Halloween Letters: G(hosts), F(rankenstein), M(ummies) and W(ithces)

Our Halloween letters were a little rushed, as I've been falling behind on our preschool schedule. But we were still able to do lots of fun activities in the weeks leading up to the big event. 

We filled our big letter G with grapes, which were quickly gobbled up. Then, since the big letter G was messy, we used it to glue green paper. Sorry little-g, you were kind of neglected this go around. 

Reid was very proud of his two faced ghost. He preferred the scary side though. 

We read Zen Ghosts by Jon J Muth, which is a bit above his level but I was up for the challenge since it is such a high quality book. Both the kids really liked the book and requested it often at bedtime. After about the fourth read Reid started asking fabulous questions about the story. This gave us a chance to talk about legends and the beauty of storytelling. He started making up his own legends while playing with Legos. Most the legends ended with me dying, and I'm not sure how I feel about that; but I'm glad the book inspired imagination and curiosity.

We also read Little Goblins Ten by Pamela Jane and Jane Manning. Before our first reading I had Reid identify all the letter Gg's on the cover. He did an awesome job and was really excited to know so many of the letters. The story itself is wonderful and I just might have to buy it for our own collection. I highly recommend it for any child's Halloween reading. It is adorable and both my kids loved it. The high quality of skills practiced and introduced is fabulous as well; it has counting, rhyming, rhythm and more. Can't say enough good things about Little Goblins Ten. 

I like using straight objects to form letters that have straight lines, so we used forks to fill our capital F. We pulled out some foam frog stickers for our lowercase f. Peeling off the back is such a great time consumer and it's fabulous fine motor practice. 

To teach Reid about Frankenstein I took to the internet to find some kid friendly versions of the story. A company called Speakaboos had two that we watched several times. We enjoyed both. Reid was fascinated by the whole thing and asked if he could be Frankenstein, instead of a Knight, for Halloween. I kind of ignored his request and hoped he'd forget about it by the end of the week. This approach seems to have worked and we did not have to scramble to find a new costume. Maybe next year.  

I don't have many pictures of our M and W activities. The two letters were definitely rushed, but they are two letters Reid was somewhat familiar with before, so I'm okay with our quick glance over them. We took some time to create letter puzzles and fill in our capital block letters. We talked about how the two look like upside down versions of one another (one of the reasons I planned them back to back), and then we marked them off our list. 

This mummy was great gross and fine motor practice for Reid. I drew a body outline with white crayon and then had him cover it with masking tape that he tore off himself. I loved watching his little fingers hard at work. Of all the Halloween creations hanging from their fan by the end of the week the mummy was the only thing that scared Nell. She insisted I take it down one day for nap time. "No scary monster, no scary monster!" she shouted as she pointed at the mummy. 

We found a decent Halloween story about a skeleton dressed as a mummy for Halloween, but I can't even remember the title of it anymore, so that's how noteworthy it was. The witch story we checked out was horrible. The kids loved it because it was a lift the flap and pop out book, but it used phrases like goblin pee and rabbit plop -- so Ben and I hid it after a reading or two.

The only other notable Halloween book we read was a book titled Alpha Oops: H is for Halloween. I grabbed it because I thought it might be a good review of the alphabet. It was a decent Halloween story and the kids enjoyed it, but it wasn't the best alphabet book we've ever read.

You can't see it well in that bedroom fan photo, but this witch also decorated their room this past week. Her hair is Reid's hands. He was excited I traced them rather than painted them. He painted her face and cut out her hat. He requested his smock before we began, which I found odd since we never use it and I'm not even sure how he knew what it was. I'm guessing Daniel Tiger. 

This is actually the hat he cut out for the witch, but he decided he wanted her to have the leftover paper, which was almost a perfect triangle, for a hat instead. He gladly played with this hat himself and turned the broken side into a sword. 

Whenever we paint he seems to prefer playing with the pallet (at the end) to the actual project itself. I don't mind, as it is more open minded creativity than the projects themselves. But I always find his fascination of it interesting. Even when our project requires covering a whole paper plate (like the witch's face or the spider webs we did earlier), he doesn't get as serious about it as he does when he covers the whole pallet with the leftover paint. I suppose it is the lack of directions that makes this work more serious. 

Even though I'm behind schedule and not making as high quality lessons as I'd originally planned, we are both still loving our preschool time together.