Pretend City Children’s Museum Halloween Discount!

Listen up Pretenders! Have I got a special for you! Pretend City Children’s Museum in Irvine, California is offering you, my fabulous readers a discount for fun on Halloween. Go to Pretend City and experience the Halloween Bug Bash for yourself! Just print this coupon and take it with you. I’ll be there, so make sure you say hi (all opinions are my own)!

pretend city childrens museum coupon

Pretend City Children’s Museum First Annual Bug Bog Bash

The first annual Bug Bog Bash hosted by Pretend City is scavenger hunt for creepy crawly bugs where the hunt is real but the bugs are fake!
For a few dollars on top of museum admission, children of all ages (under age 3 are free!) invited to travel through the maze and collect 8 hidden bugs from themed stations. The entire maze is brightly lit, educational and fun. At the end of the scavenger hunt, each child gets a set of buggy trading cards.

pretend city bug bog bash
My youngest kids had a blast searching for each of the bugs!

pretend city bug bog hunt

And of course, their favorite part of the Bug Bog Bash were the real live bugs at the end!

real mealworms at pretend city

And now, a special message from Pretend City:

Explaining “spooky” to children before hitting the trick-or-treat neighborhood trail.

Pretend City Children’s Museum’s Senior Director of Education, Linda Hunter Gives Parents Some Easy Tips to Help Put Little Minds at Ease

We’re in the midst of the spookiest month of the year with ghosts, ghouls, goblins and more. Have you ever wondered what your young child is thinking, feeling and internalizing as they witness all of the flair from the Halloween holiday around them?

The concepts of spooky and scary are handled differently in distinct stages of a young child’s development. To provide some quick background, dealing with a 3- or 4-year-old trick-or-treater will be different than trick-or-treating with your 2-year-old. A 2-year-old reacts with a fairly limited frame of reference. They are also very concrete: what they see or feel is their reality. Wrapping their minds around the fact that a haunted house or a monster is not real is beyond what you should expect of your child at that age. At about age 5 children are developing their abstract thinking and understand more fully about pretend vs. real. Their kindergarten year is a more appropriate age to begin to introduce the more scary aspects of Halloween fun.

Here are a few tips about how to explain “spooky” to young children before heading out the door for the night’s trick-or-treat excursion.

0-2-year-olds: Keep your young toddler close to you and physically comfort and reassure them that they are safe if they seem scared. Also, consistently remind your youngster that what they see, hear or experience is “just PRETEND.” Children at a young age, even at 2-years-old, know this term even if they can’t fully comprehend it. Reassure your child that you are there and will make sure that nothing will hurt them.
3-, 4- and 5-year-olds: At these ages, prepare children before they go out to trick-or-treat by talking about what is expected and what they may see (e.g., fake blood, spider webs, monsters, etc.). Discuss the difference between real and pretend.
- Get them talking when they return. Ask your child what was the most fun part of the night and maybe the scariest part of the night. The open dialogue will get them to share their experiences and can allow you to reassure them that it was “just pretend” if something bothered them.
- Plan ahead. Figure out a plan with your child for the next time things are scary. This will reassure children and help them to have a sense of control over managing their scary feelings.

Last, but not least: remember that spooky doesn’t have to be scary. There is a difference between the two; spooky is non-threatening and scary feels threatening. While spooky may encourage a child to be inquisitive and wonder what’s up, scary provokes the fear of being hurt. This is good to remember as you consider the level of exposure to “Halloween Happenings” that you want for your child, before hitting the trick-or-treat neighborhood trail.

For more information head over to Pretend City Children’s Museum