The Color Orange and A Big Round Squash

Today I had a moment of creativity. I pulled out my construction paper, glue and scissors, brought my kids to the kitchen table where we started making jack-o-lanterns.

I started cutting out a bunch of shapes: triangles, squares, circles. I told the kids that we would be using shapes to make the pumpkin's face. Noah knows his shapes, but Clara really doesn't, so I thought this would be a fun way for her to start learning them. Even though does know them, it was still fun for him to see how you can create different things using shapes. We did use some ovals, which was a shape he didn't know very well, so he still learned something new.

As we made them, I'd ask Noah, "What shape do you want to do for the eyes? For the nose?" etc... One time I told him he didn't have to do the same shape for both eyes. He liked that idea and did a circle and a square. After that he started to get more creative.

Clara had fun rubbing the glue stick all over everything for a while, but her attention span quickly ran out, so I had to entertain her with some stickers. But Noah LOVED it! He loved gluing and creating, and he even cut some of the shapes (like, the huge stems). He made pumpkin after pumpkin, even getting really creative and doing a pink, a blue and a green pumpkin. Who cares that they don't exist in real life! Being a kid is about being imaginative. I loved watching him create a different jack-o-lantern each time. Each one was unique- just like him!

Here are some of our pumpkins we made. I love the green one and the one with the humongous stem.

When we finished cleaning up, Noah helped me hang up our pumpkins all around the house as part of our Halloween decor. I know displaying his artwork always makes him feel so good, and I love seeing them around. Every time I see them I feel warm and fuzzy all over.

When the activity was over I didn't really want to stop playing with my kids. I was having just as much fun. Plus, I wanted to do something that Clara would really enjoy, since she didn't get as into the pumpkin thing.

So, I found my Halloween CD and stuck it in the CD player. Clara immediately started dancing and kept saying "more" when a song would end. She loves music, and she loves dancing. She twirls, kicks, wiggles, bobs her head to the beat, shakes, and laughs. I had fun dancing too to all the silly kid-friendly Halloween songs.

After the kids had lunch, I grabbed some pumpkin/Halloween books to have a little story time to help wind them down for nap/rest time. As I was getting ready, I realized there was a theme emerging from all my last minute play time ideas. The pumpkins were orange, the leftover mac and cheese they had for lunch was orange, the blanket I grabbed for reading time was orange and came with a small round orange pillow that looks like a pumpkin, and the books I grabbed were all about orange pumpkins. I pointed this all out to Noah, asking him what color everything was. He was very excited to see the similarities in everything. And when we read our books, I let him hold the pumpkin pillow.

At the end of all this, Noah collapsed onto my lap. I told him how much fun I had, and he said, "Me too, but it made me tired." Mwuah-ha-ha! My evil planned worked!