Creative Pumpkin Activities

Get Creative and Make a Pumpkin Mummy

This pumpkin mummy is an adorable and less messy way to decorate a pumpkin for Halloween! We found these cute little pumpkins over at Hands on as we Grow.  Enjoy!

Mummy pumpkins from Hands on as we grow.

We made these for a preschool Halloween Hoopla class and the kids loved them! Just wrap your pumpkin in cheesecloth.

Recommended Reading:

Why do We Carve Pumpkins?


The Runaway Pumpkin *ad


The Night Before Halloween *ad

Non-Toxic Face Paint Homemade Recipe

Homemade Edible, Non Toxic Face Paint Recipe with Coconut Oil

We love Halloween, Dramatic Play, and all things theatrical. We are always testing new ways to make face paint at home. You'll find several homemade recipes for face paint in our archives. Of all of our recipes, this Non Toxic Face Paint Homemade Recipe using all natural coconut oil is our favorite. Enjoy!

This post contains affiliate links for your convenience.

Non-Toxic Face Paint Homemade Recipe All Natural  Coconut Oil.

Adam Rubin Author Books

Books by Adam Rubin, Author

Who is Adam Rubin? He is an author who writes fun books for kids. You might remember his story, Those Darn Squirrels. With the release of his most recent children's book, Robo-Sauce, Mr. Rubin has quit his day job to become a full-time author. Jealous. His other jobs were pretty cool too. He once pitched interactive games, t.v. commercials, and brands. Now, he is just awesome sauce. Enjoy this review of his newest book releasing October 20, 2015.

Adam Rubin Author Books: Robo-Sauce.

Robo-Sauce is the perfect book for boys who don't like to read. Tweens and Teens alike will enjoy the flourescent orange graphics and lively illustrations by Daniel Salmieri. The book is interactive and takes a fun twist at the end.

You mustn't just read the story. You'll want to become a robot too. What's a squishy human boy to do? Create your own recipe for robo-sauce, of course. Robo-sauce will turn you into the exact robot you've dreamed of becoming, but Mr. Rubin's recipe ingredients are hard to find. Good luck, trying to make that sauce!

Eating Robo-Sauce preparing to turn into a robot.

Since, it is all about pretending, we've come up with the best robo-sauce recipe for kids who love to eat sweets. Just in time for Halloween too! So, grab your treat bucket with all that ooey-gooey candy and create a recipe that is sure to activate your robot resources.

Halloween Candy Leftover Robo-Sauce:

1 Pint of Vanilla Ice Cream or Yogurt
1 batch of M and M's or 1 batch of Halloween Candy Bars
1 batch of Smarties or Skittles Candies
1/2 C. Fruit
Chocolate or Caramel Syrup
1/2 C. Almond Milk
Plastic Sandwich Bags
Orange Food Coloring Gel

• Remove ice cream from Fridge.  

• Unwrap your favorite candies and place in sealed plastic sandwich bag. To become a robot you need to show superior strength. You might want to pound the candy flat with your robo fists.

• Get ice cream. Take a plastic butter knife and run it around the edge of the container to make it easier to pour or scoop out.

• Pour or Place into a large bowl. Use a wooden spoon or plastic spatula to mush up the ice cream.

• Stir in Almond Milk.

• Add three-five drops of orange food coloring gel.

Yellow plus Red makes Orange.

Looking like Robo-Sauce.

• Fold in (Add) Robo squishy candies

• Stir gently with spoon or spatula.

Your Robo-Sauce is ready to eat and share with friends! Once you take the first bite- start moving like a robot. As you eat more of the cold sauce, notice how it feels when you eat it. Your body is getting colder- just like a metal robot. Now, walk and talk like a robot for the rest of the day.

Want to win your own copy of the book? Leave a comment by October 31, 2015. We'll choose one person to win!

Recommended:

Those Darn Squirrels*

Robot Crafts and Costumes

Recipes for Kids from Kids Creative Chaos

Robo-Sauce Free Printables

Dragons Love Tacos*

Things to do with a Box

Secret Pizza Party*



ADS DISCLOSURE: We've partnered with some wonderful advertisers who may sponsor blog posts or send us samples to test. Some companies pay us to review their products. *We also use affiliate links, if you make a purchase we get a tiny commission. Kids Creative Chaos participates in the Amazon LLC Associates Program*, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a mean for blogs to earn advertising fees by linking to Amazon properties, including, but not limited to, amazon.com, endless.com, myhabit.com, smallparts.com, or amazonwireless.com. We also offer Chitika, Google Adsense, TAPINfluence, The Blogger Network, IZEA, Sverve, and Social Spark ads here. Thanks so much for helping us keep the lights on! :)

7 Unique Egg Carton Craft Ideas: Not just for Easter

These 7 Egg Carton Crafts aren't just for Easter!  

These Unique Craft Ideas with Egg Cartons make Great Pinterest pins and will keep the kids busy too.

Easter is coming and we expect you will have lots of extra egg cartons to recycle. We won't! We have ducks and chickens and we are always in need of new egg cartons. I decided to spare just one and make some fun preschool Easter crafts with egg cartons. I also took a tour around the Kid Blogger Network and Pinterest and found a few more things to do with egg cartons.  Enjoy!

• Red Ted Art is my favorite blog! Maggy is a creative genius. I highly recommend her post about How to Make Fairy Blossom Lights from Egg Cartons.

Egg Carton Fairy Lights from Red Ted Art blog.

These egg carton crafts can be made year round to help recycle all those pesky cartons. They just beg to be used up, just like the drink carriers at fast food restaurants.

• This one is perfect for anytime, but EXCELLENT for Halloween. Mayhem will adore this one. We made a bunny (see below), sure, he's cute, but we didn't think very far outside the box. You can find this little egg carton kitty over at Storknet.com.

Egg carton craft for Halloween.

• Are you looking for a truly unique, Easter art project for your classroom? This one from Unicorn Hat Party blog artsy enough for older elementary school kids and easy enough for preschoolers.

Egg Carton Art Project for Kids.

• How about an Egg Carton Pirate Ship craft? This one from Craft Project Ideas blog is fairly easy, little ones might need some help, but make two and you can have a race in the bathtub! If your bathtub isn't easy to navigate a baby pool or a wallpaper tub make a perfect ocean for your creation.

Egg Carton Pirate Ship Craft for Kids from Craft Project Ideas blog.

• Here at Kids Creative Chaos, we've got some of our own egg carton crafts or things to do with egg cartons too. How about making a mini-garden for your kitchen window?

Egg carton gardening with kids.

• We also made mini-masks, maybe you could try it on your cat like we did with our mini-chef hat? Perhaps, you could tape it to a popsicle stick or wooden craft stick and call it a puppet, or a little mask for your face?

Egg Carton Mask - just add a craft stick.

• Then we made cute bunnies from egg cartons. They aren't very original (though I thought they were when I started making them), but they are an easy, cute Easter craft to make with preschoolers.

Egg Carton Bunny Craft for Kids.

Egg Carton Bunny back, we used scraps, but you could add a cottonball tail.

Mayhem's egg carton "Rainbow" bunny. He lost an ear, poor thing.

Recommended Reading:

What Is Easter?

Make a Phineas Mask with an Egg Carton

Happy Easter, Mouse! by Laura Numeroff

Fun Things to Make at Home

Things to do with a Box: Homemade DIY Disney Perry the Platypus

How to make a Perry the Platypus Costume for Halloween

Got a box? Got an hour? Make a homemade costume for creative play, trick or treating, or a fun spontaneous parade. We saw an episode of Phineas and Ferb and Candace was wearing a Perry Costume. We had to make our own Perry the Playtpus Homemade Costume for Halloween. Enjoy!

This post contains Amazon Affiliate links.

Perry the Platypus costume to make at home.

So, I was surfing Facebook and caught this photo of Candace dressed in a Perry the Platypus costume, and I immediately knew I'd be recreating it for the blog. What a great idea for creative play- Box recycling. I mean, who doesn't love a box?

Candace as Perry the Platypus.

Who indeed? Of course, the family cat loves a box.

First, I grabbed an old box. Then, I tried to match Perry's teal color with paint I had on hand. I got a drab teal by mixing blue + white + a dash of red.

 

I didn't want to go to the store. It was hurricane weather- even Indiana was cold and windy. So, I searched my stash of junk and found old paper plates, squished turquoise crepe paper garland, Styrofoam circles, and lucky me an old, beige fedora!

Start by taping an end to the back, and then line glue all around 
and attach the crepe paper.

Paint your beak orange.

Paint a mouth on one side.

Attach paper plate beak to inside with tape.

Cut out paper eyeball and wrap crepe over for eyebrows.

Finally...

• Insert kid as Candace. 
• Find Phineas and Ferb Friends. 

This took a couple of hours. Of course, you can always save time or effort and choose to buy costumes from fancy costume shops online such as kigurumi.co. but I loved that we had everything on hand and could recycle my craft supplies. Full Disclosure: I ran out of crepe, so I made sure to cover the front and let the sides go with just paint.



Recommended:

Phineas, Ferb, and Perry Fun Free PDF Activity Book

How to Make a Phineas Mask

No Sew Nativity Costumes

Disney 18" Perry, Folding Plush Pillow

Phineas and Ferb Reader #2: Perry Speaks! (Level 3)

3 Science Things to do with Eggs: Includes Bouncing Egg

3 Fun Science Things to do with Eggs including Bouncing Egg

We've got chickens and ducks, so we've got a lot of eggs! We're always looking for new uses for them. We don't want them to go to waste. Since we homeschool, we decided to try some kid science things to do with eggs. Have you seen the bouncing egg experiment? So, how do you make an egg bounce? Enjoy!

This post contains affiliate links for your convenience*

Which came first the chicken or the egg? Oh, that's not the egg science experiment we're doing..

EXPERIMENT #1

For our first egg science experiment, we tried to find out. Will it float? You'll need two eggs and two glasses of tap water.

Bouncing Egg Experiment with Results.

Drop one egg in each glass.

Do they float? Why or why not? Write down your hypothesis in your journal or a Google Doc.

Slowly add SEA SALT (table salt works, you just need more). Now, what happens? The more sea salt you add what happens?

To find out what is happening, click here: Results.

That was fun! Don't waste those eggs. Keep them for the next experiment! Leave your egg in the cup.

Add enough vinegar to cover the egg.

Check it after 24 hours. Record any changes in the egg in your Science Journal or a Google Doc.


EXPERIMENT #2

Can you make an egg bounce?

Can you make an egg bounce?

Instructions for the next experiment call for a boiled egg, but we tried it with an unboiled egg- Just to be different.

We used a chicken egg and a duck egg. Since the duck egg has a stronger shell, the results were much better.

You can try it with boiled an unboiled eggs, but remember to test it outside. Do an experiment with both types of eggs and record any differences or similarities that you find.

How is the duck egg different from the chicken egg?

So, how does the egg feel after 24 hrs.? 48 hrs.? 72 hrs.?

We tested our egg after 48 hrs. See the results below.


VIDEO: Unboiled Egg Test Results

Here are ten more cool egg science experiments to try.

EXPERIMENT #3

Easter Egg Dye Experiments

What else can you do with eggs? Of course, we dye them for Easter. You might want to try to dye your Easter eggs naturally. We tried it as a Science Experiment. Let me just say, we failed miserably. One reason is we neglected to follow all of the steps.

Duck and chicken eggs from our farm. Use a Sharpie to write the date of collection.

If you want to dye eggs naturally click the links below to follow the instructions, and use these all natural ingredients that are proven to work.

Red Cabbage Eggs

Yellow Tumeric Eggs

We tried Dandelions...

Can you dye eggs with Dandelions? Maybe.

We tried Violets and other purple wildflowers...

Can you dye eggs with Violets? Maybe...

Soaking an egg in Violet juice.

Can you dye an egg with Halloween Candy?

Dye eggs with old Halloween Candy.

Heat the candy slowly over low heat. Green candies turn into a brown, sugary goo.

Orange and Red candies turn into an orange goo. Guess what? It works, sort of...

Beautiful natural shades of our eggs.

Egg soaked in melted orange and red candy.

The results of our egg-periment. For us, only orange and red candy worked.

Recommended:

Free Homeschooling Lessons

Cool Science Experiments Books*


















ADS DISCLOSURE: We've partnered with some wonderful advertisers who may sponsor blog posts or send us samples to test. Some companies pay us to review their products.

*We also use affiliate links, if you make a purchase we get a tiny commission. Kids Creative Chaos participates in the Amazon LLC Associates Program*, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a mean for blogs to earn advertising fees by linking to Amazon properties, including, but not limited to, amazon.com, endless.com, myhabit.com, smallparts.com, or amazonwireless.com. We also offer Tapinfluence, Google Adsense, SoFab, and Izea ads here. Thanks so much for helping us keep the lights on! :)

Jake's Journey in Art Mask Making 101: Phineas Mask and African Art Mask for Mardi Gras

How to make a Phineas Mask for Mardi Gras or Halloween Costume. Tip: It starts with a birthday party hat.

This latest in a series of Jake's Journey homeschool projects teaches the art of Mask Making and formal balance. We included a tutorial to make an African Art Pende Mask and a Phineas mask which is a little more fun for kids. You might also enjoy this Mardi Gras Bird Mask. Enjoy!

How to make a Phineas Mask 
for Mardi Gras, Halloween, or a Birthday Party Hat.

You need a cardboard birthday party hat, a cereal box, egg carton, gift bag, and construction paper. First, draw Phineas' hair (think reindeer antler.) Cut two sections, glue  a red gift bag (as pictured) or construction paper pattern onto the cardboard, let dry, and cut out. Cut a 2" slit in the center of the base of each hair piece, and slide them into each other. Next, cut about 1" off the top of the party hat. 

Draw pattern as pictured on paper folded in half.

It should look like this, cut two.

Take the hair piece and insert it into the hole in the top of the hat. Secure on the inside with tape.  Now, take your birthday party hat and wrap it in pink construction paper and tape with clear tape where it overlaps. Grab a second piece of pink construction paper and holding it in a cone shape, insert it inside the base of the party hat and attach with tape. For this step, it is helpful to have another set of hands. Push the interior cone to the front and attach a hairband inside the hat. Cut out two egg holders from the egg carton, color the center for eyes and attach (hot glues works best) to the front of your hat/mask.  Place the headband on your head as shown in the above picture. Voila!

You might also like to make a Perry the Platypus costume from a cardboard box. 

Make your own Phineas and Ferb Mask 
for a Costume from a birthday party hat.

Masks are a great way to teach the art of formal balance when both sides are exactly alike. Mask can look like animals, humans, or your favorite cartoon hero such as Phineas above. Make these masks to celebrate Mardi Gras.

Many tribes in African countries still use masks as part of their special occasions, or ceremonies.  Examples of Tribal African Mask  Jake chose the Pende Mask, "Panya Ngombe," which was hung above the door of the Chief's dwelling. It is a combination of human and buffalo features with incised triangular grids creating a checkerboard effect. 

Since, Jake seemed to enjoy this project, and the focus was on balance, I didn't split hairs when it came to neatness and creativity (always choose your battles).  Read more about Jake's Journey as a reluctant artist.  Anything to do with mythology, tribes, dinosaurs, he's all over it and loves to learn as much as possible, even if it means doing art!

Pende Mask.

Right click to print the Pende Mask Pattern Printable 
(Fold your paper in half).

Mayhem's "Cat/Person" African Mask.

Recommended Reading:

Timothy Hubble and the King Cake Party

How to make Mardi Gras Masks

Mardi Gras is Shrove Tuesday