So how do we talk about etiquette or table manners but make it fun?

I found some inspiration in that Alice in Wonderland book again! We read the book and then hosted our very own mad cap tea party.

“They buttered the gears. They sugared the springs. They strawberry jammed the wheels.”

- from the Tea Party in Alice in Wonderland

I let my son Wiley enforce the “rules” when our “guests” got out of hand. He felt very much in control and I think now that he knows the “rules” he’ll feel much more confident at a table with all the adults this Thanksgiving.

Tea parties are a great way to teach a variety of things. We counted out the place settings. He set the table. We had made rice crispies treats so we served those to our guests. While pouring the teddy bear some tea, the top to the pot came off and Wiley exclaimed “look mom, there goes the hubcap!”

Some would say you should save your candy to embellish your Gingerbread house come December. That is great idea but I find it’s hard to tell my son that he can’t enjoy the candy in some way, shape, or form now, so while I do save a large part of the stash for Gingerbread season, I also portion out a good part of the haul to use now.

So what do we do? Well, what does your child love more than candy? Playing with you! And with these activities, there is something for both of you to enjoy. I find I am best able to really connect with my children when the activity captures my imagination too. These projects did not disappoint.

The first step in your candy project is counting and sorting. This is a great way to demonstrate how we use mathematics in everyday life and allow them to flex their math muscles by asking them to sort their candy. They can do it by size, color, shape, or type. You can do it more than one time. Then they can count the pieces and you can discuss which of the piles is less than or more than the other(s).

When you have exhausted the sorting and counting game you can move on to the creation portion.

For this project you’ll need to use any “gummy candy” such as Tootie Rolls or Dots or anything that the size and consistency of a gumdrop. You’ll also need a box of toothpicks. I have done this with children as young as three, but please use your best judgment. If your child still likes to put things in their mouth (or eyes or ears for that matter!) toothpicks may not be the safest choice.

Anyway, once you have unwrapped all your gummy candy, you are only limited by your imagination. You can construct letters, numbers, shapes, houses, fences, stick figures… whatever you can fashion by sticking toothpicks in the gummies and connecting them together. My five year old did this project for 30 minutes twice this week (we went trick or treating earlier in the week). Today we brought out part of his train set and made fences, crossing gates, and a tunnel to accessorize the track! It was truly the highlight of my week to have us both so fully immersed in something together.

You can also use your candy to explore art and science themes.

Again, if you channel that creativity, there is no telling what kind of amazing creations you’ll produce. With some of the other candies you will need to alter their physical state to produce what we’re looking for. For example if you have Laffy Taffy or Airheads, unwrap them and attempt to run a pizza cutter or knife through them with your child watching. It will be difficult if not impossible. Next, heat them very gently for two to four seconds in your microwave, just long enough that they are warm and you can run your pizza cutter through them easily to make these strips. Roll the strips in your hands to make them nice and round.

Ask your child what they noticed? Was it easier to cut them after they were warmed? Another great way to demonstrate how science is part of everyday life.

Stash those miniature chocolate bars in the freezer for awhile until they are good and frozen. Then place them in a Ziploc bag and smash away with your meat mallet or even just the back of wooden spoon. What child doesn’t love to SMASH with wild abandon?

Sort your pulverized candy by color or texture and let the art emerge!

For our art project we made a little garden. The pulverized chocolate was the soil, the smashed Jolly Ranchers serves as the grass, the Laffy Taffy became the flowers. We even smashed a blue Jolly Rancher to make it “rain” in the garden.

Here are a few other fun “art + candy = fun” ideas I collected from the Internet:

• Creating with Candy
• Candy Critters
• Candy Masks

These activities were really engaging for both of us and enabled us to “enjoy” the candy without “ingesting” it! In all these activities, he only ate one piece of candy the entire time. I think he was just so immersed in the project he didn’t even think about eating it.

That’s what I call a win – win!

Happy Halloween!

So I created our fabulous sign up sheet. I even attempted to translate it into Spanish as there are 6 families who speak Spanish at home and whose parents know little or no English. After studying Spanish for 12 years I am embarrassed at how little I remember, but alas, I was able to piece something together with the limited vocabulary I could recall coupled with the online translations sites like wordreference.com. I am happy to report that all the slots were filled within 24-hours. (Can you say rock star room parent!? Ha!)

Are you planning a party for Halloween? If so, here are some tips for minimizing the SUGAR and WASTE factors, but maximizing the FUN.

With the party planning under control, I turned my attention to gathering a few books for the festivities. In addition to Over in the Hollow, these are three other books that are my list of must reads this fall.

Fletcher and the Falling Leaves This book has a winning combination—adorable illustrations and a meaningful storyline. The fox is just as cute as he can be and he is such an endearing character—concerned that his poor friend the tree is losing his leaves. Wiley’s Kindergarten class has been studying trees too so this is just perfect fit. Did you know, only broad leaf trees loose their leaves? Conifers are evergreen. We can’t take a walk anymore without discussing which trees are which.

Room on the Broom is a great read! Like Over in the Hollow, this book highlights the characters and antics of Halloween with a fun rhyming structure. The illustrations really bring the characters to life and while she’s not quite, Glenda the good witch, this witch is not the gruesome scary variety so it’s a safe bet for kids of all ages.

The House in the Night is not about Halloween or even fall per say, but the color scheme (just black & white with yellow) and the storyline: a house at night—makes it appropriate for Halloween. The illustrations are truly unique and remarkable. If they made a print of these pages, I’d order it and frame it! The words are so simple but as we read it together, we spend a lot of time on each page looking at the different items that are highlighted in yellow and talking about why they are highlighted.

I look forward to attending the class party and volunteering to read a story to the very subdued group of sugar-deprived children. Staying true to the CONTROL THY SUGAR mandate from the teacher, I ordered two dozen of these little treats for the kids. How clever! If you are enterprising enough, I am sure you can make them at home too. But I prefer to leave melting to the experts at Halloween ☺

What are you doling out this Halloween?

Happy Haunting!

As we acknowledge the arrival of my favorite time of year, I am inspired to find the *perfect* book that captures some of the sentiments of the season to read to my son at bedtime.

At our local Books Inc. on Monday I must have picked up ten different books about fall or Halloween. Nothing seemed to impress me until I found this one.

Over in the Hollow (cover)

Over in the Hollow by Rebecca Dickinson

The illustrations on the cover had me on the hook as soon as I picked it up. An adorable owl. An enormous harvest moon. A bat. A pair of Casper-esque ghosts.

I turned the pages.

The story mirrors the rhyming pattern of one of my all-time favorite bed time reads — Over in the Meadow.

The author’s dedication makes my maternal-spidey sense tingle:

“For my mother, who shared with me her love of reading and the lovely sounds of words strung together ‘just so.’”

It is published by Chronicle Books. I am a devoted fan. Their attention to detail is always impressive. Everything from the colors, to the fonts (”Whoa Nellie” is one of the fonts used for the quotes in the book, and it’s as cool as it sounds!), to full bleed on the illustrations’ layout, is well done.

The price tag? $15.99 (yep, I splurged, but did I mention I LOVE fall?)

I am not sure who loves it more, me or my five year old. But it held his attention the whole way through. I think he could sense my enthusiasm, as at one point he told me to read in a softer voice

What are your favorite children’s books for fall?