Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Halloween for Preschoolers - Part 4

And so this is my final post on Halloween Week for preschooler Adrian. I hope you've all enjoyed browsing through! :)

Tweezing skulls into pumpkin pail

The little pumpkin pails are always a hit around here. Must be because they are small and seasonal! :) We opted to tweeze-in 1 white plastic skull per pail. Both the skulls and pails were purchased at our local dollar store last year. The challenge was partly picking up a single skull and holding on tight to the tweezers so it would be dropped into a pail. 


Memory Matching Game with Jack O'Lanterns

Matching & memory games are always fun and good for pre-math skills development. I do not have a very great gift at drawing so I printed two copies of these from Frenzy Universe and cut them up. Because a lot of the faces have similar traits, I printed them on paper instead of cardstock. It allowed Adrian to see through ever so slightly and lessened potential frustrations...We started by matching so he could familiarize himself with the jack o' lanterns and finished with the memory game.


History - Previous Halloween costumes

I could have printed these but I thought it would be nice to incorporate computer skills to this activity. I put one Halloween costume picture per year (2008-2011) in a folder and opened up the pictures on the screen overlapping them in no particular order. Adrian had to point to his last Halloween costume using the mouse...all the way to his first costume. After pointing to the costume, he would stick a small post-it on the picture to remember the order.


Life Cycle of a Pumpkin

Printed thanks to Montessori for Everyone. It's very abstract for a child to picture a pumpkin in its earlier stage. Having visited a pumpkin patch, Adrian remembered seeing some green pumpkins and vines though so it helped. Putting them in order was asking too much and I knew it but helping him understand how things grow, now, that's more like it. Next Spring, we shall plant some seeds to watch what happens! :)


How Many Pumpkin Seeds?

Printed a few pumpkins (Acclaim Images), and kept some seeds from a carving to do this one. You know the drill...Roll the die and see how many seeds this pumpkin contained.


Craft - Tissue Paper Candy Corn

Ah...Of course I had no orange tissue paper left...Oh well. I pre-cut strips of tissue paper and showed Adrian how to scrunch them into little balls. He then painted some liquid glue onto the template and stuck the  tissue paper balls into it. Template was found on a blog.


Craft - Pumpkin Paper Plate

Another craft for dexterity development. Tearing isn't easy. I pre-cut some orange construction sheets and Adrian had to tear them. He then painted some glue on and added the trips. We used a dessert plate this time as last time we used a dinner plate and it was too big for his patience! :) He helped me punch a hole and laced the green pipe cleaner in and twirled it around his finger to curl it like a vine. Idea, courtesy of My Montessori Journey!


6 comments:

  1. Filling the tiny plastic pumpkins with the help of tweezers is an excellent idea! Lots of fun and improving fine motor skills at the same time. Thanks for sharing.

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    1. Glad you like it. It was fun and challenging all the same. As a toddler, we did it without tweezers and he loved it so as a preschooler, adding the tweezer was a step-up and yet still manageable... :)

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  2. I love this post, Valerie, and so do my Pinterest followers! I pinned your tissue-paper candy corn craft a few weeks ago and it has become my most pinned item EVER!
    Here's the pin
    :)

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    1. Really? Well thank you for pinning Seemi! :) I'm glad it's a popular craft. So simple and fun. Love your blog by the way! It's always nice to have a certified Montessori teacher sharing with everyone out there! :)

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  3. I love the candy corn craft and pumpkin life cycle activities. Pinning! :) -Malia {Playdough to Plato}

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    1. Thank you Malia! Have fun with the craft and learning activity and thanks for stopping by. Happy Halloween! :)

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