Easy Halloween Breakfast: Jack O Lantern Toast with Pumpkin Cream Cheese

Feeding toddlers is never easy, so I love to have fun with their food. Earlier this Fall we made Owl Toast and it was a big hit, so I thought I'd do something similar for Halloween.

This is really simple - you can mix up the cream cheese the night before, so even when you're in a hurry in the morning you can still make a special holiday breakfast. It's also delicious for an afternoon snack!

The first step is mixing up the Pumpkin Cream Cheese. I love that my kids are actually getting some veggies here - pumpkin is a great source of Vitamin A and fiber.

Pumpkin Cream Cheese

Ingredients:
1/2 cup cream cheese
1/4 cup pure pumpkin puree
2 tsp honey
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

Mix all ingredients in a small bowl until fully incorporated. Refrigerate until serving.

Once your cream cheese is done, all you need to do is toast your favorite bread. Then cut a pumpkin shape out of your toast using a pumpkin shaped cookie cutter. (affiliate link)

Spread your pumpkin cream cheese on your toast and decorate with chocolate chips. If your toddler is like mine, these will be the first to go.

That's it! A quick, easy, and healthy breakfast for Halloween morning (or a great pre-trick or treating snack). Enjoy!

5 Easy Halloween Activities for Toddlers

We've been having so much fun getting ready to celebrate Halloween over the past few weeks! If you haven't had a chance to put together any Halloween activities that are toddler friendly, I've got you covered. Here's a quick roundup of our 5 favorite Halloween activities that are quick, easy, and perfect for kids ages 1-3. Boo!

Fuzzy Belly Ghosts - An easy craft that's great for fine motor skills.

Feed The Pumpkin - a great way to up cycle a baby wipes box into a fun game!

Sticky Eye Spider - a fine motor activity that's cute too.

Ring Around The Pumpkin - a stacking and sorting activity for toddlers.

Chalkboard Pumpkins - draw, erase, and start again!

Happy Halloween!

Ring Around the Pumpkin: Stacking & Counting Activity for Toddlers

We picked up some small and medium sized pumpkins at the pumpkin patch last weekend and we've been having fun coming up with all sorts of ways to incorporate them into play activities and crafts, like our Chalkboard Pumpkins.

One of my toddlers loves to stack and sort things. We have also been working on practicing counting. I came up with an activity to combine both of these skills, upcycle some paper rolls, and let the boys have fun with their new pumpkins too.

You really don't need a lot of materials for this project at all. It sets up quickly and can be done many times over!

I collected some paper towel and toilet paper rolls, a marker, stickers, and an assortment of pumpkins and went to work.

First, our empty paper towel and toilet paper rolls.

I used a black marker to turn the toilet paper rolls into ghosts.

Then I cut the paper towel roll into rings about 1-2 inches wide. An assortment of sizes is good for this project.  

We decorated our rings with stickers because it is my kids' favorite craft activity and we had a bunch of cute little Halloween stickers (and it's great for fine motor skills). You can decorate the rings anyway you like - paint, draw, etc. If you want to work on letter skills it would be fun to draw a different letter on each one and make words. Or if you are working on color recognition, paint each ring a different color. The possibilities are endless!

Once our rings were decorated (still a work in progress in the photo above!) we brought them to our collection of small and medium sized pumpkins, which were grouped in a shallow basket. It's best to have pumpkins with many different sized stems.

From here, I just let my toddlers go. They were immediately engaged in putting the ghosts and rings on the stems. 

It was amazing to watch how they moved the ghosts and rings from one pumpkin to another, seeing how many they could fit on each stem and how many different ways they could arrange them. We worked on counting each stack of rings and talking about which stacks were big and which were small.

This was a wonderfully easy and engaging activity for both my toddlers. When we were done, we just packed up the rolls and will get them out again. This is definitely worth repeating!

Chalkboard Pumpkins

I've seen so many wonderful ideas to decorate pumpkins without carving, but none of them seemed just right for my 2 year old twins. They love to paint, but they sometimes lose interest quickly and want a new piece of paper. I imagined them painting a pumpkin with one stroke then wanting a new one! I'm too frugal for that, so I wanted something that they could enjoy more than once.

They love chalk, and sometimes love erasing more than drawing. They really enjoy the repetition of drawing, erasing, and starting again. I thought we could incorporate this into our pumpkin decorating this year and our Chalkboard Pumpkin was born!

The secret to this project is this awesome chalkboard paint that I found at our local craft store. You can find it on Amazon (affiliate link). I used another chalkboard paint for a different pumpkin project and the DecoArt Clear worked a million times better. It doesn't peel and holds up to toddler heavy-handedness.

All you need is your pumpkin, chalkboard coating, and a sponge brush. Try to select as smooth a pumpkin as you can for a better drawing surface.

Apply your coating with the sponge brush in 2 coats - one going vertically down the pumpkin and one going horizontally around.  Wait an hour before applying the second coat.

Once your second coat is dry (mine took about an hour), prime the surface by rubbing some chalk on it and wiping off.

That's it! Let your toddlers enjoy drawing and erasing as much as they want. I got mine started with a jack-o-lantern face and let them embellish from there. It was fun! And it's great because we can do it over and over again.

Much better than a one time painting project. Give it a try and let me know what you think!

Sticky Eye Spider: A Halloween Fine Motor Skills Activity

Last weekend I found some awesome foam Halloween shapes at the craft store for only $1. We have had a blast making them into our Fuzzy Belly Ghosts and Feed the Pumpkin activities. The third one I bought was a spider shape and I think this may be our favorite activity of all. Sticky eye spiders made with velcro and googly eyes!  This was a fantastic fine motor activity for my toddlers, and a great way for them to work on spatial relations too. And it was fun!  Here's what we did...

First take a foam spider shape. Or if you can't find one you can cut a spider shape out of cardboard or foam.

Next add velcro to the center of your spider.

Then collect some googly eyes in various sizes (be cautious about small ones if your toddler puts things in his mouth. As always, supervise this activity if you are unsure).

Stick a small piece of velcro on the back of each eye.

Adhere the eyes to the velcro on the spider and you're done!

My toddlers were very intrigued by this project. One really liked to shake the spider and watch the eyes wiggle.  Then they began removing the eyes which proved to be an excellent fine motor exercise.

Once the eyes were all off they worked on putting them back. A great way to work on spatial relations as they figured out where they would stick and where they wouldn't, and also how to fit all the eyes on the velcro.

This turned out to be a perfect activity for after our day at the pumpkin patch, where we needed something quiet to wind down for the afternoon. They enjoyed it so much I think we might need to expand this one past Halloween and see what else we can stick our eyes to!

Feed the Pumpkin Halloween Activity for Toddlers

It is a rainy day today so we are in need of some quiet inside activities. My toddlers love to put things into boxes, and they are also really starting to get into Halloween, so this was a perfect combination of the two. And so easy, just a few materials that I had on hand. I always seem to have a million empty wipes boxes laying around just begging to be turned into toys. I picked up the foam pumpkin shape at the craft store this weekend for just $1.



My boys are having a ball "feeding" their pumpkin and hopefully it will help us pass the time until the sun comes back out!

Materials:

Foam Pumpkin Shape (if you don't have one you could cut a pumpkin shape out of cardboard).

Empty baby wipes box (an empty tissue box would work, though it wouldn't be as sturdy).

Velcro

Exacto Knife

Black Marker or Paint

Toy Food (or anything that your kids want to "feed" to the pumpkin!)

Directions:

Remove the flip top from your wipes box. Center your pumpkin on the lid and trace a line where the opening is. This will make sure your mouth lines up to the opening.

Draw a mouth shape around your line and cut out with an exacto knife. Be careful!

Draw on eyes and a nose with black marker or paint. I found a black Sharpie worked perfectly.

Affix two strips of velcro to the top of your wipes box.

Stick the pumpkin to the velcro. Press firmly!

Voila! Your hungry pumpkin is ready to eat!

I got out our box of play food and my boys took to this activity right away. They loved "feeding" the pumpkin. It was a great activity for fine motor skills and discussing food, colors, etc. 

And when your pumpkin is full, you can just open the top, dump it out, and start again! If you use a tissue box, just pull the pumpkin off to empty.

Have fun and Happy Halloween!

Fuzzy Belly Ghosts: Fun Halloween Craft

I picked up some great Halloween foam shapes today at the craft store (only $1 each!) and am trying to figure out what to do with them all. For some reason these cute little ghost shapes reminded me of the Pat the Bunny books that my kids love so much, so I thought hmmm... how about a little fuzzy belly ghost? It was really easy to make and they are having a ball with them! I think we'll take these on the road with us this week in our busy bags.

Here's what you need:

Ghost foam shape
Exacto knife
Clear contact paper
Mod Podge or craft glue
Googly eyes
Black felt
Cotton balls

Directions:

Start with a foam ghost shape, or if you are more creative than me, cut out a ghost shape from craft foam.

Take your ghost foam shape and trace out a belly shape. I used the throw away tab from the top of a square tissue box, but a large circle will also do.

Cut out the belly shape with your exacto knife (be careful!).

Cut out a square of clear contact paper that covers the size of your belly cut out.

Peel and stick the contact paper onto the back of your ghost.  I recommend reinforcing the edges with tape.

Flip your ghost over and apply 2 googly eyes with mod podge or glue.  Cut out a small oval of black felt for the mouth and glue this on as well. Allow to dry.

That's it! Now your kids can have fun filling the ghost's belly with cotton balls. Mine had a blast filling it up, taking them off, and putting back on again. This is also a great addition to a busy bag!

Happy Halloween!