Halloween Party!

I love it when the kiddos come all dressed up in their costumes!  So darn cute!

The kiddos each bring something to share (treat or healthy).  I always like to make monster eyes (for the pupil I used a toothpick to put some black food coloring on the m&m) and boo mix.

Trick or Treat Goodie Bags - I always love putting these together.  This year I made green play dough with spiders in it and some glitter.

Then I put together a few pieces of candy, pretzels and some goofy things like teeth, spider rings and spooky eye patches.

We played Bingo, had a dance-off, ate too much sugary treats and had oodles of fun!

A Week on Pumpkins

Pumpkin Picking - Here we are FINALLY at the week of Halloween.  The kiddos were super excited to pick out their pumpkin...

Free Play - Creation Bin - I have been collecting odd recyclables (containers, tubes, rolls, etc.).  Today was a great day to pull that out and set the kiddos to work using tape and their imaginations. 

These kiddos found some bubble wrap and soon it sounded like Fourth of July!  Ha!

 This kiddos made a backpack vacuum.

Pumpkin Books - The kiddos measured, weighed, floated and studied their pumpkin.

Craft Foam Pumpkin Decorating - I found these in the dollar spot at Target and figured they'd be great for this week. 

Paper Plate Pumpkins - We painted the plates Monday and decorated them today!  They turned out super cute!

Five Little Pumpkins Books - I typed up the kiddo's favorite pumpkin story so they could add pumpkin stickers and have their own book to read at home.  They pretty much have it memorized. 

 

Kool-Aid Printing - During free play each kiddo took a turn to make a few kool-aid prints.  On Friday we'll turn these into yummy smelling pumpkins.   sprayed a piece of plastic with starch (ironing), then the kiddos sprinkled it with orange kool-aid and we carefully made a print.  

 I saw this fun idea on this blog! check it out.

Science - Pumpkin Dissection - We pulled the guts out of some pumpkins today.  We squished our fingers through it and hunted for seeds.  Some kiddos were more enthusiastic about this than others.  Ha. 
"What's dissection?"  It's taking something apart.

What's in a pumpkin? - Once we cleaned up from our dissection, we created a paper version.

Pumpkin Decorating - The kiddos (preschoolers & youngsters) enjoyed painting their pumpkins.  They were super excited to see their decorated pumpkins sitting on the steps.

 

The toddler class used craft foam Halloween stickers to decorate their pumpkins.  Since they LOVE stickers, really dug this activity.

Science - Candy Dissolve - We decided to see what would happen if we tried to dissolve candy in water and vinegar.

Our observations:
"The water is getting fuzzy stuff in it!"  I asked what he thought the fuzzy stuff was, "I think it's just part of the candy." 
"This one's getting big bubbles.  This one is not."
"It's like it takes all the skin off and it's white!" 

One of the kiddos decided to drink the water cup with melted candies in it...
"It just tastes like water.  ...  At the bottom of it - it's yummy like juice!"

Candy Corn Game - The kiddos chose candy corn or chocolate chips, then they rolled the dice, counted the dots and ate the candy sitting on that number.

"3!  I should eat the number 3!" 
Click to here see the original post for this game.

Jack-O-Lanterns - Here are the decorated pumpkins that the kiddos emptied out on Wednesday!

 

Learning Station - Pumpkin Strips

For cutting practice, the kiddos were to cut their pumpkin into strips, then glue it on their paper like a puzzle and add a face.  

Learning Station - Cut Bits

The kiddos clipped bits of orange paper (scissor skills) and glued them on their pumpkins.  Super cute, super fun scissor practice.

Learning Station - Letter Bucket

I placed in our jack-o-lantern bucket all the letters that we have worked on this year and the first letter of each kiddo's name.  The kiddos drew out a letter, found it on the chart and stamped it with a Halloween stamp.  As they pulled out each letter we talked about what sound it makes.  I was impressed that each of them correctly named their friend's letters.

A week on bats with a few mummies

Circle Time - We read this fabulous National Geographic Bat book that showed us many wonderful pictures of bats and told us neat facts.  One thing we learned was that the smallest bat has a wingspan of 5", while the largest bat's is 6 feet!  So we decided to measure our wing span.




Napkin Ghosts - A friend gave me some over-sized napkins.  We used them to make over-sized ghosts!  Perfect!

Science - Bat Hunt - Ms. Sara hid numbered bats around the basement room.  Since we know bats are nocturnal, we knew we'd need a flashlight to find them.  The kiddos took turns finding the bats and reading out the number, then Ms. Sara would share a bat fact with them.

 

Origami Bats - Ms. Sara folded a bunch of bats for the kiddos to decorate.

Tp Bats - Classic, but oh so cute!

The older kiddos painted their first...

Finger Puppet Bats - A favorite from last year and back by request.  Just cut the fingers off of a pair of stretchy black gloves, felt for the wings and googly eyes.

Clothes Pin Bats - We also created these bats who can hang by their toes just like the real ones.  The kiddos painted the clothes pins, I cut wings from craft foam, they picked out the head and googly eyes and I glued it all together with a hot glue gun.

 
Science - Echolocation - We chatted a bit about finding food in the dark (that would be tricky).  Bats have very good eyesight, they also use echolocation (sending out sounds to bounce off things) to find their food.  We tried our hand (or ears rather) at it and found we aren't as good as real bats.

When it was daytime, the bats quickly flew to their caves to sleep...

Flying (running) With Our Bat Wings - I made these wings from 30 gallon black trash bags with ties.  Just fold the bag into fourths, scallop cut the bottom.  Slit up a side seam cutting through the drawstring (you'll have to strip the seam off.).  Then cinch up the draw strings to make a bat cape/wings.  Hard to see in this photo, but super cute and quick and easy.

Mummy Dogs - The kiddos helped me roll the dough into snakes and wrap them around a hotdog to create a mummy.  We made some goofy shaped bread sticks with the extra bits.

Here are our yummy mummies...

Toilet Paper Mummies -  I told the toddlers we were going to be silly and make mummies using toilet paper.  They thought that was really silly.  But what's extra funny is that I realized half way through the project that they didn't know what a mummy is.  What clued me in was this question:
"Is this the Daddy and that's the Mommy?" 

Spoon Mummies - I created a mummy form using a plastic spoon and craft stick halves.  The kiddos wrapped them up and gave them eyes.

Learning Station - Shape Bats

This was an easy-peasy station today.  The kiddos just needed to put together the shapes to create a bat.  Everyone recognized the triangles, but some of the kiddos didn't know about an oval.

 This kiddos said her bat had its wing over its face.  Ha!

A week about Ghosts!

Spooky Graveyards - The kiddos put together these spooky Halloween scenes...

One of the kiddos loved the tombstones and wanted to decorate the preschool with them.  He told me what to write (I added a picture so the kiddos could "read" it) then he taped them up all around the room.

This kiddo had a whole story to go with his spooky graveyard, so I wrote on each tombstone as he directed and he created a ghost army.

 Here's what the youngsters did...

Banana Ghosts! - Mmmm yummers!  We also made a few ghost marshmallows.  (These are chocolate chips pushed into the bananas)

Halloween Sort - The kiddos enjoyed working with these spooky erasers. 

Ghost Dessert Recipe" - For snack the kiddos helped me whip up a batch.  This ghost dessert comes from our book "Ghost's Dinner".  The recipe:  pistachio pudding, whipped cream and sprinkles.  When the "ghosts" eat it, they disappear!

Spooky Swamp - During free play I had this sensory bin set up.  Just some ghosts and tissue paper, but it looks spooky!  The kiddos enjoyed stirring & pouring and hunting for ghosts.

 I got this fabulous idea from this blog.

Science - Exploding Ghosts - The kiddos helped me mix some cornstarch into vinegar (so our ghost would look white), then we created baking soda bombs.  We wrapped a piece of tp around a tablespoon-ish of baking soda and carefully slid them into our ghost baggies.  Then we sealed them up, gave them a quick shake and tossed them into the grass...

 

Soon they started expanding and then ka-blooey!  Well, more of a pop!  But it was still exciting.  I got the idea for this science experiment from this blog.

The kiddos added more baking soda to watch their ghosts foam a bit.

Cotton Ghosts - The kiddos enjoyed stretching and pulling the cotton to create these adorable ghosts.  It was a bit tricky to work with glue and cotton together, but we got it figured out!