Halloween Crafts for Kids - more added!

Sarah and Jack have been busy with some brilliant new Halloween crafts. Try making a skeleton costume from a black dustbin bag, painting a pumpkin jack-o-lantern, and making some spooky Halloween mosaic pictures. Find these Halloween crafts for kids - and many more - here:
Halloween Crafts for Kids

Another Halloween Video - Marshmallow Ghosts and Ghouls

Halloween Origami - video of Halloween cat and broomstick

Halloween Origami - mummies, witch's cats and broomsticks!

We've added some gorgeous new Halloween origami ideas to the site this week which are fun to fold but also make cute stick puppets, invitations or table decorations too. Or how about bringing out some origami paper and the printable instructions for a quiet activity at your Halloween party?
Halloween origami

Marshmallow Ghosts and Ghouls - a fun snack for Halloween

We had great fun making these Marshmallow Ghosts and Ghouls - and just as much fun eating them! We will be making them again as an activity at our Halloween party, too, as I know Tilly's friends will enjoy decorating their own. You can even sit down with the kids to watch Tilly make them on video!
Marshmallow Ghosts and Ghouls

Fall crafts - have a printing and painting session!

If the kids feel like getting the paints out, there are some great ideas for a messy printing session on our Autum / Fall crafts page - using everything from handprints to apples!

Fall Crafts

Thanksgiving Crafts for Kids

If you head over to our Thanksgiving pages today you will find a brand new collection of original Thanksgiving crafts to enjoy with your kids, including this pretty salt dough apple wreath (best for older children), a Harvest Basket from construction paper, and more!

Thanksgiving Crafts

Online fun with this newspaper page generator

Your children will have fun with this online generator: simply type in your own date, heading and words and click "generate" to product a newspaper graphic like this one. The possibilities are endless! Perhaps you could use it for school projects, invitations, birth announcements, congratulatory messages, birthday cards...
Online newspaper generator

Halloween Lunch Box Notes - 16 to print and enjoy!

We are sure your kids will enjoy these little Halloween Lunch Box Notes - 16 little snippets of fun to print and pop into a lunch box every day. (I never did lunch boxes, but the kids often find one in their place on the breakfast table in the morning!) Until 10 minutes ago this pack was for sale. Now you can download it free.

Halloween Lunch Box Notes

For all mothers - a must-see video!

Make A Cat Mask - for Halloween or anytime

This cat mask craft includes all the best crafty activities - painting, cutting, sticking and make-believe! And best of all, you can use the finished product to go trick-or-treating on Halloween too.

Cat Mask

Fun printable toys from a Japanese site..

I have just come across this Japanese page of fun printable toys. You will have to guess at the instructions (unless you can read Japanese!) but there are illustrations which show you how to put the toys together. Click on the links to find the printables themselves - bearing in mind that sometimes you will be taken to the printables, and sometimes to a commercial site selling craft supplies! I particularly liked the pop up racoon and cut puppets and the skittles.

Printable toys

Cute hedgehog craft

If you are out looking for conkers, why not pick up some horse chestnut shells too and try our very cute hedgehog craft!

Painted candle craft - messy but effective fun for kids!

We made our candle to celebrate Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, but you could make Christmas or Halloween candles in exactly the same way. They would also make a lovely hand made gift.

Painted Candle Craft

Tea Light Holder craft - quick and easy, but a great gift that kids can make!

Using a terracotta pot or ramekin makes this a very quick and easy craft, but you can really go to town with your decorations! It makes a perfect little present, too.

Tea Light Holder craft

Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, and some new craft ideas

Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, will be celebrated on 9th November this year, and we have updated our Diwali pages to include new Diwali recipes, crafts and links to some excellent pages elsewhere on the net. This is one of our newest crafts - a simple clay diya (lamp) which even the youngest children can enjoy.



Simple diya craft

The Potato Story - (educational) fun for kids!

The Potato Story is a fun, interactive initiative by McCain Foods to help children understand the origins of the food they eat, plant growth and nutrition. The website is based on the journey a potato takes from a farmer’s field to your fork to help engage school children in ICT, literacy and numeracy.



Targeted to Key Learning Stage 2 (7-11 years of age), The Potato story includes lesson plans, interactive games and quizzes and teachers’ notes offering guidance and suggestions for classroom activities based around each module’s theme. Along with recipes to try in the classroom or at home, children can learn through the characters Cheeky Ladybird, Bossy Butterfly, Lazy Caterpillar, Busy Bee and Jolly Hen.

In addition to the website, The Potato Story will also be accompanied by a re-designed London route master bus which will support the launch of the in-classroom teaching resource by visiting schools to add an experiential element to the programme.

The Potato Story supports the Year of Food and Farming (http://www.yearoffoodandfarming.org.uk/), a government initiative aimed to get children interested in all aspects of the countryside, farming and food.

The idea for The Potato Story came from research commissioned by the British Heart Foundation which found that one in three children didn’t know that chips were made from potatoes! There will be no excuse for that now!

The Potato Story - (educational) fun for kids!

The Potato Story is a fun, interactive initiative by McCain Foods to help children understand the origins of the food they eat, plant growth and nutrition. The website is based on the journey a potato takes from a farmer’s field to your fork to help engage school children in ICT, literacy and numeracy.

Targeted to Key Learning Stage 2 (7-11 years of age), The Potato story includes lesson plans, interactive games and quizzes and teachers’ notes offering guidance and suggestions for classroom activities based around each module’s theme. Along with recipes to try in the classroom or at home, children can learn through the characters Cheeky Ladybird, Bossy Butterfly, Lazy Caterpillar, Busy Bee and Jolly Hen.

In addition to the website, The Potato Story will also be accompanied by a re-designed London route master bus which will support the launch of the in-classroom teaching resource by visiting schools to add an experiential element to the programme.

The Potato Story supports the Year of Food and Farming, a government initiative aimed to get children interested in all aspects of the countryside, farming and food.

The idea for The Potato Story came from research commissioned by the British Heart Foundation which found that one in three children didn’t know that chips were made from potatoes! There will be no excuse for that now!

The Potato Story

Halloween Links updated - a HUGE collection of fun Halloween ideas!

Tracy has just updated our Halloween links page and we now have a really enormous collection of fun Halloween activities from the web (just in case you can't find enough to keep you occupied at Activity Village's Halloween pages!

Halloween Links