Parties and Playdates
Bat Chips
Preheat your broiler. Using Halloween cookie cutters, cut each tortilla into bat and other Halloween shapes. Lightly brush both sides of each creature with oil. Arrange on a cookie sheet or jelly roll pan. Broil, flipping once when they begin to brown. When brown on both sides, lightly sprinkle with salt.(read more)
Maple Leaf Snacks
Create a fun, fall-themed snack out of maple leaf shaped cookies or graham crackers. Add a few drops of food coloring to ready-made white frosting or cream cheese. See how many "fall" colors you and your child can create (all shades of browns, reds, oranges, yellows, and deep greens). Have your child create his or her fall snack by spreading the colored frosting/cream cheese onto the cookies with ...(read more)
Paper Bag Pinatas
Give your child a small brown paper bag and let them decorate it how they want. This can be elaborately, with sequins and glitter, or simply, with crayons. Put a few pieces of candy in the bag and close by folding over the top. Punch two holes at the top and run enough yarn through the holes to be able to hang it from a high place and still ...(read more)
Monster Toes Snack
1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Cut a wedge into one end of each cocktail wiener to make a toenail. 2. Cut the tortillas into strips about 4 inches long and 3/4 inch wide. Discard any leftover tortilla. 3. Soften the strips in the microwave between damp paper towels for 10 to 30 seconds. 4. Roll each wiener in a tortilla strip and secure with a ...(read more)
Musical Beach Ball
Invite a few of your child's friends over to play. Masking tape one Hot Wheel car for each child all around a beach ball. Turn on your child's favorite music and pass the beach ball around. When the music turns off, whoever has the ball gets to rip off a car and keep it! Then that child can sit down and the rest can continue playing ...(read more)
Ants on a Log
Children love to be in the kitchen. This is a simple sanck recipe, for children to make. Cut celery stalks in to 3 inch pieces. Let child spread peanut butter into center of stalk and add raisins to create ants! If child has a peanut allergy, you could use cream cheese and create a "snowy" log! (read more)
Halloween Napkin Rings
Have your child help decorate the table this Halloween with fun and creative homemade napkin holders. Take empty toilet paper or paper towel tubes (cut them if necessary) and help your child cover them in construction paper or tissue paper. Then cut fun Halloween shapes out of construction paper: pumpkins, ghosts, cats, and so on. Have your child decorate the Halloween figures, then glue them on ...(read more)
Real Bug Juice
1. Mix the strawberries and lemonade concentrate in a blender until smooth and thick. 2. Gradually add ginger ale. 3. Transfer the beverage to a punch bowl. Stir in any remaining ginger ale and the raisins. Place the gummy worms on the rim of the bowl for a swampy effect. Older kids love to help with the stirring and bugs. Makes 10 ...(read more)
Indoor Beach Party
When winter is getting the best of you, have an indoor beach party with your kids (and friends)! Get out the swimsuits, sunglasses and beach balls, put on some Beach Boys tunes, lay out some beach towels and have a picnic! The kids will love getting out these items from summertime and don't ALL kids love to have as few clothes on as possible?(read more)
Living Room Plays
Next time you have a group of children together, try this fun activity. Let the children choose a story to act out, one that you know the story of, as well. Let each child choose each part that he or she wants to play -- it's fine if there's more than one child playing a character. Then narrate the plot or read aloud the story to the ...(read more)
Leafy Cinnamon Toast
A great cooking activity to do with your kids: Using a leaf cookie cutter, cut a leaf shape out of a piece of bread. Butter the bread and sprinkle it with cinnamon and sugar. Toast under your broiler, and enjoy a fun autumn treat.(read more)
Marshmallow Fun
At a birthday party or special event, this game is sure to be a hit. Get a bag of marshmallows, some string, a safety pin, and a whipped cream, like Cool Whip. Take the string and cut about a 2 foot piece. Put a knot at the end, and at the opposite end place the safety pin. Take the end with the safety pin and run it through the middle ...(read more)
Christmas Tree Cones
A fun Christmas-time snack! Begin by taking a container of white icing and adding enough green food coloring to turn the icing the color of green you wish to use for the Christmas trees. Then, turn some sugar ice cream cones upside down, so that the point is up. Cover the entire cone with green icing. Here's the fun part: Let your kids decorate the ...(read more)
Spider Bites
This is a fun food activity that involves no cooking! Take a Ritz cracker and spread cream cheese on the top. Place another cracker on top. Have your child stick 4 pretzels on each side of the cracker into the cream cheese so they will stay. Place two dots of cream cheese on the top cracker and let your child place one raisin on each. You ...(read more)
Walkie Talkies
This is a fun party activity. Purchase foam bricks from a craft store and cut them into walkie talkie sized rectangles (about 12x2). Cut large pieces of foil and give two to each child to cover the foam. Have the kids poke small holes (a pen tip works great) in the foil on the top and bottom for the ear and mouthpiece speakers. Then with a ...(read more)
Bookmarking Basics
You can make really cute animal bookmarks by using foam shapes for animals found at a craft store or you can cut the shapes out yourself from larger pieces of foam. Begin with a small animal shape or animal face, and allow your child to decorate it with smaller pieces of foam, markers, and googly eyes. Glue a book-sized piece of ribbon to the back of the foam ...(read more)
Jack-o-Lantern Cheese Snack
Using a pumpkin-shaped cookie cutter, cut a pumpkin out of a slice of cheese. Use raisins to design a jack-o-lantern face on the pumpkin. It's a fun and healthy snack that kids can help make!(read more)
Pin the Nose on the Clown
You don't have to be at a birthday party to play pin the nose on the clown. Simply get a piece of paper and draw a clown face. Cut out a bunch of red noses, and place double-stick tape on the back. Hang up the clown and blindfold your child. Let him play until he gets the nose in the right spot! Great anywhere, anytime ...(read more)
Toy Swap
If you have a child, you probably also have toys coming out your ears! And to your child, it always seems that other kids' toys are more fun than his own. Want to introduce some new toys without spending money or adding to your already huge pile? Organize a toy swap. Call your friends with children, parents of your child's classmates, or playgroup moms and ask ...(read more)
Water Bottles Decorations
Before your next backyard party, have your older kids help you with this fun activity -- or set it up as a beginning-of-party craft. Take a small ponytail holder and pull it so that it is like a line. Slide a few beads onto it from one end so that the beads are in the middle of the ponytail holder with both sides of the ponytail ...(read more)
Spider-Webbed Fun Foods
I love to make this with the traditional seven-layer Mexican dip for parties, but you can do it on lots of other round food items like pizza, pancakes and quesadillas, just to name a few. I will give you an example based on the seven-layer dip, but feel free to experiment. Using your favorite recipe, make the seven-layer dip in a round baking dish and after the top ...(read more)
Cookie Cutter Sandwiches
This is a fun way to let your kids help in the kitchen and get them to eat their sandwiches. Make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (or something else that would be easy to cut through) and then help your child to cut the sandwich into a shape with a cookie cutter. These are a lot of fun to serve at birthday parties and playdates.(read more)
Chocolate Creations
Let the kids get creative with chocolate. Melting chocolate can be found at your local craft store or, better yet, go for the good stuff and look up places that carry Merkins or Guittards melting chocolate. Microwave the chocolate in a plastic bowl for 30 seconds at a time, stirring in between each heating, until the chocolate is completely melted. Then choose a candy mold, which can ...(read more)
Spinning a Spiderweb
This activity is suited for several children -- a special playdate, or small birthday party. Designate one room as the spiderweb room. To begin creating the web, attach a small present to the end of a ball of string, and hide it somewhere out of sight within the room. Then take the string, and wind it around the room and furniture (or this could be done outside ...(read more)
Edible Spiders
Easy-to-make spiders for Pre-K kids. Purchase a box of Hostess Ding Dongs -- they are round and chocolate. Then give each child 8 pretzel sticks and 2 red hots. The pretzels sticks get pushed into the sides to serve as legs and the red hots are put on the top to be the eyes. When the kids are done, they can eat their creations!(read more)
Birthday Memory Book
In honor of your child's birthday, ask every child invited to your child's party to bring a picture of him or herself to put in a memory book. At the party, place the picture in the memory book and ask each person to fill out a brief questionnaire (name, age, favorite food, favorite memory of your child). It is really fun to read what the children's responses are ...(read more)
Playing in the Band
When you are having a playdate or a group of children play together, gather any and all instruments you have. Be the drummer and create a consistent beat and have the children fill in with the other instruments. Explain what each instrument is and that they are a band. Now whenever I have our regular playdate the kids immediately get the band material and we have jam sessions!(read more)
Halloween Bingo
Make Bingo Cards with various Halloween images on them, such as ghosts, pumpkins, skulls, witch hats, spiders, black cat faces, etc. (For a quicker way, you could also use Halloween stickers.) If you want, you can also replace the word "bingo" at the top of each card with the word "ghost" or "candy." Then make the chips to draw out of a bowl (e.g. G witch hat, ...(read more)
Halloween Pumpkin Party
Host a pumpkin-decorating party for the kids in your neighborhood. Buy small pumpkins (or have people bring their own) and provide carving tools, patterns, as well as paint, markers, stickers, etc. for kids to safely decorate with. The kids love getting all gooey together while cleaning out the pumpkins and often help clean the pumpkin seeds for cooking/eating. It's great fun and puts the kids in great ...(read more)
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