In keeping with EJ's pumpkin theme, I thought I'd post what we are up to this week. Tomorrow I am hosting a "Great Pumpkin" party. First, we are going to watch It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and then we are going to make "Great Pumpkin" paper plate masks.
My goal for the craft portion of the party was to make things SIMPLE... and I think these masks fit the bill... but we'll see tomorrow.
Materials Needed: large paper plates, orange tissue paper (several different colors of orange), scissors, glue, construction paper (I used brown and green), and a black marker.
Directions:
Prep ahead (my target audience is age 2-3.5... so I did more prep ahead of time)
- Cut out squares/rectangles of orange tissue paper (older kids can do this themselves)
- Cut out brown triangles and mouth shapes from brown construction paper (older kids can do this themselves)
- Cut out green stems and leaves out of green construction paper (older kids can do this themselves)
1. Add Elmers glue to the back of the paper plate.
2. Start sticking orange tissue paper squares/rectangles all over. Keep adding more glue. Add as many layers of orange tissue paper as you would like. You could also use mod podge instead of glue.
3. Cover the entire paper plate with tissue.
4. Draw and cut out eyes, nose, and mouth (if they were not prepped ahead). Glue them on to the pumpkin.
5. Draw and cut out a stem and leaves and glue them to the top of the pumpkin.
6. Let masks dry.
7. Have kids pretend to be the GREAT pumpkin!
We will also probably watch Max and Ruby's Perfect Pumpkin while we eat some yummy pumpkin and Halloween treats.
Guests are bringing...
- pumpkin shaped rice crispie treats
- pumpkin cookies
- pumpkin bars with cream cheese
- apples with caramel dip
- apple juice
- orange goldfish crackers (keeping with the orangey pumpkin theme)
To prepare my son for the Great Pumpkin party, we decorated our own "Great Pumpkin" tonight and talked about some of the behavior expectations we have when we have friends over. We also talked about kind things that friends can do. Each time we stuck a foam sticker on our GREAT pumpkin, we had to say something kind or nice that we could do when our friends are over that would make them happy (share toys, use kind words, give hugs, say sorry if we are mean, take turns, etc.).
Our GREAT pumpkin is now waiting on our front steps to greet our guests!
I also found these fun Jack-O-Lantern cup and ball games that we are giving out to our friends at our Pumpkin party tomorrow.
Hopefully everything will go smoothly and we'll all have a lot of fun!
I linked to this from your 9/27/13 post. My daughter and I did this last night and absolutely loved it. We're going to do a spider and witch with black and green tissue paper as well. Thanks for sharing your wonderful ideas!!
Just stopping by to tell you that I've passed an award your way: best-toys-for-toddler.blogspot.com/2010/10/vertisile-blogger-award.html It's always a pleasure to read your blog! 🙂