Happy Halloween! It’s finally here! The pumpkins are painted, the decorations are up, the treats are made for the class parties, the candy is bought, and the costumes are ready to go. That means there’s just one thing left to do. Remind your kids how to be safe while trick or treating. Unless of course you opt to stay in and watch one of these Halloween movies, then you’re all set! But if your kids are going trick or treating like mine, I have a fun interactive way to go over the safety tips.

Have your kids click here to take an online Halloween safety quiz. It’s fun, interactive and gets the message across.

Have fun tonight and be safe!

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One of our favorite family time activities is “movie night.” We curl up under blankets, dim the lights, and eat popcorn. On chilly evenings, we light a fire. To me, it doesn’t get any better than this. I love the movies and my girls have inherited my passion for them as well!

I don’t love scary movies though. They scare me too much! Instead I prefer to watch kid Halloween movies. Of course, even Monster House was a little scary for me!

So here are some Halloween movies for kids that are not scary, you know, the ones I can watch.

It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

Pooh’s Heffalump Halloween Movie

Monsters, Inc.

Casper

Bedknobs and Broomsticks

Barney’s Halloween Party

Arthur’s Scary Stories

Wallace & Gromit - The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

Pumpkin Season

So after trick or treating, or instead, curl up with your kids and watch one of these cute Halloween movies. I promise your kids won’t have any nightmares after watching these!

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Is it Halloween yet? Nope! That means I’m still writing about different ways to have fun this Halloween season. They don’t call this the Seasonal Kids Activities blog for nothin’! So where were we? You can’t remember either? Then let’s recap what Halloween treats, contests and crafts I’ve covered so far! I don’t want to repeat myself.

So here are my top ten Halloween kid activties!

1. Pumpkin Picking and Painting

2. Rice Krispie Pumpkins

3. Tissue Paper Ghosts

4. Caramel Apples

5. Handprint Spiders

6. Ritz Cracker Spiders

7. Paper Plate Pumpkins

8. Pipe Cleaner Spiders

9. Halloween Costume Photo Contest

10. Bat Cookies

There are still two days left until Halloween, so check back tomorrow and Wednesday for my last two Halloween kid activities. I promise those will be my last activities about Halloween . . . at least until next year!

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My daughter’s second grade class is studying bats right now. Each day she comes home with some new fact I didn’t want to know about bats. For example, I learned that there really are bats that suck blood, which of course are aptly named vampire bats. Ick. She also taught me that some bats have a wing span of six feet. Okay, that’s enough. You’re giving me nightmares.

So when the room mom from her class called and asked me if I could bring bottled water in for the Halloween party, I foolishly said “How about I make bat cookies?” Seriously don’t know what I was thinking. Oh, yeah, I remember. I wanted to encourage my daughter’s enthusiasm about studying bats and she loves it when I make treats for her class parties. So bat cookies it is.

The ingredients for bat cookies are:

• 1 1/2 cup flour
• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
• 1 1/4 tsp. baking powder
• 1/8 tsp. salt
• 3/4 cup softened butter
• 1 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1 egg
• Small red cinnamon cookie decorations
• Bat cookie cutter

To make bat cookies:

1. Mix together the flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt, then set aside.

2. Cream together the butter and sugar.

3. Beat the egg in the sugar mixture.

4. Stir the dry ingredients into the sugar mixture to form soft dough.

5. Flatten the dough, wrap it in wax paper and chill for two hours.

6. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

7. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough so it’s 1/8 inch thick.

8. Press the bat cookie cutter firmly into the dough and place cookies 1 1/2 inches apart on a lightly greased cookie sheet.

9. Put the red cinnamon candies on as the bat’s eyes.

10. Bake for 6 to 8 minutes.

11. Let cookies cool.

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Considering I hate spiders, I’m kind of surprised I keep posting about them! But then again handprint spiders and Ritz cracker spiders are a far cry from those I keep having to kill by my sliding glass door! Of course, my seven-year-old keeps telling me not to kill the spiders because they eat the other bugs. No thanks, I’ll just kill those bugs too.

Let’s change the subject. Oh yeah, the subject is spiders. Well, these Halloween spiders I like!

This is what you need to make Pipe Cleaner Spiders:

Black pipe cleaners

Googly eyes

Glue

Scissors

To make these cute Halloween spiders:

1. Tightly coil the end of one pipe cleaner around the tip of your finger three times to create the spider’s head. (Tuck the end of the pipe cleaner inside the head.)

2. Then coil the rest of that pipe cleaner around your finger to create the spider’s body.

3. To make the spider’s legs, cut another pipe cleaners into thirds.

(Unfortunately, these spiders are not anatomically correct because they only have six legs! You’re welcome to try and squeeze eight legs on, but we settled for six.)

4. Bend the three pieces of pipe cleaner into the letter “M” and insert them into the body of the spider.

5. Glue on googly eyes.

Now place these furry little spiders somewhere they won’t get killed by mistake!

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One of my favorite parts of autumn is the fact that “Sweater Weather” is upon us. And even though it kills my budget every year, I love buying my daughters beautiful sweaters for back-to-school. (Nevermind that I usually sneak in a few sweaters for mom, too!).

Getting an indulgent new fall-colored jewelry line is usually beyond my budget, especially after I’ve bought school supplies for three kids. But that doesn’t stop me, as I have always loved making jewelry, and making several sets like the one below costs less than $25. You may be surprised to find out that not only is it easy enough for an 8-10+ year old to do, but you can make jewelry so dang adorable with your children that even you will want to wear these pieces.

See what I mean?

Even better - I made this set in less than an hour.  And although I have made jewelry before, this is the first time I have put together a set like this, and it was the first time I worked with head pins. (Read :: yes, you can pull this off, too!)

Here are the materials you will need to make this autumn-inspired jewelry set. I got them all at my local Hobby Lobby, but Oriental Trading has a fantastic and inexpensive collection of beading supplies online.

1. Needle-nosed pliers with a wire-cutter at the base
2. Head pins (long, straight pins that have a blunt end)
3. Jewelry chain (recycle an old necklace to save $$ - you won’t need a clasp, either!)
4. Jewelry clasp (I used a fancy but inexpensive toggle clasp that looks like metal flowers & leaves - super cute!)
5. Beads of your choice

(I ended up not needing to use a lot of what is pictured above)

Step One :: Build your base chain

Remember you can skip this step if you are using a recycled old necklace or charm bracelet chain.

Measure the length of the necklace or bracelet you want to make. Pry open the end links and slip on your clasp. This part is where your kids may need a tiny bit of help, because some chains are harder to bend than others. Sometimes using two pliers helps.

Once the clasp is on the link, use the pliers to carefully bend the link back into a closed circle.

As you can see from these photos, I put a charm on the end of the chain, and added the toggle portion of my clasp a few links up - this way I have a little trailing charm hanging down the back of my neck or wrist. You can also just attach your clasp to either end of the chain - it’s up to you.

Step Two ::  Plan Your Beading Arrangement

Even 3-4 year olds can help with this part, as the head pins are not sharp. Put your beads on the head pins - if the hole in the bead is too big for the head of the pin, use a smaller bead first, then put the larger bead on next (I usually buy small silver-toned beads for  this purpose).

At the left is my just-turned 5 year old daughter putting beads on head pins.

Get creative and lay out your beads along your chain to get an idea of where you will attach your beads to the chain:

Step Three :: Clip the Length of the Head Pins

As you can see from the photo below, you will have to use the wire cutter part of your pliers to shorten the length of your head pins before you attach them to your chain.
Otherwise, you will have very long-dangling beads and unless that’s the look you’re going for, the beads won’t lay right.

You want to leave approximately 1/3 inch or 1 centimeter of pin above the top of  your bead:

Step Four :: Assemble your Necklace or Bracelet!

Ah - the fun part!  All that is left to do is bend the head pins into a loop around the chain links, like this. Head pins are very soft metal, this part is super-easy.

It may take a little practice for the children to line up the wire so that the cut ends don’t poke out. You want the pin to form a neat tear-drop shaped loop around the chain link and meet up with itself again.

A few tips — count the links between beads and use the same number to space them evenly. Uneven bead spacing looks really obvious when you are wearing the jewelry. Choose fewer bead styles for a more dramatic impact - and an elegant pattern usually looks more sophisticated than a haphazard approach (but randomness can look great, too)!

Most of all - experiment and have fun! This doesn’t need to be an autumn-only activity - check out this bracelet I made for my daughter that would be perfect with a spring dress and cute pink heels… oh, wait, that would be me with the heels…

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