The Adventures of a K/1 Teacher: Halloween!

I can't believe a week of November has already gone by! This is year is going by so fast! I wanted to share with you some of the fun Halloween activities we did in October. I used some of them from my own trick-or-treating unit and I also used The Inspired Apple's Candy Corn Bandit activity.

I usually do a pumpkin carving with my class, but just didn't feel up to it this year. Since I have my kids for two years and we carved pumpkins last year, I figured they would be fine with it. Instead, I had the kiddos make their own painted jack-o-lanterns!

First the kids cut out their own pumpkin and painted it orange:

The next day after they had dried, the kids cut out eyes and teeth to decorate their pumpkins face. They turned out so precious! I immediately put them on our bulletin board so we could see them every day! I love how they each have their own personality:

During math a few weeks ago we were focusing on graphing. We spiral in our math curriculum so we revisit different math topics throughout the year. For my kids who have already mastered the topic, I try to create a fun math project for them to work on during the week while I reteach the other students. I created this trick-or-treating graphing project where the kids collected data from their classmates about different Halloween related questions:

Next, they created a bar graph and a picture graph of their data:

Finally they created questions to answer about their graphs:

We did several activities related to Halloween costumes. First, I had the kids make costume crafts where they got to make their own face and decorate it with Halloween accessories of any costume. They turned out SO CUTE:

(princess)

(witch)

(pirate)

(vampire)

(monkey)

(pumpkin)

I also created an emergent reader for them to color. The final page allows them to illustrate what they would want to dress up as for Halloween:

(mummy)

(Dorothy)

(pirate)

(witch)

(50's girl)

(Frodo)

(princess)

We also talked about safety while trick-or-treating. I had the kids brainstorm important rules to remember when going trick-or-treating:

(Go with an adult; Go with a flashlight; Check the candy: Don't cross the street)

We are going to do how-to-writing in a few weeks so we tried a little by writing about how you go trick-or-treating:

(Get your costume and wear your costume; Go outside, get candy, go home; And eat the candy)

The day before Halloween we did the super fun Candy Corn Bandit activity from the The Inspired Apple! The kids LOVED IT! Before the kids came in the room I told them I had bought them a fun Halloween snack. When we got in the classroom I used my best acting skills and said, "Oh my! The snack is gone! But here is a note! What does it say??" The note was from the candy corn bandit and he told the class to follow clues to find our treat. We followed the clues around the school and eventually were led back to the classroom (I put the snack back when my kids were in library.

The kids did a lot of fun activities to go with it including a prediction book before we started looking and a sequencing activity after we finished.The next day the kids did an adorable candy corn bandit craft! I highly recommend this activity for next Halloween! Your kids will have so much fun!