A Fall Celebration

Friday was Hannah's Fall Celebration (we all know it was really a Halloween Party, but some people don't celebrate Halloween which I can respect and each class is only allowed one party a year so if we call it a celebration it really isn't a party) at school. I am privileged to be the room parent her class, as well as Aaron's class this year. Luckily, the third graders don't celebrate as much as the kindergartners or I couldn't keep up.

Aaron's class was easy. They were neither partying nor celebrating for Halloween or Fall, so I sent in some cookies (store bought even) that they could have as a snack and some treat bags to go home at the end of the day.

For Hannah's class celebration I set up three stations: snack, craft and games. We all know I love to do kids' parties! Hannah's teacher had suggested the little spiders made out of crackers and chow mein noodles for the snack. I like those, but I wanted it to be a bit more fun, so I adjusted a recipe for homemade Oreos that Aaron's teacher had given me. It starts with a devil's food cake mix and uses cream cheese frosting as the center. I used chocolate frosting because I wanted the spiders to be all brown. I used pretzels for the legs and a dot of gel to hold red hots in place for the eyes. I made a batch early in the week and let my kids try it out as a trial run.

I love these silly faces I managed to capture! Hannah decided to give her spider fangs.

These went over really well at the party.

This is Hannah and her half eaten spider at the class party.

This is Hannah's teacher, Mrs. Honeycutt, eating her spider. She is being so expressive because the kids at the snack station were instructing her on how to make and eat her spider. It was hilarious.

We had two games at the game station. One was pumpkin bowling and the other was a take on the Grand Prize Game from the old Bozo Show. (Does anyone remember that? I must have dated myself when I tried to explain it to some people because I got several blank stares.) In my version, there were four Halloween buckets set up in a row. Each child took a turn trying to toss a ball into each bucket. Instead of doing goody bags, the kids got a prize for each bucket and bowling.

This is one of Hannah's classmates playing the bucket toss. It is the only picture I took of that game.

These are the pumpkins that Hannah and I made for the bowling. They are the larger plastic bottles from flavored water. We poured orange paint inside with just a couple drops of water and shook the bottles to cover the insides with paint. Then I glued on the lids and added a brown piece of felt for the stems. The vines are some green twisty things my kids had used to make their Leprechaun traps. They had shamrocks on them, but they worked perfectly.

Here is Hannah taking her turn at Pumpkin Bowling.

P.K. was able to come in and run the game station. After each child played the bucket toss game, P.K. would ask them a Halloween riddle for a bonus prize. That was his own special touch.

The craft was a pumpkin sun catcher. Each child was given a pumpkin shape cut out of contact paper. We taped it to the table sticky side up. The kids then covered it with a variety of orange things (feathers, ribbon, sequence, etc.).

This is a shot of orange things spread across the table.

Here is Hannah hard at work on her pumpkin. The brown spot at the top of her pumpkin is the stem made out of felt.

There were enough parent volunteers to have two parents at each station and allow me to walk around and supervise or help as needed and allow the teachers to enjoy the party. I was very happy with the way the party turned out.