Pumpkin Bumpkin: a Halloween story

Artemis moon has posted a fun story called “Pumpkin Bumpkin” on her blog.

Those of you looking for Halloween stories to tell tonight may want to give it a read. It’s a cute story that she has made up herself. It may be particularly useful to those in the southern hemisphere as she is.

The Sugar Sprite Fairy comes on Halloween

The Sugar Sprite Fairy comes on Halloween. She comes in search of candy. She can get sugar from the flower nectar all spring, summer, and some in fall, but in winter there is simply not enough sugary nectar to feed herself & all of her kid sprites.  She has figured out that on Halloween, human children  participate in an old ritual known as trick-or-treating, and that because of this there will be sugary candy in abundance. There is so much candy, and the children are so frenzied, that  many human children, on accident of course,  even drop several pieces on the ground for her to later glean after they have gone to bed, and are no longer  roaming the streets dressed as spirits, and other strange things unknown to her natural world.

Those lucky few people who know of her existence can even leave their bag of candy, save for a few choice pieces, on the doorstep for her to collect as she flies over their home Halloween night. She can then take the goodies home, and store them for the cold times ahead in winter. In return for the sugary treats she will leave a special gift. It may be a new plaything, or something special from nature, but be assured it will be something much more fun, and lasting than candy.

Free Day of the Dead recipe pack

Vegan Culinary Experience has offered up a free recipe pack.

 Here is what they say baout it in their website.

Download our special Halloween & Day of the Dead set! Click on the image to get the following holiday recipes: Spider Cookies, Black Widow Creme Pie, Witch’s Eyeballs Macaroons, Greenblood Kiwi Punch, Pan de Muertos, Sugar Skulls, Calabaza en Tacha, Pineapple Atole, and Mexican Hot Chocolate

Skeleton cookies: great for Halloween or Dia de Los Muertos

My Paper Crane  made some skeleton gingerbread cookies. I want to make some too! She links to a recipe in her post.

Calaveras masks, and other free Day of the Dead resources

We found these printable calavera masks to color inside the free 31 page PDF offered by AZ Central. The very top of the mask is cut of, but you can just fill it in with sharpie. The packet had information on Dia de Los Muertos, as well as word searches, coloring pages, and a Large skeleton you can print, cut out & put together.  We colored them in & went over some of the lines with glitter glue. Instead of making masks we mounted them on black construction paper and used them as decorations. You could print several out & make a day of the dead calavera garland.

Hp is offering a free Day of the Dead party pack you can print.

Hereis another calavera mask to print.

Librarypolooza has a free craft packet that has several crafts.

printable full size australopithecus skeleton to print for Halloween or Day of the Dead

We printed out a full size version of austaluspithecus to use as a skelton Day the Dead. Austaluspithacus was only the size of your average 5 or 6 year old.  This is a free PDF download you can get here. We made simple tissue flowers to go around her head, and drew her skull like a calavera. This was great opportunity to relate this holiday to a science lesson, while doing a fun craft project too.

 

We also make a few simple papel picados by folding a rectangle of tissue paper in half 3 times, and cutting simple shapes from both sides. We made sure to leave a couple inches at the top that we did not cut so that there would be a nice solid piece to glue, & fold over the string.  We attached some long strips of tissue to the bottoms for extra prettiness, since we had so few papel picados.

Stitch a web for halloween: a simple embroidery tutorial

I just found this excellent halloween handwork idea at Stitcher & Scribbler.

See the beautifully hand drawn tutorial she made here. I am definitly going to do this tomorrow with my daughter. This is a handwork project that we can keep & display year after year.

 

Recycled halloween pumpkin ornaments

I found a box of old circa 1980’s ornaments at the thrift store.

We drew jack faces on them with a sharpie, and made construction paper leaves.

We are going to hang these with a ribbon on the curtain rod in front of the window.

A Halloween watercolor lesson (waldorf inspired)

 

This is a fun, short watercolor story to do this week. I originaly found this on the Waldorf Homeschoolers website, but it is now defunct.

Set up your paper, water, and paints as usual, but mix the yellow a bit stronger than usual.

First paint a large yellow ball, this will be your pumpkin, but do not tell the child.

Next surround the yellow with blue. Try  not to let the blue touch the yellow.

Tell the simple story.

 

Gold  shines from the paper like a golden ball. Red says “let me warm you up a little”.

paint over the yellow ball with the red. It will turn a golden orange hue.

Blue presses in from all sides, but the glowing orange will not let him touch her.

“Remember, you msut leave me room to breathe”  says orange, So blue comes soft & gentle.

Then yellow shouts out ” Please let me shine out!! I am getting to hot & feel all boxed in.”

“OK” says orange ” I will open some holes so that you can peek out.”

Then show the child how you can lift off color with a clean brush. Make sure you have removed the excess water. Lift off the color in places to look like eyes, a nose & a mouth. Then go back over those places with yellow.

The Jack-o-lantern will be complete. When you begin this activity do not let on that this will be a jack. Allow the suprise to unfold.

 

Free amazing Halloween pumpkin house & characters to print & make

Wow!! This is such an incredible Halloween goody! You can print it for free at Cannon’s website