Preschool: Halloween

Here were our plans for our Halloween theme:

And here are the details for each activity:

Our first read aloud was Pumpkin, Pumpkin by Jeanne Titherington. This book describes the life cycle of a pumpkin from the beginning to end. Afterwards Madelynn practiced retelling the life cycle using picture cards.

Clothing Vocabulary:
Next we read The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything By Linda D. Williams. After reading we used cards to match clothing words to pictures.  I emphasized the beginning sounds to help her choose and match the correct word to the picture.

Splat the Cat is one of our favorite picture book characters, so I knew we had to read Scaredy Cat, Splat! by Rob Scotton this week. After reading, Madelynn and I talked about what costume she would want to wear to school to win the scariest cat contest. She decided on Wonder Woman, not too scary but she drew the cutest picture of herself with a cape and I couldn’t argue with that!

Go Away Big Green Monster:
And last we read Go Away Big Green Monster by Ed Emberley. I love the simple bright colored paper cut out illustrations in this book so after reading we made our own Big Green Monsters by choosing cards for each color and facial feature. Madelynn chose blue/hair, pink/eyes, purple/nose, orange/ears, black/mouth, and yellow/teeth. This was a fun way to encourage her to add new and different details to her drawings.

For one last literacy activity this week we wrote letters on a monster themed sand tray.  (I planned to do numbers but Madelynn had her own plan) First, I placed our IKEA tray on top of our light pad then filled the tray with black sand.  Madelynn used monster letter cards as a model to write letters with glow sticks. This made for really cool light up Halloween fun in the dark!

For our next graphing activity, Madelynn and I played I spy. First I said “I spy monsters that are green.” She then had to find the item I was thinking of, color each one, count them and color in her graph. This was a lot of steps to follow so I helped her along the way, but she really did great following along! We repeated the “I spy” game with: white things that say boo, black animals that fly at night, orange vegetables with faces, and white people all wrapped up.

What kid doesn’t love to play with their food? Our last graphing activity was the perfect excuse to play, learn and snack all at the same time.  First I grabbed a big box of Spooky Shapes fruit snacks from Target. Then I emptied a few bags into a bowl so Madelynn would at least have more than 2 of each color to work with. She sorted, counted, graphed and snacked.

Our first craft was this super easy marble paint mummy. It was seriously so easy even little miss 18 month old Aubrey decided she wanted to make one too. First I cut out a mummy body, which Madelynn totally called me out and said it looked like a gingerbread man…Yup it’s totally a gingerbread stencil! Then, I taped it inside a box and dropped on a few globs of white paint. Madelynn dropped in some marbles and started shaking the box from side to side to create white lines all over the mummy. After the paint dried she added 2 yellow dot stickers for eyes and drew a black dot in the center.

This activity was super fun to watch because I didn’t tell Madelynn what was going to happen so each monster was a surprise! To prepare the activity I glued pipe cleaners and googly eyes onto cups to make monster faces. Then I put a few drops of food coloring into 5 separate cups and lined them up. Next, I poured baking soda into each cup until the food coloring was covered (no exact measurement needed, more baking soda=more fizzy explosion.) Then I filled another cup with white vinegar, added eye droppers and set it all up on a tray for Madelynn to explore. Without any direction she knew just what to do, as soon as she started dripping vinegar into the cups they began to fizz.  As she added more each color began to show through and become brighter and brighter. And of course after a while she began to dump larger amounts of vinegar into the monster cups creating even bigger, more exciting monster potion explosions.

In this bin: water, gelatin Halloween shapes, plastic spider rings, spoons, bowls

Directions to make the gelatin shapes for this bin:

To make the squishy shapes, coat the molds in cooking spray to prevent sticking. Pour water in a small pan and add plain gelatin. Wait a couple of minutes and then heat gelatin, stirring until it’s dissolved. Color gelatin with food coloring and spoon into molds. I separated out clear for the ghosts first, then divided the rest into 2 cups to dye orange and black. Pop molds into the fridge for a few hours until set. Pop the shapes out, and use them to mix stir and add to the witches brew.

Our second art activity this week was pumpkin patch stamping. First, Madelynn used a rolled up toilet paper tube to stamp pumpkin shapes with glue on a piece of paper. Next, she sprinkled orange sand on top then shook off the excess.  Then, she used brown puffy paint to add stems. Last she pushed a green leaf sequin into each stem to complete her pumpkins.

Want all of this week’s printables and plans?  You can grab them here:

Or you can grab our entire year of themes and plans here:

Then check out all of our Preschool themes here:

September:

Apples, All About Me, My Body, Healthy Habits

October: 

Fall, Fire Safety, Weather, Halloween

November:

Dinosaurs, Transportation, Community, Thanksgiving

December:

Gingerbread, Reindeer, Christmas 1, Christmas 2

January:
Winter, Penguins, Five Senses, Polar Bears

February:

Fairy Tales 1, Fairy Tales 2, Valentines, Space

March:

Plants, Insects, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter

April:

Frogs, Butterflies, Earth Day, Rainforest

May:

Zoo, Farm, Ocean, Carnival