This theme week took shape naturally because of the upcoming holiday. There wasn't much extra effort required so it allowed us to focus more on having fun. We've been watching Wizard of Oz a lot recently and Mia expressed interest in being Glinda the Good Witch for Trick-or-Treat night. After some thought, it seemed like Millie would make a perfect lion since that is her favorite animal (although she's hardly cowardly...more like a courageous lion). Our two Boston Terriers seemed like perfect Flying Monkey material and dad called dibs on the Scarecrow. I decided to be Dorothy because you can't not have a Dorothy when you do group Wizard of Oz costumes! And gosh, a Wizard of Oz -themed Halloween is pretty perfect for the family about to finally settle down in their new home. There's no place like home, right? The chaos of the upcoming move made me hesitant to create homemade costumes for everyone, so I outsourced the girls' costumes from Pottery Barn Kids. Then Mia helped me make a long star wand from a dowel, wooden star cutout, and silver paint. Another day, we drafted some patterns and created Flying Monkey vests & wings out of felt. Mia glued all the black feathers on the wings for me while I sewed the vests together. For dad's scarecrow costume, we kept it simple with a plaid shirt, jeans & a burlap hat, but we measured his wrists and created "straw" felt fringe cuffs for his sleeves. And my Dorothy costume was easy to put together with a blue gingham shirt from H&M, white jeans, and red shoes. We can't wait to Trick-or-Treat in our new neighborhood later this week.
We carried our theme over into our pumpkins as well. Dad carved a house on one and I carved a ruby slipper on another one. Mia picked out the funniest looking green gourd at the pumpkin patch she said looked like the Wicked Witch's nose. And Millie, well she kept herself busy playing with all the pumpkin guts while we worked.
I don't typically do a lot of kid-styled food but for this week, I made an exception. We made mummy dogs out of crescent roll dough & hot dogs. These are all over Pinterest but in a nutshell, you wrap the dogs with strips of crescent roll dough and bake 15 minutes at 375 degrees. I used a toothpick to make mustard eyes. Easy!
Our Halloween theme week also coincides with Dia de los Muertos, All Saint's Day, and All Soul's Day (Nov. 1 & 2). As a nod to these holidays, we created our own painted rock sugar skulls and shared fond memories of our deceased relatives. I pulled out several photo albums so we could show Mia pictures of these special people gone too soon. An extension of this exercise would be to create a special altar (called an ofrenda) to welcome the souls back to visit. The belief behind Dia de los Muertos is that if people are celebrated and remembered, they never truly die. What a beautiful and hopeful thought.
A summary of all Halloween week activities with links:
ACTIVITIES: Learned about Dia de los Muertos and told stories about deceased relatives, Carved and painted our pumpkins
ART PROJECTS: Painted found rocks like sugar skulls, Made color-resist watercolor spiderwebs
OUTINGS: Went trick-or-treating, Celebrated Dia de los Muertos at the Denver Botanic Gardens
SNACK: Made mummy dogs for dinner
BOOKS: Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson
BABY BONUS: Pumpkin guts sensory bin
If you'd like to share a photo of your kid doing theme week activities, you can email it to me (email button in the left menu) or tag me on your Facebook photo or use the hashtag #weeklytoddlerthemes on Instagram (if you are private, just make sure I'm following you or tag me in the photo).
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