Thanks to Sharon with Mom on Dealz for providing today’s guest post.  If you’re looking for fun, budget-friendly craft ideas for kids check-out Mom on Dealz Kid Corner to keep your child entertained for less.

I love Fall and all the things that come along with it.  Apples and pumpkins are two of my favorites! In addition to them being healthy for you to eat, there are many other uses for these fruits!

• Around the house:
  -Cut an apple in half and store one half in your cakes to keep them fresh longer.
  -Put an apple wedge in a sealed bag for 1-2 days to soften hard brown sugar clumps.
  -Display different colored apples with twigs and leaves for festive table decor.
  -Core an apple and put taper candles inside.
  -Dry apple slices and use for potpourri.
  -Decorate a pumpkin as a Jack-o-lantern.
  -Cut and clean out a pumpkin and use it as a planter for your beautiful fall mum.
  -Clean out a pumpkin, remove the seeds and boil the rest of the “guts” in a pot with water to create a pumpkin stock to use in soups and casseroles.
  -Bake pumpkin seeds with olive oil and salt for a healthy snack.
• Activities with kids:
  -Cut apples and use to practice print making with your child (see above picture).
  -Estimate and counting seeds with apples or pumpkins.
  -Cut apples into wedges and teach/review fractions.
  -Paint pumpkin seeds different colors and create mosaic art with them.
  -Cut 2 pumpkin shapes out of orange construction paper and glue pumpkin seeds in between with pieces of string to creat a “What’s inside a pumpkin” booklet.

Looking for fun, educational & frugal activities to do with your child? Mom on Dealz will provide you with weekly activities to keep your children learning while you stay on budget!

Check out the previous crafts here

Egg Carton Pumpkin Craft

Materials:

Egg Carton
Paint/Markers
Pipe cleaner or some other type of green material for top
Glue

Directions:

[Read more…]

Looking for fun, educational & frugal activities to do with your child? Mom on Dealz will provide you with weekly activities to keep your children learning while you stay on budget!

Check out the previous crafts here

Columbus Day Ship

Materials:

1 Sponge
1 Straw
Construction Paper
Marker/Scissors

Directions:

[Read more…]

AC Moore – Saturday 10/8 from 1-3pm, Demo: Plaid Jack-O-Lantern Glass Block. Sunday 10/9 from 1-3pm, Demo: Ghost Pop Cupcakes Make n’ Mold. Monday 10/10 from 1-3pm, FREE Make & Take: Duck Tape Candy Corn Treat Cup.

Disney Store – Saturday 10/8 Session 1 – 10:30 am, Session 2 – 12:00 pm, Session 3 – 1:30 pm: Come dressed as your favorite Lion King character for Disney Store’s mane event featuring The Lion King storytime, sing-along, parade and fun!

Jo-Ann Fabric & Craft Stores – Saturday 10/8, 11am-1pm Demo: Fiskars & Colorbox Papercrafting, 1pm-3pm Demo: Wilton Halloween Treats, 1pm-3pm Classes Open House: Meet instructors & see projects, 3-5pm Demo: Wrights & Uchida Fabric-crafting.

Lakeshore Learning – Saturday 10/8 from 11am-3pm, My Art Portfolio: kids create a place for all their artwork.

Lowes Build and Grow – Saturday 10/8 from 10am-Noon, FREE: Kids build a Halloween Monster Machine! Be sure to sign up for this event here.

Michaels Halloween Events – Saturday 10/8 from 1-3pm, Make-It Take-It The Crazy Pumpkin Event with purchase of pumpkin: design an extreme craft pumpkin. Use 50% off coupon, Sunday 10/9 from 1-3pm, FREE Make-It Take-It Paper Bat Event.

Michaels Jewelry Events (Adult events only) – Saturday 10/8 from 2-2:30pm, Wire Wrap Demo. 2:30-3:15pm, FREE Make-It Take-It Friendship Bracelet Event. 3:30-4pm, Beadables Demo. Sunday 10/9 from 3-3:30pm, Cotillion Earrings Demo. 3:30-4:30pm, Make-It Take-It Crystal Drop Earrings Event with purchase of crystals. Use 50% off coupon, 4:30-5pm, Single Strand Necklace Demo.

Target – select a city to find free or reduced-price admission to arts and cultural events in your area, sponsored by Target.

Walmart Event Finder – enter your zip code to see what is going on in your area.

Looking for fun, educational & frugal activities to do with your child? Mom on Dealz will provide you with weekly activities to keep your children learning while you stay on budget!

Check out the previous crafts here

Fall Lacing Fun

Materials:
Cardstock, Poster board, or Paper
Single Hole Punch
Ribbon
Scissors
Pencil, Crayons, Other Decorating Items

Directions:
1. Draw and cut out desired fall shape (football, leaf, apple, pumpkin, leaf, ear of corn, acorn, etc).
2. Punch holes around the edge of shape about 1 inch from the side and 1 inch spaced apart.

3. Wrap tape around each end of your ribbon to help make the activity easier.

4. Have your child lace the ribbon through the holes of the shape.

Educational Activities:
–Language Arts: 1. Write descriptive words or draw pictures of things you see during Fall (We practiced writing L for leaf on our shape). 2. Make up fun and rhyming Fall songs and sing them while your child laces. Then have them ID the rhyming words. Example given below.
–Science: Discuss weather changes that Fall brings and discuss the shapes and forms of the common natural objects of Fall (leaves, etc).
–Math: Create a pattern in the middle of your shape (such as circle, heart, triangle, circle, heart, triangle, etc).

Leaves around us falling down
Yellow, orange, and sometimes brown

Pumpkins, apples, and some football
I’m so very excited it’s time for Fall!

AC Moore – Saturday 10/1 from 1-4pm, Celebrate with Crafts Event – FREE Make & Takes: Cupcake decorating and Doodle Yarn Monster, Demo: Plaid New Easy to Paint and enter to win prizes.

Babies R Us – Tuesday 10/4 at 6:30pm, Breastfeeding 101: Get the scoop on breastfeeding and all the products sure to make it easy to feed baby naturally. Sponsored by Medela.

Bank of America – Saturday 10/1 & Sunday 10/2, Free Museums On Us days for Bank of America cardholders! There are over 100 participating Museums, Zoos, Science Centers, and Botanical Gardens across the US.

Bass Pro Shops – Saturday 10/1 & Sunday 10/2, Red Zone Weeekend Event: 11am-4pm Free Family Activities, 12-3pm Free Crafts. Plus, the 1st 100 kids to join in the Tailgating Game fun will score a FREE foam Football!

Jo-Ann Fabric & Craft Stores – Saturday 10/1, Free Demos from 11am-1pm Rit Fabric Dye Frankenstein Shirt, 1-3pm Deval Simply Spray, 3-5pm 3M Adhesives.

Lakeshore Learning – Saturday 10/1 from 11am-3pm, Free Hang Around Spider: kids create a long-legged spider that dangles.

LEGO Stores – Tuesday 10/4 at 5pm, Free Lego Monthly Mini Model Build: Vampire! Quantities are limited to approximately 250 per store.

Michaels – Sunday 10/2 from 1-1:30pm: Crystazzi Earrings Demo, 1:30-2:30pm Make-It Take-It Vintage Sparkle Ring Event with purchase of filagree (Adult event only), 2:30-3pm Decorative Beaded Wire Necklace Demo (Adult event only).

Pottery Barn Kids – Saturday 10/1 at 2pm, Halloween Fashion Show: kids can dress up in their costumes and join in a contest, activities and Halloween parade after the show.

Target – select a city to find free or reduced-price admission to arts and cultural events in your area, sponsored by Target.

The Home Depot – Saturday 10/1 from 9am-Noon, Free Kids Workshop: build a Fire Rescue Helicopter.

Walmart Event Finder – enter your zip code to see what is going on in your area.

This Mama Loves Her Bargains has a great craft idea to keep the kids busy.  The weather is still warm enough as we move through Fall to get the kids outside with a fun craft.

Rainbow Rice Activity

I have heard that you can also color rice using food coloring and alcohol, but that requires drying time and the food coloring is not washable. So, I will be describing how we colored rice using Colorations Liquid Watercolors from Discount School Supply.

The supplies were surprisingly inexpensive ($2.99 for each 8 oz bottle) and can be used for tons of other crafts. After making bags and bags of this rice, I still have 80% of my watercolors left in the bottle. The rainbow rice required very little (2-3T) to produce nice vivid colors.

Here’s how we did it:

1. Get some nice sturdy, freezer bags, quart size. Regular plastic storage bags don’t work nearly as well when the little ones are squeezing and pummeling that rice. You want to make sure all that rice and watercolor stays INSIDE the bag. We even doubled up our bags just to be sure.

2. Have the kids measure 1 1/2 cups of rice (regular rice, not instant) into the bag. I just used a 1/4 cup measuring cup and had each child count out 6 scoops of rice.

3. Have an adult add watercolor. This can be messy and you may want to use rubber gloves to keep your hands from getting stained. I just squirted about 3 T of watercolor into each bags, I didn’t measure it out.

4. Have the adult seal the bags, while being sure to squeeze out as much air as possible. This is important during the squeezing phase. You don’t want those bags to bust!

5. Let those little ones squeeze, toss and manipulate those bags until all of the rice is colored!

6. I let my rice dry in the bags overnight. Honestly, I didn’t even leave the bags open to air dry and they were fine to use the next morning.

Here are some fun ideas we came up with:

1. Put the rice in a sensory table/sand table along with some scoops and cups. The kids will have a blast!

2. Make a rainbow of colors and give them to your preschool teacher as an end of year gift. Teacher’s just love getting gifts that they can use in the classroom.

3. Layer your rice in a vase or bowl for a beautiful presentation. You can even add flowers to make a great bouquet!

Idea from Homemade Serenity and shared with us from Mama Loves Her Bargains with photo Credit!

Rainbow Rice Activity