Halloween

Today for storytime, the theme was Halloween!  Here is a list of books we read:

Haunted Party by Iza Trapani

The Story of the Jack O'Lantern by Kathrine Tegen

The Ugly Pumpkin by Dave Horowitz

Halloween Goodnight by Doug Cushman

The Story of Jack O'Lantern is based off of Irish folklore and was a great way to teach the children a little history behind the tradition of carving jack o'lanterns each Halloween.

Halloween Goodnight was fun because the children were able to make the noises that the ghosts and werewolfs made when they said goodnight.

Today's craft was a lot of fun.  We made paper plate ghosts!  All you need is white paper plates, black paper for the eyes and mouth, white paper for the arms, yarn, and white crate paper streamers.  I drew the arms out on a piece of paper and made copy for the children to have a pattern, but I let them choose what shape of eyes and mouth to make.  We had circle eyes, triangle eyes, and just about every other shape imaginable.  Some ghosts were frowning, some were saying OOOOO, and others were smiling.  The children loved the crate paper streamers that gave the plates their ghostly appearance.

Here are some songs/chants that we sang:

Ring Around the Pumpkins

Ring around the pumpkins,

A pocket full of spiders,

Boo! Boo!

We all fall down!

The ghosts are in the meadow,

Drinking withces brew,

Boo! Boo!

We all stand up!

Five Little Pumpkins

Five little pumpkins sitting on a gate (five fingers up)

The first one said "Oh my it's getting late" (hands on cheeks)

The second one said "There's a chill in the air" (arms around self)

The third one said "But we don't care" (swing pointer finger)

The fourth one said "We're ready for some fun!" (hands in the air) 

The fifth one said "Let's run, run, run!" (running motion)

So woooo went the wind, and out went the lights,

And the five litle pumpkins rolled out of sight!

Jack O'Lantern

First two eyes (point at eyes)

And then a nose (point to nose)

Then a mouth with teeth in rows! (big grin)

Oh! Oh! Spooky sight,

Jack-o-lanterns in the night!

I also made tootsie pop ghosts to hand out at the end.  All you need is tootsie pop suckers, napkins, yarn, and a marker!

We had a great turn out today!  Thanks everyone for comming!

Pumpkin Decorations

These are some cute pumpkins I made for decorations at the library.  All you need is empty boxes, orange butchers paper, brown and green construction paper (for the stems and leaves), and a marker to draw faces!



You could use bigger boxes and turn them into a book display by stacking them simmilar to this one!

Monsters!

Today's sotry time theme was monsters!  We started off with a wiggle chant:
Monster, Monster, turn around
Monster Monster, touch the ground
Monster Monster. show your shoe
Monster Monster, how old are you?
Monster Monster, reach up high
Monster Monster, blink your eyes
Monster Monster,slap your knees
Monster Monster, sit down please

These are the books we read:
My Monster Mama Loves Me So by Laura Leuck
Five Ugly Monsters by Tedd Arnold
The Hungry Monster  by Phyllis Root
How to Potty Train Your Monster by Kelly S. DiPucchio

We did a few wiggle songs between stories:
If You Ever See a Monster
If you ever see a monster,
A big ugly monster,
If you ever see a monster,
Here's what you do!
Make this face....
And this face....
And this face....
And this face....
If you ever see a monster
Make sure you shout BOO!!
(make sure to pull funny faces!  or let some of the children decide what faces to pull)

If You're a Monster and You Know It
If you're a monster and you know it, show your claws
If you're a monster and you know it, show your claws
If you're a monster and you know it
and your claws will surely show it
If you're a monster and you know it, show your claws

repeat with:
chomp your teeth
stomp your feet
growl out loud

Craft:
We made paper bag puppets.  I found a bunch of odds and ends and let the kids get creative about what their monster looked like.  Some had ten eyes and others had one.  They even gave them names like Ned, Muffin, Blueberry, Sparky and Monstee.  It was a lot of fun!