HALLOWEEN

Below are some Halloween activities and ideas. Enjoy!!!

Art Activities


• Place 1 teaspoon vinegar and a cup of water in a bowl with several drops of selected food coloring. Place pumpkin seeds in the solution. Stir, then spread on paper towel to dry. These can be used for counting, art, etc.
  
  
• Make a pumpkin patch picture. Encourage the children to paint a piece of brown construction paper with glue. Provide cotton balls for the children to roll in a pan of dry orange tempera paint. Supply green yarn for the children to twist among the pumpkins for a vine.
  
  
• Provide a cutout of a ghost on black construction paper. Using a paintbrush, brush water onto the paper. Give the children white chalk to use on the cutout.
  
  
• Spatter paint a cutout of a white cat with black paint, using a toothbrush and a stick.
  
  
• Provide orange pumpkin cutouts and black cutouts of jack-o-lantern eyes, noses and mouths for the children to glue on their pumpkin.
  
  
• Snip small snips around the edge of a paper plate. Have children paint the plate black. Allow to dry. Knot a length of white yarn. Insert into a slit so the knot is to the back of and up against the plate. Pull the yarn across the plate and up through a different slit, to make a spider's web design. Continue until the yarn runs out. Slip a plastic spider ring ont the yarn before pulling through the one final split. Knot the yarn on the back of the plate.
  
  
• Have the children step barefoot into white tempera paint and place on black paper to make a footprint. Allow to dry and trim loosely around the footprint outline for display. Add eyes and you have a ghost!
  
  
• Just paint with orange and black paint!

Cognitive Activities


• Count the seeds that were colored in the art activity.
  
  
• Encourage the children to match similar pairs of pumpkins. Use construction paper to make matching facial expressions for each pumpkin pair. Ask the children what makes each pair different from another. Ask them to describe why one pair matches.
  
  
• Provide children with orange and black shapes and encourage them to match and sort the shapes and colors.
  
  
• Encourage the children to place pumpkin cutouts into graduated order. Emphasize the concepts big, bigger, biggest; small, smaller, and smallest.
  
  
• Sort paper cat cutouts by color or features. (Teachers, make sure to cut a large variety of different colors and different feature; such as, no tails/tail, long/short whiskers, big/small bodies, etc.
  
  
• Provide a cutout of a cat or a pumpkin and a cutout of a fence and have children practice their directional words. "Place the cat on the fence", "place the pumpkin beside the fence", etc.
  
  
• Make halloween playing cards using Halloween stickers. Make matching pairs of cards. Lay one of the pair faceup on the table and encourage kids to match it.

Dramatic Play Activities


• Place real or plastic pumpkins in the area.
  
  
• Cover the walls with orange and black paper and streamers.
  
  
• Provide Halloween masks and costumes for children to wear.

Fine Motor Activities


• Make pumpkin sewing cards of varying levels of difficulty. Use orange yarn for stitching.
  
  
• Encourage the children to make Halloween necklaces from macaroni and black and orange yarn. You can also dye the macaroni in the same way as the seeds listed in the art activities.
  
  
• Make Halloween noisemakers.Give each child two pie tins with holes punched around both edges. Assist the kids in putting dry beans or rice in them and lacing the tins together with yarn.

Gross Motor Activities


• Play pumpkin bean bag toss, using a plastic pumpkin pail and beanbags.
  
  
• Play some Halloween music or spooky sounds and encourage the children to creep, walk and jump like cats.
  
  
• Give the children a broom to take outside and ride on like a witch.
  
  
• Divide the children into two groups facing each other 15 feet apart. Provide a simple costume or mask for one child in one group to wear. Have that child run to the opposite group , remove the costume, then another child puts it on. Continue until everyone has had a turn.

Group Activities


• Play tape the mouth on the Jack-o-lantern using blindfolds. Point them in the right direction.
  
  
• Do the fingerplay "Five Little Pumpkins"
  Five little pumpkins sitting on the gate.
  The first one said, "Oh my, it's getting late!"
  The second one said, "There's witches in the air.:
  The third one said, "We don't care."
  The fourth one said, "Let's run, run, run!"
  The fifth one said, "I'm ready for some fun."
  Whoooosh went the wind and out went the lights,
  And the five little pumpkins rolled out of sight.
  
  
• Tape a picture of either a witch, bat, cat, ghost or pumpkin on each child. Then give instructions, such as "All witches jump as high as you can." "All black cats creep slowly in a circle." "All pumpkins laugh out loud."
  
  
• Buy a Halloween plastic door cover(about $1.99). Tape on a wall or door in the classroom.  Make some black paper spiders (one for each child) and laminate with clear contact paper. Place a roll of masking tape on the back of each one.  Prepare construction paper seeds with an instruction on each one like, "Put the spider on top of the pumpkin."  Place all the "seeds" in a plastic pumpkin and let each child come and pull out a seed, listen to the direction and follow it. Who gets to come up first is up to you, but sitting quietly with your hand raised is simple and can be done by all. Thanks to Karen Sedlacek for this neat idea!

Science Activities


• Carve a pumpkin into a jack-o-lantern.
  
  
• Compare canned and fresh pumpkin and pumpkin pie. Encourage the children to smell the fresh and the canned pumpkin, feel the texture, and to taste. Eat a piece of pumpkin pie!
  
  
• Talk about the characteristics of a cat.
  
  
• Play a tape of Halloween noises and discuss what is making the noises.
  
  
• Talk about shadows. Using a flashlight and a sheet, have children stand behind the sheet, or use Halloween cutouts to make a shadow puppet play.

GOT SOME IDEAS YOU WOULD LIKE TO SHARE? E-MAIL ME AND IF I USE THEM, I WILL PROVIDE A LINK FROM MY PAGE TO YOURS!!! CLICK BELOW!!!

chalkboard1488@yahoo.com1997

Art Activities

Craft Recipes

Holiday Activities

Math and Science Activities

Nutrition and Recipes

Rhymes and Fingerplays

Social Studies and Motor Activities

Self-Concept Activities

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