Last year, Halloween became one of my (if not my most) favorite holidays. Working in an elementary school for over 7 year, I have accumulated quite the collection of children's books. I LOVE children's books and am always looking for new ones to add to my (which has become "our") library. I have lots and lots of Halloween stories, and a few favorites that I enjoyed with the students I work worked with and am now able to share with my own children. It has become tradition in our house to read Halloween stories every night (along with some Halloween Oreos) starting a month before Halloween. We all enjoy reading our favorites over and over again and there quite a few stories that the boys can recite from memory. Since we read most of these stories last year, it's interesting to see how being a year older has changed what the boys take away from the stories themselves. Some stories would scare Michael (2 years old), and now he listens bravely and recites all the BOOs and screeches with us. Buddy (4) is interested this year in what letter different Halloween creatures start with and identifying numbers in the stories that count up or down. Mighty (1) just listens and sips on his bottle, watching his brothers' reactions and taking it all in. Over the next week, as we count down to Halloween, I'd like to share with you our favorite Halloween stories, as well as some activities we've done to go along with them.
At this point, I think it would be fair to say that the vast majority of parents recognize that reading to your child is very beneficial to their development. Reading books is an amazing start to helping your child's speech and language development - reading the same books again and again, as well as, creating experiences (crafts, conversations, games, acting it out) related to the stories you read together can help your little one even more! So here we go...
I'll start with a classic! Five Little Pumpkins is a fun, simple and catchy rhyme that is pleasing to hear and lots of fun to act out! There are a few different versions and it has been retold and illustrated in quite a few books. The one we read is by Tiger Tales and Ben Mantle. It goes like this:
Five little pumpkins sitting on a gate
The first one said, "Oh my, it's getting late!"
The second one said, "There are witches in the air."
The third one said, "Good folk beware!!!"
The fourth one said, "Let's run and run and run!"
The fifth one said, "We'll have some fun."
Then, "Whoooooooooooooooo!!!!" went the wind
And OUT went the light
And the five little pumpkins
Rolled.... OUT OF SIGHT!
We recite this poem daily and I love the hear Michael laying in his bed trying to fall asleep chanting it.
We act out the poem as we read it using corresponding expressions for each pumpkin and doing movements that follow along with the words. Everyone makes the "whoooooo!!!!" sound, we shut off the light and then roll our arms for the rolling pumpkins. Very simple, but the boys love it.
Our very first Halloween craft was to make five little pumpkins and we did so using:
paper
orange and green paint
toilet paper rolls
pipe cleaners
paint brushes
I drew a pumpkin on the paper then gave the boys the paint and toilet paper rolls, pipe cleaners and paint brushes (to be used to apply the paint) to create their pumpkins. Using different tools to paint made it a little more interesting and gave the pumpkins different textures. We talked about what color a pumpkin is (Michael is still learning his colors) and decided which pumpkin from the story each boy was making. Once we were done, we had five pumpkins to use when we read our poem!
Love & Language,
Marisa
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