More Halloween Fun with the Grands

You won't have your grands for Halloween, but you still want in on the fun? Invite them over early and plan activities around a Halloween book. That's exactly what I did this weekend. My grandson from Dallas was visiting. I knew he would be doing all the traditional things at home--carving a pumpkin, eating candy, trick-or-treating. I decided to do something different with him. We planned our fun around some books.

These are the new books I bought for this year.

I can read it myself!

I think he likes this Halloween train one.

Planning an art activity around a book. That's easy. It's Halloween so we had to make paper jack o' lanterns. We made them out of orange paper just like you would make a Japanese paper lantern. All you have to do is add pumpkin details. I've included a website for this activity at the bottom of my blog. We also added an LED tea light in case you want to showcase it in the dark. 

Easy Halloween lanterns.

We thought it was especially spooky when we added an LED tea light and put it in a darkened room. Ooooo.......

We even put the lantern on a stick and had a Halloween parade.

Extending the books with COOKING fun--my personal favorite!  Both books included mummy characters, so for dinner one night we had mummy hotdogs. I'm sure you've done this with your kids and grandkids. Just roll out canned biscuits, cut them in strips, and use them to wrap a hotdog and bake in the oven. You can easily find the recipe/how-to's online.

Cutting the dough into strips with a pizza cutter.

It requires just a little tongue action.

We forgot to get a picture, but we used dots of mustard for mummy eyes.

We can't forget dessert! We took a lesson from Erica Silverman's book, "Big Pumpkin." The witch in the story plants a pumpkin because she loves to eat pumpkin pie on Halloween. Alas, the pumpkin is too big for her to pick, so friends come to help her. In the end, she shares her pumpkin pie with them. So my grandson helped me make little pumpkin pies, and we shared with his daddy and Poppa. Delicious!

Carefully spooning the pumpkin custard in the mini-pie shells.

Almost finished.

Out of the oven and cooling on the wire rack.

So there you have it! Other Halloween activities to do with your grandchildren and great-grandchildren, nieces and nephews. And I'm ever the school teacher--plan the activities around a fun Halloween book. Let the parents do the messy one--carving jack o'lanterns. or the cold one-- going from door to door on a brisk All Hallows' Eve. Grandparents get to stay in and stay warm. Plan one of these activities on a day or evening before Halloween. 

​"There's no greater music than the sound of my grandchildren laughing." Sylvia Earle

Happy Halloween, everyone! Be safe!

​Books we read:

"Big Pumpkin" by Erica Silverman
​"The Spooky Express Texas, A Halloween Thrill Ride" by Eric James

Website for making Japanese paper lanterns:

​innerchildfun.com/2013/07/how-to-make-easy-paper-lanterns-japan.html