Halloween is probably our favorite holiday. Shhh … don’t tell Thanksgiving or Christmas!! We love decorating the house, making crafts, watching Halloween movies, reading Halloween books, dressing up in costumes (to be honest we do this year-round), go to as many fall fests as we can find, and most fun of all … throwing a party on Halloween.
This year, with the girls being 2 and 4, I found crafts that they both would enjoy doing that were similar while still being age-appropriate.
The first craft we did was a spider handprint craft.
You will need:
- Orange construction paper
- Black paint
- Paintbrush or sponge
- Black marker
- Glue
- Googly eyes
Instructions:
- Grab your construction paper
- Paint your child’s hand black (but not the thumb!)
- Stamp the child’s hand once
- Paint the same hand again
- Turn the paper and stamp again
- Draw your spider webs
- Add some eyes
The second craft we did was a bat handprint craft.
You will need:
- Purple & grey construction paper
- Black paint
- Paintbrush
- Googly eyes
- Glue
Instructions:
- Grab your construction paper
- Paint your child’s hand black
- Stamp the child’s hand once
- Paint the other hand
- Stamp that
- Cut and glue clouds (you could use cotton balls instead of grey paper)
- Glue on the eyes
Next up we made spiders and spider webs. The girls ended up making two different types of spiders because my youngest likes to put things in her nose.
For the younger kids:
You will need:
- 4 Crafting sticks
- Black Paint
- Paintbrush
- Medium size pom-pom
- googly eyes
- Hot glue & hot glue gun (or a low-temp glue gun)
Instructions:
- Paint your craft sticks black (If you have black craft sticks you can skip this part)
- Once dried, glue the 4 craft sticks to each other (hot glue holds the best)
- Glue pom-pom on
- Glue eyes on
For the older kids:
For the SPIDER you will need:
- Medium size pom-pom
- googly eyes
- Hot glue & hot glue gun (or a low-temp glue gun)
- 2 pipe cleaners of one color (We used dark green)
- 1 pipe cleaner of another color (We used light green)
- Pony beads
Instructions:
- Cut the dark green pipe cleaners in half so that you have 4 pieces
- Cut 1.5 to 2 inches off of the light green pipe cleaner
- Fold the dark green pipe cleaners (will become the legs) in half and wrap with the light green (will become the fangs)
- Slide pony beads onto spider’s legs – Bend the legs and curl the ends so they don’t fall off
- Glue pom-pom onto legs
- Glue googly eyes onto pom-pom
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For the SPIDER’S WEB you will need:
- 8 Crafting sticks
- Black Paint
- Paintbrush
- String or yarn
Instructions:
- Paint your craft sticks black (If you have black craft sticks you can skip this part)
- Once dried, glue the 8 craft sticks to each other (hot glue holds the best)
- Hot Glue the string to the back of the craft stick structure
- Wrap your string around each stick once and then continue to the next stick.
- Hot glue the sting on the underside so it doesn’t move.
- Glue your spider where ever you choose
Last, but certainly not least…
PUMPKIN PAINTING (everyone’s favorite)
You will need:
- Pumpkin (let the kids pick them out)
- Paint
- Paintbrush
- Paper plate (to hold your paint)
- Water cup (to rinse your paintbrush)
- Paper towels (because we always get messy)
Instructions:
- Set your kids up outside and let them go crazy!
The most important thing to remember when crafting with the kids is to let them enjoy the process. Let them pick the different sized googly eyes. Let them pick green for a spider when you wanted to do black. Let them make it their own and enjoy making the memories with them.
