 | Come on in, look around a bit! Hopefully you will find something that you can use. | |
Placemats/Counters
Find an appropriate haunted house pattern. Make several copies and color, decorate, and laminate them as placemats. Find white lima beans at the grocery store and turn them into ghost counters. Add eyes and mouth to the beans and you have a great math center for Halloween. Have the kids put the ghosts in the haunted house and count them as they go.
Sorting
For a sorting activity, use various Halloween treats such as spiders and bat rings of different colors or pumpkin and ghost light covers.
Halloween Sensory Activity
Buy some small plastic jack-o-lanterns that are meant to be filled with treats. Fill them with cotton balls that have been perfumed with scents from the pantry (pumpkin pie spice, apple pie spice, peppermint extract, lemon peel, orange peel, etc.). Put these in the sensory center. Children can enjoy smelling the scents.
Science Activity
Put several mini pumpkins, small gourds, and Indian corn in a basket with magnifying lenses. Put the basket in the sensory center. Children feel the different textures, look at a variety of colors, and examine them close up with the magnifying lenses. Autumn leaves, pine cones, and nuts can be added.
Halloween Transitions
Ask the children what they will dress up as for Halloween and have them move that way to where they want to go.
Mummy Dress Up
Let the children wrap each other in toilet paper and pretend to be a mummy.
Pin The Tail On The Cat
Cut out a cat shape from black felt. Use fabric paint to add the eyes, nose, and whiskers. Cut out several tails from black felt and sew or glue the hook side of Velcro onto the end that attaches to the cat. The hook Velcro will stick to the felt anywhere the children put it. They play the game just like pin the tail on the donkey.
Shaving Fun
Spray shaving cream on your carved pumpkin. Take turns shaving the pumpkin with safety razors that have the blades removed.
Ghost Callers/Ghost Hunt
Materials:
Two ghosts; draw them or use two ghost figures.
Directions:
Cut white construction paper into 4"x5" pieces. Roll and tape to form tubes. These are the ghost callers. Make one for each child.
1. Go on a ghost hunt. Show everyone the two ghosts. Have children close
their eyes. Teacher hides the ghosts.
2. Children open eyes and count 1-2-3 GHOST! On the count of "ghost" the hunt
begins.
3. The children who find the two ghosts sit by the teacher. Give them a ghost
caller and let them make ghost noises for the next ghost hunt. The noise
helps call the ghosts from their hiding places.
4. Continue until all children are making ghost noises.
Pass The Pumpkin
Sit in a circle. Provide a plastic pumpkin for children to pass while the teacher beats on a drum. Children pass the pumpkin to the tempo of the music. Alternate between fast and slow. When the music stops the child who has the pumpkin stands and takes a bow. Continue.
Pin The Stem On The Pumpkin
Have the children paint a large cardboard pumpkin shape. When the pumpkin is dry, secure it to the wall or your bulletin board. Give each child a construction paper stem with a piece of tape looped at the top. Let each child cover or close their eyes and let them try to pin the stem on the pumpkin.
Ghost Magnet
Make a ghost cut out of black construction paper and place in an old oatmeal canister with one teaspoon white paint and marbles and shake. Makes a really cute spooky ghost. Mount them on fun foam and add glitter and a magnet for a spooky fridge magnet.
Spooky Spider Webs
Put a paper plate in a pie pan and give the student a small dab of black paint. You can also paint a paper plate black and do the activity with the white paint to look more realistic. After the small dab of paint is placed on the student'' plate, drop a marble in and let the child move the pie pan in all different directions to make a spooky spider web. After it has dried, punch a hole in the plate and attach a plastic spider ring or sponge paint a spider in the web.
Rattling Skeletons
Use white paper to form 5 paper chains, and then connect to make a skeleton. Trace children's hands and feet on white paper, cut and glue to the ends of the arms and legs. Cut an oval shape and draw on the face. These work best when made with small groups of children.
Tempera Paint Spider Webs
Using runny black paint, allow the children to use a straw to blow the paint across the page to make a spider's web.
Glue Ghosts
Have the child draw a ghost outline on a piece of waxed paper, and then have them fill in the outline with white school glue. Dry overnight, and then have the child add facial features. Place on a string and you have a spooky ghost necklace.
Giggly Ghosts
Materials:
Quilt batting
Narrow elastic
Construction paper
Glue
Directions:
Have the children tear off a wad of the quilt batting. Have the children form the "ghost" any way they want. Next, have the children cut eyes, legs, arms, etc. from the construction paper and glue onto their ghost. Finally, cut some of the elastic and tape to the top of the ghosts and hang them from the ceiling. The kids love to watch them bob up and down.
Halloween Pasta Collage
Check out your local grocery store, Michael's, Trader Joe's, or Ben Franklin craft store to find pasta in Halloween shapes. Let your kids create a cool collage with the pasta and whatever else you decide to add.
Halloween Cookie Cutter Prints
Buy an assortment of Halloween cookie cutters. Let the children dip the cookie cutters into paint and then press onto paper.
Halloween Pasta Necklaces
Find Halloween shaped pasta. Let your children string the pasta shapes on a piece of yarn to create a necklace or bracelet.
Footprint Ghosts
Paint each child's foot with white paint and print it on a black sheet of construction paper. When it dries add eyes to the heel part of the foot. That will be the ghost's head.
Paper Bag Pumpkins
Materials:
Lunch size paper bags
Orange paint
Green paint
Newspaper
String
Directions:
Have the children crumple up newspaper and stuff their paper bags so they are ½ full. Twist the un-stuffed part of the bag and tie at the bottom to make a stem. Let the children paint their pumpkins. When they are dry, the children can draw faces on them.
Pumpkin Painting
Buy several small, fresh pumpkins. Cut them in half. Let the children dip the pumpkin halves into paint to make prints.
 | Spaghetti Cobwebs Materials: Cooked spaghetti (cold) Directions: | |
Cheese Cloth Ghosts
Materials:
Cheese cloth
2 cups white glue
16-oz. plastic cups
Directions:
Dilute the white glue with ½ to ¾ cups of water. Let the children dip a piece of cheesecloth into the diluted glue. Have the children drape the wet cheesecloth over the 16 oz. cups. Let the "ghosts" dry for two days. Carefully remove the cup from the hardened cheesecloth. Let the children decorate their ghosts. Hang the completed ghosts from the ceiling.
Puffy Paint Cobwebs
Mix equal parts of flour, salt, and water in a large bowl. Pour the mixture into squeeze bottles. Give each child a black paper plate or a piece of black construction paper. Let the children squeeze the white puffy paint onto the black paper. When the puffy paint dries, it will look like glittery cobwebs.
Shape Ghosts
Materials:
Black tag board
Black yarn
White lima beans
Glue
Directions:
Cut tag board into circles, triangles, and squares, about four or five inches across. Punch a hole in the top of each shape. Cut an18 in. length of yarn for each child. Explain that the black shapes are ghosts and the beans are ghost eyes. Then the left the children glue of the bean eyes on their ghosts.
Spiders Web
Materials:
String or yarn
6 6 inch pieces of string
4 12 inch pieces of string
Diluted white glue or liquid starch
Wax paper
Directions:
Let the children dip pieces of string into dishes of glue or starch. Then have them lay their strings on wax paper to create the spider's web. Lay the string in the shape of a spiral overlapping the ends. Lay the large pieces of string over the spiral in the shape of a cross. When the strings dry, they will become stiff and hold their shapes.
Spooky Finger
Make a small hole in the bottom of a small cottage cheese container. Any similar container will do. Make it near the edge. Put some cotton in the bottom and the container will be ready. To fool your friends, paint the first finger of one hand with poster paint. Stick your painted finger through the hole and bend it inward. Let the rest of your fingers grip the container naturally. Arrange the cotton around your finger to hide the hole. Cover the container and ask one of your unsuspecting friends to remove the lid. When he does, move the finger up and down.
The Teeny Tiny Woman
Materials:
Small bag that looks like a tiny house
A clean chicken bone
Woman finger puppet
Directions:
Tell the story of The Teeny Tiny Woman. At the end of the story throw the hidden bone at the children. Ask the children if they were scared. Talk about things that can scare the children during Halloween.
More Good Ideas
*Another fun activity is we go to the local farmers market, buy gourds, and make faces with felt, markers, and construction paper. This is always a riot!
* Oh course the old standby. we always press leaves, but to give a little twist, I take a carrot peeler and shave some crayons, I put the leaves of choice on the waxpaper, along with the little slip that has their name on it, arrange, sprinkle the crayon shavings over the top, fold over the top of the wax paper and iron. When cool, place a small hole in the top and hang with ribbon. They always turn out beautiful.
* Also, pick up some beautiful leaves, use them as painting sponges and let the children experiment with the different textures and types.
Apple prints. We also did little pumpkin prints. We cut them in half, used different paints and stuck them with a fork and let the kids paint away. Witches(for each witch)
Two tongue depressors
Black Felt
Wooden Skewer
Straw type craft material from craft store
Halloween print fabric
Glue
Magic Marker
Hot glue gun
Ribbon - or magnets
This is what I plan to do ahead of time -Imagine that the tongue depressors are put together in a high cross fashion so as to form arms off the one coming down. Take the fabric and cut out a simple dress form (straight across to form arms and flared at the bottom) the size that would fit on the tongue depressors. Take a skewer and snip off pointed end and make long enough to go from the bottom of the long depressor to one of the hands. Cut straw type material and hot glue onto the end of the skewer to make a broom.
Now for the fun with the little ones. Give them the tongue depressors - have them glue together. Give them the dress to glue on. Have them cut out small triangles of black felt to fit at the top of the long depressor for the witches hat. Take the black marker and add a face. Glue the broom from the bottom middle of the dress (where the depressor is)to one hand. Cut a length of ribbon (or magnet) and glue on the back at the top of the long depressor.
Now the children can either hang their witches or put them on the fridge at home.
Melt The Witch Game
Materials:
A moveable chalkboard
Colored Chalk
Sponges
Bin of water
Directions:
Draw a witch's head (not too scary) or whole body on the chalkboard. Filled the bin with water and sponges. Have children stand close enough to the board to be able to hit it accurately with a wet sponge. Place water bin and sponges near this spot. Tell children to take turns throwing wet sponges at the witch to try and "melt" her away. As the witch becomes wet and water drips down the board, it will appear as if she is melting. Be sure the children are squeezing out to the sponges before throwing. Squirt gun would work to maybe.
Get a couple of large plastic skeletons that pop together. Disassemble and mix 1 each into two buckets. Race to gather enough pieces to assemble a whole one. Make a predrawn outline of the bones in place on a posterboard or butcher paper if need to.
Print out halloween pics on the computer. print matching smaller sized ones. Tape large ones into a circle and have a goody bag walk. use small ones to draw winners.
Scary Boxes
Make up kleenex boxes with contact paper. Add a cloth "sleeve" to the opening to keep eyes from peeking. Add touchy/feely things:
1) spaghetti sprayed with a little baby oil to keep moist (guts)
2) head of cauliflower sprayed with a little baby oil brains)
3) fill a thin rubber glove with a flour/salt/oil mixture (dead hand)
4) peeled grapes or peeled cerry tomatoes (eye balls)
5) slighty oiled gummy worms (guts)
6) cows tongue from butcher shop (tongue)
Don't forget to label the boxes on the outside to totally gross out the little spooks.
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