Halloween is coming, and you can barely make it through the shops with all the Halloween decorations vying for space with the Christmas stuff. Sometimes, the ready to go spider webs and garlands of ghosts can be too difficult to resist to make the house look festive in a hurry. Halloween and autumn in general, however, can be a great time to spend time with the children doing simple crafts and activities.
The mid-term break is an opportunity for everyone to take a breath, enjoy the autumn air and focus on staying warm and cosy. There are lots of simple things for families to do together to enjoy this time of year. A long walk crunching leaves and collecting conkers followed by a hearty bowl of soup can soothe even the most harried soul. Carving and decorating pumpkins and making homemade decorations can be great ways to have fun together and get everyone’s creative juices flowing. Children will take great pride in knowing that the black spiders that scare the neighbours were made by their very own hands!
A quick internet search will yield lots of activities, but below are a couple of simple ones for even the most craft challenged among us. The best activities are often the simplest as children can really get stuck in. Happy Halloween!
Hand Print Spider
What You Need:
Black paper
Wobbly eyes
Black wool
Glue
What You Do:
- On the black paper, draw around both hands with fingers spread out and thumbs tight against index fingers.
- Cut out the hands and glue them together so that the palms form the spider’s body. The fingers will be the spider’s legs.
- Glue on the wobbly eyes. Make a small hole through the centre of the body. Thread the wool through the hole and tie into a knot.
Felt Ghost
What You Need:
White felt
Needle and black thread
Toy stuffing, cotton wool or scraps of material.
Wobbly eyes
What You Do:
- Fold your felt in half and cut out 2 ghost shapes.
- Sew the 2 shapes together using the black thread, but leave a small gap open to stuff your ghost.
- Stuff the ghost and then sew up the gap.
- Stick on the wobbly eyes.
- You could add a ribbon or thread to the top so you can hang up your ghost.
