to find the ugliest pumpkin he can to bing home. Having he book is simply not enough; he needs to have the actual ugly pumpkin in his possession as well. He comes by it honestly though; after finding the perfect carving pumpkin, I always am on the look out for the oddest looking pumpkins I can find.

In honor of my favorite month of October, I wanted to have a little contest. The winner will receive a free little handmade Halloween plaything from us, but I am not telling what ;) Post your favorite October activities (you can post as a comment) between now and October 16th, and I will pick my favorite of your favorites on the 17th. You can post as many favorite things as you wish. We are always looking for new things to do to celebrate fall and Halloween!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wrapping the Mummy - Two groups and 2 mummy's and its the quickest group to wrap the mummy in 2 toilet rolls

Halloween - Make as many words out of the word Halloween and the winner wins a prize

Hunt the ghost - Get some lolly pops wrap them in toilet roll and ribbon to make ghosts and draw on eyes and hide them for the
children to find , great fun get enough lolly pops for everyone to find/win one

Apple Dunking - Put red or green dye in the water, the night before fill a rubber glove with water tie the top and pop in the freezer. Just before apple dunking you can turn the glove inside out and put your now frozen hand in the coloured water with the apple. Kids will love this! ( a friend told me this on which we will be doing this year )

Anonymous said...

Pumpkin Art:

You can roast some pumpkin seeds for various lengths of time (this changes the colours) get lots of glue and paper and once cooled you can make pictures using the seeds. Like mosaics x

Punpkin Carving

Face Painting- i love face painting too

Anonymous said...

Halloween Bowling

Get some small pumpkins and some pastic skittles or empty soda bottles and play pumpkin bowls to win prizes

Anonymous said...

Feeding the Bats

Put some clean, new mousetraps on the floor with small stuffed mice on them. Tape a picture of a bat on a fishing pole and hand it to the children, one at a time. When it’s their turn to use the pole, children must try to snag the mice with them without setting the trap. Any child whose “bat” can catch a mouse gets a small prize. For children who are able to get more than one, the prizes should become larger as the number of captured mice increases.