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Dancing Skeletons – Cotton Bud Skeletons
Dancing Cotton Bud Skeletons – a great preschool Halloween and/or Science activity! If you follow us on Facebook then you may have seen this activity on our page last week! It is a super easy activity but lots of fun and really effective. I have used this in school both for Halloween and science! What you need: – white cotton buds or straws – black paper or card – pva glue or any child friendly glue – white chalk – googly eyes (optional) What to do: – draw an upside down triangle to skull shape with the white chalk – using the cotton buds start to create a skeleton shape…
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Cardboard Box Monsters – Halloween Crafts for Kids
Monster Madness has taken over Our Little House in the Country. These cardboard box monsters were so much fun to make! A favourite book of ours at the moment is Scaredy Boo by Claire Freedman & Russell Julian. Doodles (5) has been very busy drawing his own monsters based on the little monsters in this book so we decided to use his drawings and the book as inspiration for this activity! What we used: washing detergent tablet cardboard boxes wrapping paper googly eyes pipe cleaners Glitter stars pompoms PVA glue sticky tape shredded paper feathers What we did: Cover the boxes in wrapping paper Add googly eyes Cut teeth and…
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Fuzzy Wuzzy PomPom Monsters
PopPom Monsters are a great simple Halloween craft for kids. These cute little guys have been the centre of much monster fun and mayhem at Our Little House in the Country! Super Easy PomPoms I used to love making pompoms as a child but they can be tedious and sometimes tricky for younger children if using the traditional method of using two circular pieces of card. So, I used this as an excuse to spend even more time on Pinterest (as if I need an excuse!) and went about looking for an easier way for little hands to make pompoms. I came across this great, very easy method from Mom…
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10 Spooktacular Halloween Picture Books for Children
There are so many fantastic picture books about Halloween, however some can be quite scary especially for the more sensitive child. With that in mind we have compiled our favourite spooky stories for younger children from our vast collection of books! Our Top 10 Halloween Picture Books The Night Before Halloween – Natasha Wing & Cynthia Fisher: A spooktacular take of the Christmas favourite! A fun, colourful book, packed with cheerful, child friendly pictures. Mouse’s First Halloween – Lauren Thompson & Buket Erdogan: A beautifully written and illustrated adventure of a little mouse sneaking around on Halloween. Angelina’s Halloween – Katherine Holabird & Helen Craig: Join Angelina Ballerina and her…
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5 Autumn /Fall Books for Preschoolers
These 5 beautiful picture books about Autumn are my little girl’s favourites at the moment. We have a book rack in our kitchen that we use to display seasonal books and since I took out all of our Autumn and Halloween themed books last week she has been fascinated by these five in particular. Our 5 Favourite Autumn Picture Books for Toddlers and Preschoolers Millie-Mae in Autumn – Natalie Marshal: This is a stunningly beautiful board book, in my opinion. It is described as a touch-and-learn book and its glittery and shiny details throughout really do encourage children to interact with the book. What’s perfect about this book is that…
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5 Fab Non Fiction Autumn, Fall, Halloween Books for Kids
These 5 books for younger children about Autumn/Fall and Halloween are great for teaching children about the season and associated festivals in a simple and informative manner with some great photos and facts! Our Top 5 Non Fiction Books about Autumn and Halloween Halloween – National Geographic Kids- Laura Marsh: This is a fantastic Level 1 book jam packed with lots of colour photos and fun facts about Halloween, with a joke or two thrown in too! Its aimed at kids who are just beginning to read on their own but we love to read it together at bedtime as my children are not yet reading indepently. The book also…
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Halloween Playdough – A Ghoulish Invitation to Play and Create!
Playdough provides children with endless possibilities to play and create as well as developing all sorts of physical and cognitive skills. As Halloween is not a million miles off, I thought it was time to make some Halloween inspired playdough and invite my little munchkins to get creepily creative!!!!!! After Christmas, Halloween is my favourite holiday! Mind you, I love to celebrate and decorate for every holiday and festival throughout the year!!!! However, being a teacher this is usually the first holiday of the year that we really get to focus on and get creative with and as a result I have built up a tonne of resources and ideas…
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Cornstarch / Cornflour Dough Pumpkin Hanging Decorations
Cornstarch dough is the perfect dough for making decorations to hang on a tree. These cute little pumpkins are great for this time of year to add an autumnal feel plus they are perfect for Halloween and Thanksgiving too! We have a plain white tree/branch in a tin bucket in our home all year round. As the seasons change we change the decorations on it. Currently we have the clay autumn leaves we recently made hanging on it as well as some fabric fall coloured leaves, but we felt it was lacking a little something! So, we decided to make cute little pumpkins to hang on it too. We have…
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Lottie Doll Review (and Giveaway!)
We were so excited to be accepted as a Lottie Doll brand ambassador and even more excited when the Pandora’s Box Lottie Doll arrived in the post last week. Oodles (almost 3) loves to play with dolls and she has not left this little treasure out of her hand since it arrived. We also have 2 dolls and accessories to giveaway to our readers, more about that below!!! What is a Lottie Doll? If like me, you think that many dolls available are inappropriate both in shape and appearance for young children then Lottie is for you! Lottie first appeared on the market in 2012 as the first ever “pro-girl”…
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5 Tips for Supporting Your Child as They Start School for the First Time
My little boy has started school! How fast the years fly by! Two weeks ago my little boy Doodles started primary school. So when I was approached to participate in the Fairy Non Bio Power of Soft Campaign (“encouraging parents to make the most of those oh-so-soft cuddles with their little ones while they can!”), it hit a chord with me. How could my little buddy be a school kid already? Where did the past 5 years go? I remember the day he was born as if it were yesterday, my tiny little guy in the SCBU, attached to all sorts of drips and monitors and then that amazing day…
