One of the perks of having your kids get older is being able to have them help with the chores. The tricky part is getting them to do them without whining or complaining…please don’t tell me I’m the only on with this problem! Okay, so it’s not all the time, but more often than not. I like to try to find ways to make the chores fun by adding a little extra something. For example, we listen to Pandora on my phone while they unload the dishwasher, we turn on fun music when we clean the toy room so we can dance while we clean, we set a timer to see if we can get the room cleaned before the buzzer goes off.
So, for setting the table, I thought it would be fun to add a fun Halloween place mat to make setting the table a little more fun. Last night it was a success, they were so excited to use their new place mats! We’ll see how long it lasts…maybe they’ll surprise me and it will last all month! Hmmm, we might have to start making a new place mat for each month…the possibilities. :-) I’ll see you after the jump!
Halloween Place Mats Kids Craft
I used Picmonkey’s new Halloween suite to make all these graphics to print – and there is so much more available. If you click on the pumpkin at the bottom of the options and then scroll to the trick or treat options, click on them, you will find everything I used. So many fun ways to do this. Here is a tutorial to show you how to make your own printables that will get you started on Picmonkey.
Supplies:
- Halloween clipart (below)
- orange construction paper
- glue
- child scissors
- Crayons, markers, colored pencils
- laminator or contact paper
Here are the printables I created – one house and a few fun cutouts. To print the images, just right click on them and save to computer. Then open them and print in landscape mode at 100%. And like I said, all sorts of other options on Picmonkey.
Prep work: First download and print the haunted house picture and the Halloween clipart. Trim the bottom by cutting just under the black and the side about a 1/4″ so it fits well on the orange paper.
After doing the prep work I gave my girls the clipart and haunted house and told them to do whatever they wanted to decorate the picture. It was fun to watch them create the exact same picture and see the difference of what they came up with between my six and three year old. They had fun and did such a great job!
After letting the glue dry I laminated the pictures. I have a friend that owns a laminator (hopefully I’ll be getting my own soon) so I used hers, but any office supply store or teachers store usually have a laminator the can be used. Another option would be to use contact paper. I haven’t used it much, but I have a friend who uses it often and loves it.
I hope these place mats do the trick of making setting the table and meal time more fun for the month of October! Oh, and if you have any fun things that you do to make chores a little more exciting, do share!
Thanks!
Aubrey
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