Thursday, October 27, 2011

More October Awesomeness

We did spiders last week at storytime, and mild-mannered Halloween stories this week. I think my favorite out of all the books we read is Ghosts in the House, by Kazuno Kohara.
A little girl, who is also a witch, moves into a haunted house. But ghosts don't bother her, because she knows what to do with ghosts. She catches them, puts them in the washing machine, airs them out to dry, and gives them new lives as curtains, table cloths, and bed sheets. The bright and easy-to-see illustrations in orange and black with an overlay of white make this a perfect book for sharing.
For our craft this week we played with pumpkin playdough. This is my standard playdough recipe, with added cinnamon and orange food coloring. Here's the recipe:

Homemade Playdough

2 cups water
2 Tablespoons cooking oil
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 cup salt
2 cups flour
few drops of food coloring

Mix all the ingredients together in a large saucepan. Add the food coloring to the water if you are making one color of playdough. If you want to make more than one color, mix in the food coloring after it is cooked, when you knead it. Heat ingredients on medium setting, stirring constantly. It will set up quickly. Playdough is done when it holds together and pulls away from the side of the pan. Turn it out on a plate or cutting board to cool. Knead when cool enough to handle, and have fun!

Last week we made spider webs.  This is an easy craft, but it gives the children a chance to wrap yarn, which is fun to do.

Materials:
Paper plate
White yarn
foam or plastic spider
glitter glue (optional)

We used black paper plates, but you could use a plain white plate and let your child paint it black. (More activity!) Cut a 20 or so notches around the edge of the plate. Wind the yarn around and around the plate from notch to notch until it looks spider-webby enough. Glue a little spider in the middle, or let him hang from a dangling string of the yarn.

If you want to, you can add glitter along the yarn or on the spider for added Halloween sparkle.

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