Halloween Party Food

Halloween Food Ideas for a Fun Kids Party.

Once again we had an awesome party, lots of fun, lots of goodies and the kids enjoyed them self. But my party planning, hosting, entertaining, cooking, photographing, decorating, and Dress up roles were an overload. Unfortunately, as usual the photographer role missed the action. I did get many random snap shots of the kids playing but not many of anything blog worthy.

 



Labels;
Labelling things is a easy way to colour coordinate and make things suit your theme. You can come up with funny or creepy names, or simply put guests names on things.
I labelled some water bottles as Swamp Water, Blood, Toxic and so on to suit our theme, I put a very small dash of colour in each.

Frankenstein Muffins;
These little Frankenstein heads were take home treats. They are vanilla flavoured muffins with some green in the cake mix and green icing. The Black hair is crushed Oreo biscuit and they have chocolate eyes and smarty noses with an icing mouth. Cute and Yummy!

Googly Eye Jars:
I glued a pair of googly eyes to the glass bowls to make them into Bowl monsters.

The Treat Jars:
We had 6 different jars, like a lollies buffet, each with their own themed label.
Bat Poo - Licorice and mixed chocolate coated snacks
Creepy Crawlies - Sour worms and grub lollies
Bits of bones - A BBQ cracker mix
Witch fingers - Chocolate fingers with an Almond flake nail (melted on with chocolate)
Ghost Teeth - Popcorn
Candy Corn - candy corn of course
Treats - small chocolates.

Zombie Snot Dip:
This was just a dip platter, the dip was a gherkin dip with some green food colour and a label of course. Celery, carrot, cheese, crackers, cabonosi and gherkins to dip with.

Jack o lantern Faces:
Slices of Orange with black faces draw on the skin. Simple and Healthy.

Ghosts:
Strawberries dipped in White chocolate with little chocolate iced ghost faces.

Eyes in Slime:
These were cups with Green jelly, once almost set you insert a spooky eye ball lolly treat in the top.
(look above in left corner)

Pumpkin Heads:
These were also Just jelly cups. Orange Jelly with a Pumpkin face drawn in black on the outside of the cup.  Dimples is enjoying this one below (with his fingers i might add)

Monster Toes:
I wish i got a picture of these. They were little Frankfurt's, with a toe nail shape cut out, then they were cooked, and wrapped in stripes of pastry so that the toe is hanging out. They look like a bandaged up monster toe and I labelled the Tomato Sauce bowl as blood.
You can find the inspiration for these on my Pinterest Halloween Board as well as many other ideas.

Jack o Lantern Bites:
(top photo on left)
These were small mini Quiches made with egg, milk, cheese, spinach, zucchini and bacon. (I did add some Orange food dye so that it looked orange in colour)
On top I put a roof of pastry in the shape of a pumpkin and also stuck pumpkin tooth picks in them.

Happy Halloween

Halloween Party Decorations

Halloween Spooktacular Party Decorations

For our Halloween Party I put together some DIY decorations. On the table above, Dimples and I made the spiderweb place mats with glue (you add whatever colour paint to your glue bottle) on non-stick baking paper. We Did the web on the paper, he sprinkled a generous amount of glitter and we let it dry. Once it was dry we peeled it off as a cool table decoration.

This broom Stick is handmade from a Bamboo stake and some rough looking twigs strapped on at the bottom with some cane twine. The Table centre piece on this table was a fog water machine. We added red food dye and some eye balls to make it look like an eery cauldron.

 

These table decorations were made a couple weeks back. Check out Our salt Dough Decorations Post

 

Decorate your House, or a Cubby with a Wicked Witch that has been flattened, check out the post here .

 

 

Add a Gelatin Zombie Brain for play, or for decoration Check out our Tactile Sensory Tubs Here.

 

Add some eyes here and there, some plastic bats and rats. Drape old materials scarfs over tables and colour coordinate balloons in black and orange. We used Laundry buckets in Orange with drawn on Jack o Lantern faces to put the drinks and ice in, they also double as a great Goal to shoot balloons into.



Make some Bats to sit around on Windows and decorate with, they can also be used for bowling.
Here are the directions for our Bat Bowling Activity

Home made Ghosts in the yard.  These DIY decorations are simply a post in the ground, a Helmet on top and a small cross post for the arms.  Draw a ghost face on an old white sheet and there you have it.

This DIY Decoration also doubled as a play Doll house, the back is open and the children can play with figurines in the back. It is bright and colourful and really suits the theme as well haunted-halloween-cardboard-house Post

If your looking for more Halloween Ideas Check out last years Party Halloween Ideas for the little ones
Check out our  Spider Cave that was a cool Decoration & fun game

Don't forget to check out our Halloween Linky Party for More Awesome Ideas that have been Shared.

Halloween Sensory Tubs

Sensory tubs are the perfect activity for Halloween!
Lots of cool textures, gross feeling slimy things and bright colours. 
This is a Halloween Themed One we had at our Halloween Party.

The Basics:
A sensory tub includes objects that encourage children to explore using their senses.  It is an easy way to teach children about how they experience the world and to enhance their visual, tactile, and Auditory awareness.
Sensory tubs encourage exploration, experimentation and messy play. You can include things that have different textures; smooth, rough, slimy, crunchy, slippery, cold/warm, lumpy with everyday things such as rice, unpoped corn, cooked spaghetti, dry split lentils, beans, shaving cream, water beads, jelly or gelatine.
Here are some great ones that were linked up to our recent BOO! Halloween Link Party
1. Halloween Sensory Bin by blogmemom
2. Halloween Sensory box by Dirt & Boogers
3. Witches Brew Pretend cooking by me, Adventures at home with Mum
4. and here is a great general one for kids of all ages including younger kids who still mouth objects rice-bubble-sensory-tub by Paint on the Ceiling

All you need to do is add some materials that are tactile, they might feel different, have different textures or temperatures, they could have different smells, and put some objects in the bin that children can sift through and find, or bury with some tools to explore with; measuring cups, tongs, spoons, small spades, play safe microscope or just encourage the use of their fingers.
Not only is this type of messy play great in enhances the sensory learning for little ones but it gives a good opportunity for vocalisation, turn taking and of course imagination.

The Brain Box:
I made a Gross looking Spaghetti Brain. It was successful as well! On first attempt I made a cooked pasta brain and attempted to set it in glue in the hope to use it as a table decoration but that was a big fat FAIL of an idea. I came up with another great idea, this one was more practical.
I cooked some spaghetti, soaked it in green and yellow food dye (the yellow adds a bit of brightness to the green). Once the colour had stuck, I drained the spaghetti and then placed it in a bowl. But first I put a circular piece of baking paper in the bottom of my bowl so that the brain would slide out easily. Don't forget this crucial part otherwise you could be digging your brain out before the kids get to see it.

 

I mixed up some Red Gelatin. You could use jelly but Gelatine in much more rubbery, it sets firmer and withstands room temperature for longer than jelly. In play, I use gelatine over jelly for that reason, it lasts longer and is more pliable with a smooth rubbery feel.
After I packed and pressed the Spaghetti into the bowl I mixed up the gelatine and poured it in, I would have used a litre but you should use enough so that you can see it at the top of your spaghetti (so that all the spaghetti will be set in the gelatin and held together).  I set it in the fridge for a few days until the party.
And this was the result;

It worked pretty well, i used a butter knife just to separate the gelatine off the walls of the bowl and with a firm hand wiggled the brain around in the bowl until I felt it had all separated in one piece. Tipped it out upside down in the sensory tub and Voila. Brains to play with.
In this tub I surrounded it with water beads and plastic eye balls.
If your child Loves water beads like we do, check out my previous posts using Water beads...

The kids enjoyed it, poking at it initially. It wasn't long before there were some plastic rats hanging out of the brain and then there was some imaginary cooking and some digging.
This was the wet box, the water beads remain slippery and cold while the brain was slimy and smooth and warmed as it got broken apart. The water beads could be crushed and squished or bounced around or collected in a bucket. This was the hands on messy tub.

The Pumpkin Seed Box:

This one contained Orange Split lentils, dyed Purple Rice and Yellow unpopped corn. This sensory box was the dry one with lots of different textures. There were some measuring cups and some small pumpkin head buckets so that the children could scatter the 'pumpkin seeds', using hand eye coordination, tracking skills, visual attention and encouraging motor skills through scooping, pouring, measuring, burying, sifting and rattling the seeds around.

There were small Halloween plastic party favours in it as well that could be found under the grains or buried. For visual stimulation I kept the materials pale orange, yellow and light purple so that the bright green, Orange and black creepy crawlies and Halloween things stood out.

The Verdict:
By the end of the afternoon the 2 Sensory bins got mixed around, and there were some great pretend cooking games using the Halloween buckets. One of the 5 year old boys who attended the party mixed up a good brew with some brains, some water beads, bugs, rats, bats, eye balls, creepy crawlies and pumpkin seeds. A bit of everything! 
Dimples pretended to taste the devilish dinner saying "yum yum" and licking his lips.
Messy play is definitly always a hit with young children. The kids ranged in age from 1 to 9 yrs old, and each one inspected  and messed around in the tables at least once, but it was the 3 yr olds who stuck with it and enjoyed it the most :)

The Sensory trays at the end of the evening. All messed up :)

Happy Adventures

Foam Pumpkin DIY Bath Puzzle

How to Make a Easy DIY Pumpkin Bath Puzzle

Make bath time a fun learning experience with this easy foam bath puzzle.
Did you know that when wet foam sticks to the wall tiles? so you can make any type of puzzle in any theme and at any level of difficulty depending on what colour foam pieces you have and the interests and skills of your child.



Finished Puzzle and one very Proud little boy.





I had an Orange foam piece so in the theme of Halloween I cut out a pumpkin shape head. Using permanent marker I drew on a happy jack-o-lantern face. Then cut it into a puzzle! Depending on the age and stage of your child you could do a puzzle with 4-5 horizontal pieces or cut it in to many smaller intricate pieces.




Step 1: Cut and draw your pumpkin, then cut your puzzle pieces.

I floated the pieces face up in an orange bath and Dimples had fun piecing the puzzle together. I added some food colour, and black pompoms in the bath to make it extra fun and Halloween themed.



Step 2: Pour your Halloween Bath and float the puzzle in it.

The Pumpkin was a challenge but Dimples managed it with a little bit of focus. I refrained from jumping in or offering too many hints, I waited for him to ask for help and because he accomplished it all by himself with only a little help from myself he was extremely proud of himself.



Step 4: Let them go and offer hints if needed.

Tips:

• Have distinguishable features so that your child can see an Easy start, for instance the grooves in the Pumpkin Head at the top or 'hair'.
• I did all the pieces with straight cuts but one different wavy smooth cut through the centre so that this was a definite win for Dimples or a start point and you should have a clue, like a corner of an eye or a smile.
• Have a bit of the drawing/texter on almost every piece to distinguish the front of the puzzle from the back, when there are too many blank pieces that look similar it gets difficult because the child has to decide which way the piece faces, back or front as well as in what direction.

If you were wondering, the Permanent marker hasn't come off the Pumpkin Face at all, it didn't smear or run at all and after use the foam pieces dry almost instantly. Dimples has done the puzzle 4 nights in a row so far at Bath time and the puzzle hasn't changed or faded at all.  Each time he is very pleased with himself and then tells me that the pumpkin has gotten old, and is crumbling away as he knocks it back into the bath. Knocking it all off after his success is just as fun as making it. Then we just stack the pieces up and put it up for next time.



 Thanks for visiting!

 

 Happy Adventures :)

Bat Bowling & a BOO! Halloween Link Party

Halloween is nearly upon us, but instead of the usual messy sensory play in this adventurous household Dimples has been getting physical with some cute Bat Bowling pins.

It took about 10 minutes to make these DIY batty bowls. I used 6 small empty water bottles with some black water-colour paint in them, screwed the lids on super tight and shook the paint around inside. I simply used a glue gun for the rest. I stuck some orange ribbon around the lids, I cut some bat wings from black cardboard leaving enough room for a fold, these were also glued on with the gun and of course 2 batty button eyes. Done! Ready to roll!! 

What you need

 

We used them outside for a while and Dimples experimented with different size balls. We took turns and had a proper game of bowling then took it inside and dimples continued by him as I cooked tea. He lined them all up next to each other and in a triangle set. Slowly creeping forward each time he bowled, it was so funny to watch. Great active fun indoors and out.

 

If you're a regular on my blog you may have noticed we have been doing lots of Halloween stuff. I love Halloween and its a great holiday for children to get into, lots of funky colours, fun activities, strange food and don't forget a great excuse to dress up.

 

In celebration of Halloween and all the awesome ideas out there, myself and fellow Australian Mum and child focused blogger Stephanie from Boy mama Teacher mama thought we would host our very first linky party, a Halloween central spectacular.

Welcome to Boo! A Halloween Linky! We are excited to see your Halloween activities and to share them with Halloween fans around the globe.

Boo! A Halloween Linky 
is co-hosted by Adventures at Home with Mum and boy mama teacher mama

When you link-up you will appear on both sites. Please feel free to share any post you have related to Halloween. We welcome crafts, activities, play ideas, recipes and costume ideas. The Linky will run from October 19th through until November 3rd.

Throughout that time, Adventures at Home with Mum and Boy Mama Teacher Mama will feature a few posts that we think will interest our readers.

 

A Few Guidelines

• Please link your favourite post featuring a Halloween activity, craft, recipe etc. Feel free to link more than one post, but please no more than 4.

• Please do not link giveaways if they are not related to Halloween.

• Grab a Boo! A Halloween Linky Button and display it on the post you are linking or somewhere else on your site.

<div align="center"><a href="http://www.adventuresathomewithmum.blogspot.com.au/" title="Boo! A Halloween Linky"><img src="http://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w377/stephfw18/HalloweenLinky120.png" alt="Boo! A Halloween Linky" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

• Once you have linked-up, share the love and visit a few other posts from the linky. And don’t forget to leave a comment.

A Reminder

Linking up gives

Adventures at Home with Mum and Boy Mama Teacher Mama permission to feature and share your post via various social Medias including Pinterest. If you are featured, we may grab a photo from your blog for use in the post and, of course, we will share a link back to your site.

 

Thanks for linking-up!

Happy Halloween!

 

Wicked Witch of the East Legs

 

Wicked Witch of the East

As in the classic Wizard of Oz Movie, the Wicked Witch of the East gets flattened by Dorothy's house.  If you recall the move the Wicked Witch ruled over the little munchkins and slaved them until she was flattened by the flying house. The Wicked Witch of the East was wearing some striped stockings and the Red ruby slippers and after she was squashed by Dorothy's house she wilted away and turned to dust leaving nothing but the magical slippers and the munchkins were forever grateful to their saviour.

 

Well here is our version, Dimples' magic flying cubby house landed on this Wicked Witch and flattened her. She didn't have red ruby slippers but she did have your typical Witch boots, pointy toes ugly looking and a little scary, these are too small for me now and I think were given to me years ago but will never be worn and some bright striped tights that we got for $2 at the bargain shop but you could really use any old tights that you find laying around or you always grab something cool and inexpensive at the Salvation Army or Saint Vincent DePaul 2nd hand shops.

 

It worked well and looks pretty awesome under the cubby house.

The perfect Halloween Decoration; All we did was roll newspaper into the legs of the pair of over knee socks, tie the tights together at the top and put on some boots. The stuck it under the edge of the cubby house, and Dimples (who has never watched Wizard of Oz) thought it was hillarious.  

 

 

 Happy Adventures

Witches Brew - Pretend Halloween Cooking

How to Make Witches Brew - Messy Pretend Halloween Cooking.

 

 

Witches Brew Ingredients:

• Intestines (Spaghetti dyed with Orange, black, purple or bright green colouring)
• Poisonous spiders (Orange coloured Ice cubes with Plastic Spiders)
• Trolls Eye Balls
• Magical Halloween Sprinkles
• Bright Green Glitter Dust
• Black Rats
• Table spoon of cooking oil

Dimples spent the morning enjoying the sunshine and mixing up some gruesome witches brew.

He loves pretend cooking so this Halloween Themed Sensory play went well. He particularly loved the bright coloured intestines. He sang his own little song about mixing a spooky witches brew, adding the rats and did a little evil Cackle.

 



Benefits of this type of Messy Play:

• Encourages children to manipulate materials, explore and experiment which in turn equals rich learning experiments.
• Is process driven, not product, so it is the rawest form of sensimotor processing and exploratory learning.
• Helps develop and fine tune Communication, literacy and verbal skills through discussion and "play talk"
• Gross Motor skills such as stirring, mixing, pouring, shaking.
• Everyday life skills such as sharing, turn taking, conversation, cooking skills and using cooking tools.
• Sensory Play builds and strengthens important neural pathways in the brain
• Mathematics through measurement, size, sorting, dividing, counting.
• Scientific concepts such as mass, density, texture, temperature, and processing how materials are work
• & of course Creativity.

 

After adding some water and a squirt of hand wash Dimples watched the colours run into the water and the orange ice. Out of curiousity he decided to smell it.

Dinner is served!
Every time we do pretend cooking Dimples tells me he has cooked me dinner and insisted i 'taste' it.
Below is the restaurant class Witches Brew that he cooked up for me

 

Ice & Salt Reactions - Halloween Theme

Spiders in Ice castles and a Salt Melting Experiment

 

Another Halloween themed play treat. This time Dimples had a play date with his good friend Miss K. I had prepared some Ice castles (using sand castle molds) with some spooky plastic spiders and flies frozen inside.  I set out the Ice castles, some salt to help melt the formations and some coloured water with a dropper each.

 

Dimples and Miss K went to work sprinkling salt over their Ice and trying to master the squirt droppers.  Its not working, they both exclaimed slowly adding more and more salt, but it was. The salt reacts with the ice and as the ice melts it speeds up the process, so as the salty water runs down the castle is causes cavities, rifts and small trails for the coloured water to flow through. 

 

It is a slow process but it looks really cool when the colours start running down the crevices. I think these two 3.5 year olds were just a little impatient and wanted to get to the spiders straight away. They stuck with it, adding different colours on top and watching it flow down the sides. Dimples the extremist tried to speed things up by dumping handfuls of salt on top.

 

It looked vibrant and some what spooky but it wasnt what he had in mind, so he tipped amore and more colour over the top.  Slowly he seen it start to melt down the sides and he seen some spider legs poke through.  Miss K successfully removed a fly and decided to taste the ice. Hmmmm yukky she said to the salt covered ice.

 

The two friends mastered how to use the droppers and the syringe squirts by observing me and each other, Miss K found it easier to do it one handed pushing with her thumb and Dimples mastered the skill using two hands to fill the entire tube then squirting it with his pointer finger. Both got the hang of it though. This intruquit technique helps develop the muscles in the hand needed for writting skills and develops hand/eye co-ordination.

They also got a lesson on colour mixing; as our yellow and red colours mixed together we got a nice bright Halloween Orange, and the yellow and blue = Green. The friends noticed that all of the colours pooled at the bottom of the tray into a black colour.

 

Happy Adventures :-)