~Monster Mash ~

Songs / Poems / Fingerplays

Halloween Is... Halloween is cats and bats And jack-'o-lanterns bright. Halloween is dressing up To trick-or-treat at night. Halloween is candy corn And haunted houses, too. Halloween is spooky stuff And fun for me and you!

Pumpkin Pie Playdough Ingredients: 5 1/2 cups flour, 2 cups salt, 8 tsp. cream of tartar, 3/4 cup oil, 1 1/2 oz. pumpkin pie spice, orange food coloring, 4 cups water. Mix all the ingredients together. Cook and stir over medium heat until all the lumps disappear. Knead the dough on a floured surface until it is smooth. Store in an airtight container. Paper Plate Jack-o-Lanterns Have children paint a paper plate orange. When dry, have the child glue on pieces of black construction paper for the facial features. These pieces can be pre-cut or cut with scissors, depending upon the child's ability. Read Pumpkin, Pumpkin. Talk about what pumpkins need in order to grow. Complete activity sheet called Growing Pumpkins to reinforce the facts. (Teacher's Helper, Kindergarten, Sept/Oct 1995) Make a Bag-o'-lantern.Give each child a lunch-size paper bag and lots of torn pieces of newspaper. Have them stuff their bags about 3/4 full. Twist the tops of the bags to form a stem for the pumpkin. Let the children paint their pumpkins orange. White the paint is still wet, you can give them an assortments of geometric shapes to stick on for the features. Make Jack-O'-lantern Cookie Pops . Place on little debbie oatmeal creme pie on a plate or napkin. Spread orange icing over the cookie. (I use halloween frosting already made) Break one pretzel stick in half and place both halves, side by side, into the creme part of the cake, creating the stem. Place one end of a craft stick into the creme at the bottom for a handle. Add raisins for jack-o'-lantern features. Toasted Pumpkin Seeds Wash seeds from a large pumpkin after carving it. Dry them overnight on paper towels. Heat oil in a frying pan. Fry seed until golden. Drain the seeds on paper towels. Sprinkle with salt while hot. Let cool a bit, then eat! Jack-o'-Lantern Cookies Ingredients: 1 slice of regrigerated sugar-cookie dough per child, orange decorator sugar, 7 chocolate chips per child, 1/2 green gumdrop per child. Freeze the dough for 30 minutes. Personalize a foil square for each child. Use a knife to slice the dumdrops in half lengthwise. Give each child a slice of dough. Add sprinkles to make orange. Make a face with the chocolate chips. Bake according to package directions. Put gumdrop at the top to resemble the stem after they come out of the oven. Jack-O-Lantern Necklace Paint a tagboard (or wooden), stemmed pumpkin cutout orange. When the paint dries, use a marker to draw a jack-o-lantern face on it. Punch a hole in th estem of the jack-o'-lantern, and insert a length of orange ribbon through the hole. Then, using a desired pattern, string black, white, and orange beads on the ribbon. Tie the ends of the ribbon to complete the necklace. (Carolyn Stevens, Dearborn, MI) Pumpkin Mini Booklet Program an 8 1/2" x 11" paper with 6 squares. Write on each square and add a picture too. Square 1. See the seed. Square 2. See the vine. Square 3. See the flower. Square 4. See the little pumpkin. Square 5. See the big pumpkin. Square 6. See the jack-o'-lantern.

Halloween

The Berenstain Bears Trick or Tree ~ Stan & Jan Berenstain	Pooh Says Boo! (Disney Board Book)	Six Creepy Sheep ~ Judith Ross Enderle
Trick or Treat Little Critter ~ Mercer Mayer	The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything ~ Linda Williams	Harriet's Halloween Candy ~ Nancy Carlson
Halloween Day ~ Anne Rockwell	Arthur's Halloween ~ Marc Brown

Halloween Rhyming words Explain to class that they will be using rhyming words about Halloween. Begin by reminding the children that rhyming words are words that sound alike at the end. Then give class a Halloween word and ask them to think of any word that rhymes with it. You could write them on a chart tablet to look back at later. Try to entice rhymes with bats; ghost; treat; night; boo, etc. Send home a list of safety tips for Halloween for parents to review with their child. You can get these at your local police station or in any Halloween teacher resource booklet. Make some Monster Mash. For each child, add 1 scoop of Boo Goo (vanilla ice cream), 1 T. of Swamp Mud (chocolate syrup), 1 T. Spider Fangs (miniature chocolate chips), and 10 Mummy Toes (miniature marshmallows). Place the ingredients in a paper cup. Mash them together with a plastic spoon. Top with a spoonful of Snak Slime (green-tinted whipped cream). Devour if you dare! In The Education Center, Inc., October Monthly Reproducibles, TEC959, there is a cute Halloween Colors Booklet. I see an orange pumpkin. I see a black cat. I see a yellow moon. I see a brown bat. I see a red candy apple. I see a green mask. Read Go Away, Big Green Monster! and then make some delicious Monster Munch. You will need: sunflower seeds (rat toes), chocolate puff cereal (ant eggs), chow-mein noodles (dried worms), raisins (bug eyes), a spoon and a cupcake liner. 1. Mix one spoon of ant eggs and one spoon of rat toes. 2. Add one spoon of bug eyes. 3. Add one spoon of dried worms. Trick-Or-Treat! worksheet. Children will color the candy pieces cutouts and then glue them in the correct bag according to color. (Teacher's Helper, Sept/Oct 1996) A Halloween Handful worksheet. Match each trick-or-treater with his or her candy. Skill: counting 1-6.(Teacher's Helper, Oct/Nov 2000) Song: When I'm Trick-or-Treating (tune: Sing a Song of Sixpence) from www.songs4teachers.com When I'm trick-or-treating I know what to do, I walk on the sidewalk and bring my flashlight too! I don't eat my candy until I'm home at last... I check it with an adult there and then I eat it fast! Story starter - For Halloween I want to be a ____________. Read Clifford's Halloween. Have each child draw what they think Clifford should be for Halloween. Share them. Make the pictures into a class book. Make a classroom graph of what category each child's Halloween costume goes in to. Are they going as an animal? As a person? As a thing? Discuss the graph. Read The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything. Act out the story using props from the story. Halloween Safety Booklet Read the book Harriet's Halloween Candy . Sort Halloween candy by two attributes.

Ghosts

Five Little Ghosts ~ self-made adaptation of poem

Little Ghost ~ Vivian French

Boo To You Too! ~ Elizabeth Rodger

Say Boo! ~ Linda Graham-Barber

Ten Timid Ghosts ~ Jennifer O'Connell

Gluey Ghost Necklace You will need wax paper, Elmer's glue, a black permanent marker, hole puncher, and black yarn. Squeeze about 2 tablespoons of glue onto a piece of wax paper. Pick the wax paper up and let the glue move around. You can move the glue in any direction you wish. When you have the shape you like, put the wax paper in a warm dry place to dry. When the glue has dried, peel the shape off of the wax paper. Punch a hole close to an edge. Make two round eyes and a round mouth with the marker. Cut a piece of yarn long enough so that the gluey ghost hangs comfortably around your neck. Tie a knot in the yarn. Ghostly Treats Make ghosty-shaped treats using nutter butter cookies. Add white icing or marshmallow cream onto the cookie. Add chocolate chips to represent the eyes and mouth. Yummy! Patchwork Spook worksheet. This Halloween worksheet reinforces shape recognition. (Teacher's Helper, Sept/Oct 1996) Ghost Puppet Materials for each child: 1 paper towel, 1 cardboard tube, 1 sheet of 12" x 18" white tissue paper, black marker Directions: 1. Poke the paper towel into the tube. 2. Push part of the paper towel out the other end of the tube to form a ball which will become the ghost's head. 3. Drape tissue paper over the ghosts head and tape it in place around the top of the tube. 4. Add features with a black marker. Trace child's footprints on leftover laminating pieces. Use marker to add facial features. Sponge paint ghosts using white paint on black construction paper. Yarn Ghost rubbings.Kids will take a long piece of yarn (approximately 20 inches) and make a ghost-like shape. Place a white sheet of paper on top. Rub over the paper with the side of a black crayon and a "ghost" magically appears. The rubbing gives it a spooky look.

Witches

The Witch Has An Itch Donna Guthrie

Humbug Witch ~ Lorna Balian

Read Lorna Balian's Humbug Witch . As I am reading the story I use flannel-board pieces to tell the story. (Before reading, I have this set up in my room. I have the Humbug Witch already put together so I can begin to tell the story without giving away the "secret!") The kids love to watch the pieces of the witch come off to show a little girl underneath! Make a yummy and silly Witch's Brew After reading a funny story such as The Witch Has An Itch I usually will make a batch of witch's brew to get my kids laughing! I have a black plastic pot to use as the cauldron. Then I add vampire teeth (candy corn), polar bear toes (miniature marshmallows), fried bat wings (frosted flakes), lizard eyes (M&M's), and rat brains (peanuts). I make sure to let each child stir the mixture and we all laugh as we add the parts!

Shake Dem Halloween Bones W. Nikola-Lisa

Dem Bones ~ Bob Barner

A Book About Your Skeleton (Hello Reader, Level 4) ~ Ruth Belov Gross

Bones (Step Into Reading) ~ Stephen Krensky

Read Dem Bones by Bob Barner. Follow-up with this hands-on math activity. Using the individually-wrapped packages of Dem Bones candy from Brachs, complete a sorting and graphing Math activity. Children will sort their bone candy onto the matching bone shape. Then, they will graph how many of each candy they have. Discuss the class results. Then, eat dem bones! My sorting sheet: FYI, There is a good Skeleton pattern found in The Mailbox, Kindergarten, Oct/Nov 1998. Another good Dem Bones Activity sheet can be found at Teaching With Heart Skeleton Parade by Jack Prelutsky The skeletons are out tonight. They walk about the street. With bony bodies, bony heads and bony hands and feet. Bony bony bony bones with nothing in between Up and down and all around they march on Halloween! Read Shake Dem Halloween Bones. My kids (and me too!) love this one! Macaroni Skeleton Find excellent directions for making a macaroni skeleton at Kids Domain Craft Exchange Skeleton dog bone painting. Use assorted sizes of dog bones glued to film containers and dip them into white paint. Print the bones onto black construction paper to make a skeleton. Have a pre-made skull and pelvis.

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