Theme: Halloween

Focus of the Week: Our theme series focuses on one letter, one shape and one color each week. I put together and printed this printable mostly for my two. I hung it in our craft room and would often point to the letter, shape and color for him to identify throughout the week.

October Themes: My boys (ages 2, 4) go to preschool twice a week, so I planned our activities for the off days - Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I printed a monthly chart as a way to keep organized and stay on track. Here's the first week at a glance:

MONDAY:

Letter (Pumpkin Pounding Letters): I found these foam pumpkins at the Dollar Tree. The pumpkin on the left is for my two. These are the letters we've learned so far in our themes unit. I would call our a letter and he's hammer a golf tee into the letter. The pumpkin on the right is for my four. We reviewed lowercase letters and letter sounds as he'd hammer a tee into his pumpkin.

Numbers (Halloween Counting): I found these pumpkin trays at the Dollar Tree! My plan was to draw a puzzle number and place the same amount of pumpkin seeds into the pumpkin tray. Except, we ran out of time to do this activity. The picture below is from Alenesani. 

Sensory (Skeleton Goop): We've played with a lot of goop (Cornstarch + Water - 2:1 Ratio) and it never seems to get old! In our bin, I mixed around 6 cups of cornstarch with 3 cups of water + orange food coloring.  We added a few Walmart items that made this sensory activity so much fun. My boys' favorite item were the slinkies! The bottom of the slinky sticks to the goop, so you can stretch and pull the slinky REALLY far. The stretchy skeletons were really fun as well as they'd get stuck in the goop. My boys played for a long time. 

Sorting (Skeleton Goop): I happen to have the same color of cups (from Ikea) as the skeletons and slinkies for our Skeleton Goop Sensory Play. My boys used tweezers to put the slinkies and skeletons in the matching colored cups. 

WEDNESDAY:

Color Activity (Color by Number): I learned today that my boys don't care for color by number worksheets. Haha. I thought these were so cute though, so if you think your child may like them you can find the pumpkin from Preschool Activities and the haunted house from Planning Playtime. 

Shape (Pumpkin Shape Puzzles): I ended up putting these puzzles together one at a time for my boys to identify while they were in the bath. They took turns waiting for the pieces to connect to identify the mystery shape. In a more ideal setting, your child could do this at a table. You can print these from School Time Snippets. Focus on the square.

Gross Motor (Ghost Bowling): This activity was even more fun that I anticipated it being. Simply draw faces with a permanent marker on styrofoam cups. I found our "pumpkin ball" at the Dollar Tree. After the boys were finished bowling, we used these cups as cones for our bikes to go around. 

Science (Ghost Rockets): Ghost Rockets from Growing a Jeweled Rose! My boys absolutely LOVED making these and watching them shoot into the air. They helped add ingredients and stood back as dad put the rockets into place. Click the link for supplies and a tutorial. 

FRIDAY: 

Rhyme (Little Miss Muffett): You'll need a styrofoam ball, black paint, black pipe cleaners, glue, and googly eyes. The first day we painted the styrofoam balls black and waited for them to dry overnight. We finished them the second day and learned Little Miss Muffet:

Little Miss Muffet,

Sat on a Tuffet,

Eating her curds and whey.

Along came a spider,

Who sat down beside her,

And scared Miss Muffet away.

Fine Motor (Brain Dissection): I found brain molds at the Dollar Tree and knew we needed to use them for something! Since our color is orange this week, I decided to fill it with orange jello and stretchy scorpions (also found at the Dollar Tree). The scorpions floated to the top of the jello, so I had to do three different layers to keep the scorpions inside the brain. Super fun activity!

Treat (Hot Dog Mummy): My boys loved helping me make these and eating them! We didn't use cheese, but you can find a tutorial here from Pillsbury.

Outing (Pumpkin Patch): There are way too many fun outings to do around Halloween. We went to a few different pumpkin patches and bought a couple of pumpkins for our front porch.

Halloween Booklist: And of course, we read often throughout the week. We mostly read before our quiet times each day, but we occasionally read during a meal or random time during the day. I placed these books on hold at our local library a week in advance and we enjoyed reading them this week as we learned about Halloween:

• Go Away Big Green Monster! by Ed Emberley
• The Hallo-Weiner by Dav Pilkey
• A Job for Wattilda by Caralyn Buehner
• The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything by Linda Williams
• The Night Before Halloween by Natasha Wing
• Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson
• Ten Timid Ghosts by Jennifer O'Connell
• T-Rex Trick or Treats by Lois G. Grambling
• Where is Baby's Pumpkin? by Karen Katz
• Who Walks on Halloween Night? by Harriet Ziefert

Note: I'd also like to focus on beginning sounds, hand writing, cutting and beginning reading for my four. I will incorporate more of these ideas in this series, but also love this beginning reading program.