HS Halloween (Safety and Nutrition)

Interest Area Changes to Environment

Trick or Treat Bucket

Road Signs

Food Pyramid

Good / Bad Charts for Teeth

Real vs Fake Chart

Costumes

Crown

Gloves

Chart of healthy snacks vs unhealthy snacks

Spiders

Paper Bags

Small Pumpkin Buckets

Flashlight

Halloween Cookie Cutters

Orange Paint

Orange Tissue Paper

Orange Construction Paper

Pumpkin Felt Board

Popsicle Pumpkin Puzzles

Googly Eyes /  Pipe Cleaners / Straws / Yarn (Playdough Monsters)

Paper Plates

Yarn

Teaching Concepts for Large Group

1.  Who are strangers?

Talking about stranger danger in too much detail could make children feel scared to leave the house, but they must learn about the importance of staying with their parents / guardians on Halloween night. Role-playing is an easy way to talk about this topic without frightening children. One Teacher role play a parent while you pretend to trick-or-treat around the room. The other Teacher can walk up and try to convince the child to walk away from his “parent,” giving you the chance to talk about how important it is to stay together.

2.  How can we stay safe with our costumes on?

Have pictures of a child who’s wearing an unsafe costume such as a long, dark cape, sandals and a face mask and ask for suggestions of why this costume could be unsafe for a child to wear. Children can also think about their own costumes if they have them already.

3.  How can we be safe trick or treating? Discuss street safety.

When children get comfortable trick-or-treating, they may be so excited that they run ahead or run into the street without looking. In the dark, children can also trip over things or other people when they’re not paying attention. Make a pretend street and sidewalk in your classroom by arranging paper or lines of masking tape on the floor and help children practice using walking feet and staying on the sidewalk. Running up and down stairs can also cause small preschoolers to trip, so practice walking slowly up and down stairs.

4.  What is real and unreal?

Some Halloween costumes and decorations can be frightening to a young child. Read children books or show them magazines containing images of common holiday sights like popular costumes and scarecrows. Talk with children about the fact that they’ll see some of these objects, and explain that there’s nothing to be scared of.

Teaching Concepts for Small Group

1.   Ask each child to describe her costume and draw a picture of how she’ll keep her body safe while she wears it, like putting her mask up on her forehead so she can see or keeping her shoes tied.

2.  Get several pieces of green paper. Label the paper one through ten. Then cut out pumpkins. Let your children place the correct number of pumpkins in the pumpkin patch.

3.  Decorate paper bags using Halloween stickers, stampers, orange and black paint, etc.  to make trick or treat bags.

4.  Guess which ribbon will wrap around a pumpkin. 

Teaching Concepts for Music Movement Wellness IMIL

1.   Ring Around the Pumpkin

Sung to “Ring around the Rosie”

Put a picture of a pumpkin on the floor and sing:

Ring around the Pumpkin,

Pocket full of nuts,

Leaves, leaves,

They all fall down.

We continued by adding new movements as we danced and sing around a pumpkin.

March around the pumpkin,

pocket full of nuts,

leaves, leaves,

they all fall down.

Stomp around the pumpkin,

pocket full of nuts,

leaves, leaves,

they all fall down.

Tip-toe around the pumpkin,

pocket full of nuts,

leaves, leaves,

they all fall down.

Jump around the pumpkin,

pocket full of nuts,

leaves, leaves,

they all fall down.

2.  Did You Ever See a Pumpkin

(Sung to: Did You Ever See A Lassie)

Did you ever see a pumpkin a pumpkin a pumpkin?

Did you ever see pumpkin with no face at all?

With no eyes, no nose, no mouth, and no teeth?

Did you ever see a pumpkin, with no face at all?

So I made a Jack O-Lantern, Jack O-Lantern, Jack O-Lantern.

So I made a Jack-O-Lantern with a big funny face!

With big eyes, a big nose, a big mouth, and big teeth.

So I made a Jack-O-Lantern with a big funny face.

3.  Spread out around the room and do different Halloween movements; flying bats, floating ghosts, stomping monsters, rolling pumpkins, falling leaves, flying witches etc.

Teaching Concepts for Fingerplays

1. Bats!

Bats are sleeping, bats are sleeping

Upside down upside down

Waiting for the night to come

Waiting for the night to come

Then they fly around,then they fly around

2.  Three Little Witches

One little, two little, three little witches (Count on Fingers)

Fly over haystacks & fly over ditches (Make titanic flying motion)

Fly over moonbeams without any hitches (Make titanic flying motion)

Hey its Halloween night

One little, two little, three little witches. (Count on Fingers)

Fly over barb wire and tore there britches (Make titanic flying motion)

Had to go home and get some stitches. (Make titanic flying motion)

Hey, its Halloween night

3.  Jack-o-lantern

Jack-o’-lantern . .jack-o’-lantern

You are such a funny sight

As you sit in the window

Looking out at the night

Once you were a yellow pumpkin

Growing on a sturdy vine

Now you are a .jack-o’-lantern

Let the candle light shine

4.  Trick or Treat Safety

I am a trick or treater set to go, here is my flashlight I’ll walk slow

I always say thank you for my treats, and I never run across the street

5.  Halloween Song

We are on sidewalks, we are on porches, dressed in costumes to scare

Through the city were ringing your doorbells,

Trick or treating, candy eating, with gooey stuff in our hair.

But the most fun is shrieking out loud, shivery yells, shivery yells

that’s the Halloween nitty gritty

You can moan and groan, just leave us alone

Halloweens comes just once a year!

Teaching Concepts for Outdoor Experiences

1.  Play the Grand Prize Game with jack-o’-lantern buckets and orange ping pong balls.  Line up 5 buckets in a row. Have the child stand at the end of the row and attempt to throw ping pong balls into the buckets.

2.  Get a large orange circle and then using pin the tale on the donkey rules have the children put the face on the Jack-o’-lantern, or  you can play pin the stem on the Jack-o’-lantern.

3. Play ring-around the pumpkin, use a pumpkin/or orange bucket and sing the ring around the pumpkin song.

CLASS Concepts

In the art center, create their own Trick or Treat bag using paper sacks and glow in the dark paints. Engage children in conversations and back and forth exchanges about safety. “Why do you think we would need to use paint that glows in the dark? How will that keep us safe?” Use advanced language like luminescent, fluorescent, etc.

Sort pictures of food or food labels and wrappers into “sometime foods” and “anytime foods” Anytime foods are so good for you, they may be eaten anytime. These foods include fruits, vegetables, beans, whole grains and low fat milk. Sometime foods are usually high in sugar, fat or salt, so enjoy them sometimes. Things like candy, cookies, French fries, and soft drinks are sometime foods.

Teaching Concepts for Distance Learning

Scavenger hunt

You can gather a list or some ideas include looking for safety and nutrition, shapes, letters, and numbers. When everything found discuss each item

Make an ABC/123 Sensory Bin

Take letter shapes, scrabble tiles, letter puzzle pieces, etc. and bury them in a sensory bin. You can use any fillers such as rice or sand. Set up a letter wash with warm, soapy water and foam or plastic letters. Alternatively, you can use numbers too.

Charades

Private message one child with the word card. This child then pantomimes this clue while the other children guess the answer.

I Spy

Pick an item that can easily be seen by all the children and share a clue.

Letter/number search

Use a magnifying glass to search letters/number of the week or just randomly in books, magazines, and anything that has words or numbers.

Dance and Freeze

Play music and encourage children to get up and dance, then children must freeze when the music stops.

Show and Tell/Pumpkin/Halloween

Tie it to a learning objective. Ex: Bring something that is red. Bring something that starts with the letter P. Bring something you can wear on your hands, arms, feet, etc.

Simon Says

The teacher will give the action directions, while the students participate. If the children miss the action cue "Simon Says" then they are out. Keep going until you have a winner.

Counting Walk

Take this walk inside or outside and pick something to count together! Forks in the drawer, stuffed animals on the bed, flowers around the mailbox, cars on the street are all great items to count. Look at house numbers.

https://www.virtualmusicalinstruments.com

Lets kids play instruments online. Instruments include the guitar, piano, pan flute, drums, and bongos.

Farm Fresh 360-Virtual Field Trip

https://web,extension.illinois.edu

Guide to gardening for kids.

http://www.kids.nationalgeographic.com

National Geographic for kids. Learn all about geography and fascinating animals.

www.historyforkids.net

History for kids.

www.starfall.com

Practice phonics skills with these read-along stories.

www.storylineonline.net

Have some of your favorite stories read to you by movie stars.

www.abcya.com

Practice math and reading skills while playing fun games.

https://www.sheppardsoftware.com

https://pbskids.org/games