We feel there is no event that could replace the fun and excitement of spending Thanksgiving with family and friends, whether your group is big or small. To add a serving of childish fun and a dash of silliness, we enjoy having young and old create Thanksgiving hats to wear during dinner. The hats use simple materials: construction paper, scissors, glue, and staples. We have it ready on the coffee table to be completed as the Turkey is carved or the finishing touches are made to the dinner. Try it out! It will be a Thanksgiving to remember and the pictures are fantastic!

Thanksgiving on Thursday from the Magic Tree House book series is a great pairing of Thanksgiving traditions and learning historical facts about the pilgrims and Native Americans in the first Thanksgiving. In the book, the children are transported back to the Fall of 1621 and are asked to help with the preparations for the Harvest Celebration. The book focuses on children’s duties in the Plymouth Colony and ends with a lesson that could be applied in all our lives no matter what century we live in. Happy Thanksgiving!

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Halloween is one of our favorite times of the year! Our houses are always decked out with one creepy theme or another – like when the witches invaded and left clues about their identities everywhere or when our mad scientist relative took over the office. While we don’t get into the dark, morbid side of the holiday, we do take the opportunity to make October memorable by decorating the house, dressing up, throwing parties, and telling a ghost story or two. We’re always looking for ways to get our kids excited about this fun season without creeping them out too much.

This week’s Picture Book Blast is aimed at helping you and your little ones get into that cooky, spooky mood. Halloween Hats is a great, lighthearted book for kick-starting that fun Halloween spirit. It is sure to get your kids thinking about what they want to be when they go trick-or-treating. The Pumpkin and Chili Party at Schnepf Farms has become a family tradition for many residents of the Valley. A wide variety of family activities helped the farm earn awards as one of the Top Five Pumpkin Farms in the Southwest (Sunset Magazine) and Arizona’s Best Fall Festival in 2006 and 2007 (Phoenix Magazine). There’s no better place to pick out your family pumpkins than at a real, working farm! Use this Book Blast to get an early start on Halloween and get the creepy creative juices flowing.

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