Fall is such a fun time of the year. It’s time for sweaters, booties, pretty much every possible food and drink in pumpkin flavor, and baked goods! Personally, I love to make treats for my family and friends. It’s such a warm, comforting and delicious way to say I love you. I’m also a total sucker for a fun Fall activity. To combine the two, I’ve come up with a semi-homemade cookie activity that is easy, fun, and delicious.

What You Need:

• Pumpkin shaped cookies – yay! I found fantastic ones in the bakery section of my grocery store that were fresh, not decorated, and only $5 for the whole container. Yes, you can make your own, but you don’t have to. This is a simple and fun decorating activity – so it’s nice to have a short cut! 🙂
• 1 – 12oz container of cream cheese frosting (vanilla works as well)
• Orange food coloring (mix red and yellow if you have those on hand)
• A variety of sprinkles – My grocery store had candy eyes, little candy skulls and bones, and tiny candy pumpkins that were super fun for the kids to use
• Black and green gel frosting in a small tube for the details
• Parchment paper
• Tape

What To Do:

• Put 1/2 of the frosting into a small tupperware container. Mix in your food coloring to your favorite shade of orange. Start slow and add more as you go. The bonus of mixing the orange frosting in the tupperware is that you can easily store it if you have any left over.
• Cut a large piece of parchment and tape it to the table. This will be your workstation with thekids – to help control the mess.
• Depending on the age of your kids, you may want to spread the frosting yourself. My kids are 2 and 4, so I spread the frosting for my 2 year old and let my 4 year old give it a go.
• Spread a couple cookies with white frosting and a couple with orange. Orange sprinkles work well on the white frosting. The orange frosting doesn’t need sprinkles (don’t let that stop you) – but are great for the other decorations.
• Let your kids have fun decorating their pumpkin cookies! It should be fun, silly and messy!
• Eat and enjoy!

Happy Winning Wednesday! A big WIN in our house is Cardboard Box Crafts! We order our diapers, wipes, and other essentials in bulk – so we end up with some wonderful large cardboard boxes. On the rare occasion that I’ve ordered a piece of furniture or an appliance, we got boxes that were perfect for a big playtime project!

Cardboard boxes can be turned into almost anything. Take the opportunity to craft with your family, and then use your imaginations to play with your new creation!

The following are some fun examples of Cardboard Box Crafts that we’ve made in our home. The kids love being able to cover the boxes in construction paper, stickers, drawings using markers and crayons, and more!

Cardboard Rocketship

First, open the top of your large box. I like leaving the bottom closed so the kids can put toys in it while they play make believe.

Using a sharp scissors, cut one of the smaller flaps off (that will be the back of the rocket ship). The opposite flap will be the front of your ship. Using your scissors, leave a rounded portion of the flap, about 3 inches wide. You can see the small flat on the front of our ship in the photos.

The two remaining large flaps need to be trimmed to make wings. I simply used my scissors to cut between 1-2 inches off each side at an angle for each “wing.”

After you’re done cutting the flaps, it’s time to decorate! Using kid friendly materials like cardboard paper, glue sticks, and stickers, help the kids decorate their new rocketship. I let the kids cover sections of the box using the glue stick, and then helped them stick on the construction paper. You can also use aluminum foil on sections like the wings if you want more of a metal look. I completely set them loose with the stickers and they had a blast!

If you want to really take it to the next level, print out a control panel and glue it to the inside of your rocketship. Thats it! Now let them have fun flying through space! 🙂

Cardboard Cars

This is a super easy craft and very fun! Your box doesn’t need to be huge for this one. Cut the top completely off the box. Now you need to cut off the bottom flaps. Before you cut anything else, use a marker to draw your tires. Cut off the remaining flaps, cutting to leave the tires attached to the box.

Now it’s time to decorate! Let the kids pick out construction paper in their favorite color(s) for their car. Let them use glue sticks to stick on the construction paper. I let them cover one whole side at a time and helped them smooth on the paper. They felt very independent and it was an easy and safe way for them to help out. I used black and white construction paper to cut out colors to cover the tires. Use a marker to draw on the lights, grill, and other car details.

Use the tip of your scissors to poke a hole in each of the 4 corners. I used shoestrings to make straps for the car to sit on the kids shoulders. You can use yarn, ribbons, or whatever you have on hand. Now – have fun!!

Cardboard Castle

This craft requires a much larger box. I ordered a storage ottoman and the box it came in was perfect for a castle! You can also recycle a box from a neighbor. You can try posting on Nextdoor to see if one of your neighbors has a big box in good condition that you can use 🙂

Prop the box up on it’s side so it’s nice and tall like a castle. I used a serrated knife with a pointy end to cut a drawbridge. started at the bottom of the box, cut up and around to make the drawbridge, and left the bottom connected. Use the tip of the knife to poke a small hole in the corners of the drawbridge and above the door openings. Using 2 long pieces of string, connect the drawbridge to the castle.

Using the knife, cut a door in the back of the box so that they can get in and out of the castle even if the drawbridge is closed.

Cut one of the box flaps off  – I used one from the top of the box so the bottom could stay in tact. Use a sharp scissors to cut the flap into a pattern that looks like the top of a castle. You can use a pattern if you like, or just wing it like I did! This is a sample of an easy design.

Tape the piece onto the top of your castle using box tape. It gives your box some extra height and makes it look a lot more like castle. Cut a small slit (about 2 inches) on each side of the top of your castle. Slide empty paper towel or toilet paper roll tubes onto the slits to look like towers.

Now get the kids involved to decorate! I used a marker to draw bricks on the sides to give it more of a stone castle look. We had decorations left over from a party that we taped on the top as well as some fun LED battery operated lights from the holidays. Use markers and stickers to let your kids get involved.

Now – have fun! My kiddos loved to sit inside and play with puzzles, read books, and just hang out – it became their favorite fort!

NOTE: I chose to build this without my kids because I used a knife for this craft. They can still decorate it, but I did the “building” without them for safety.

I hope this post inspires you to use your boxes for fun crafts with your kids! Not only is it an opportunity to recycle your boxes, but it’s a great way to play and let your kids imaginations soar!

ENJOY and happy Winning Wednesday!

XOXO

Toddlers are so much fun and very curious! Gabe is full of energy and has a million questions a day. I don’t always have the answers, but I try hard to explain things as best as I can. One thing that he has been particularly interested in lately is how things grow. He has learned a lot about how things grow at school, and I wanted to do something fun to bring that learning home.

The Flower Power Experiment is easy and fun! Gabe will be 4 at the end of July, so he was a super helper for this experiment. Sofia is 22 months and a bit too young to be my helper. My kiddos are learning different things right now, but that doesn’t mean they can’t both benefit from our activities!

My favorite part about this particular activity is that Gabe and I did the experiment while Sofia was napping yesterday (fantastic 1:1 time for me and my big boy), and when she got up, she was excited about all the beautiful colors! Gabe got to learn about how plants take in water and why, while Sofia got to practice her colors in a fun new way!

What You Need:

• White flowers – I went with 8 flowers so each kid could have a flower in each of the 4 colors we were using.
• Food coloring – Don’t spend a lot on this since you aren’t eating the coloring at all.
• Mason jars, clear water glasses, clear plastic cups, or other smallish containers to hold a couple of flowers on their own. I like mason jars because they are sturdy, great for food storage, art projects, baking, canning, and more.
• A large measuring cup or something easy for your kiddos to pour water out of.
• Water

The Experiment:

Step 1: Start by talking about the flowers. This is a simple explanation that you can use – or modify – for your kiddos.

“Plants absorb water through their roots through a process called osmosis. Can you say osmosis? The water travels up tubes in the stems to the other parts of the plants like the petals, and is used by the plant to make food. Can you show me the stems of the flowers? Can you show me the petals? We can’t see the plant drinking water because it happens very slowly. When we add food coloring to the water, the flowers drink the water and the food coloring travels up the stem and into the white flower petals! The colors help show us that the plant drank the water! Plants need water and food to grow, just like you and me!”

Step 2: Put out your mason jars and fill your measuring cup with water. I recommend filling one of them first to show your toddler how to be careful, pour slowly, and about how much water to pour. Then let them try it! The great news is water is easy to clean up! Keep a towel handy in case of any spills.

Step 3: Let your helper put in the food coloring. Just like with the water, show your kiddo how to do the first one. I showed Gabe how to put the food coloring in the first jar and we counted 15 drops together. I then let him do the other 3 colors while we counted to 15 together each time.

Step 4: It’s time to pick out the flowers for each jar. Let your helper pick 1 flower at a time. Using sharp scissors, cut the bottom of the stems so the flowers fit your jar/glass without tipping over. I used this as an opportunity to remind Gabe that adults are the only ones who get to use sharp scissors. They are off limits to kiddos – which includes him. You can hand the flower back to your helper so they can put one or two in each cup of color.

Step 5: Talk about what they think will happen next. Will the flowers look the same (white) even though they are drinking water with colors in them? Will they change colors? Will they have little spots or stripes of color or will they drink all the water quickly and be super dark..? Have a discussion about what they think will happen and why.

Step 6: Check on the flowers in a few hours, and again the next day. Talk about what they think has happened and look at the amount of color the flowers have taken in so far. After 2 days, cut another inch off the bottoms to refresh the stems and see if the flowers take up more water/color. Enjoy checking in on this experiment for a few days until the flowers start falling apart. Compost flowers when done.

Have fun! XOXO