Pla ySchool this week focused on--what else?--Halloween!
Concepts: Trick-or-treat etiquette and safety--I am really big on my kids realizing that basic rules about safety and being polite still apply on Halloween!
Art/game/activity: Trick-or-treat role play (to practice using flashlights, and saying "Trick-or-treat, please!" and "Thank you!"); "Green witch, green witch, what do you see?" book: I'm sure you have all read Eric Carle's book "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you See?". We created our own Halloween version. I found free coloring page images to go along with the text (Green witch, green witch what do you see? I see a white ghost/orange pumpkin/black cat/purple bat/trick-or-treaters looking at me!). The kids colored in the pictures and I added cardstock covers and stapled them together.
Songs/nursery rhymes: Ring around the pumpkin, pocket full of nuts. Leaves, leaves, we all fall down! Stomp around the pumpkin... tiptoe 'round the pumpkin... march around the pumpkin...
"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."
Books: Our library has a 2-book cap on current holiday books, so I chose Two Little Witches by Harriet Ziefert and Simms Taback and By the Light of the Halloween Moon by Caroline Stutson and Kevin Hawkes--it came with cassette tape reading, which was a nice change for the kids. I also have my own copy of The Berenstain Bears Trick or Treat by Stan and Jan Berenstain, which has an emphasis on trick-or-treat safety, so we read that before our trick-or-treat roleplay.
Snack: Frozen banana ghosts. I don't remember where I first saw this idea (maybe FamilyFun?) but it was really simple and actually healthy. Cut a banana in half, widthwise, and poke three chocolate chips, point down, into the banana in the shape of two eyes and a wailing ghost mouth. Put a popsicle stick in the bottom of the banana and freeze for a few hours or until firm.
In addition to our regular Joy School class this week, we did a few Halloween projects to get into the spirit. I am not a fan of carving pumpkins, so we painted them and then added spiderweb to decorate them. I wrapped mine in bandages like a mummy.
Here are the kids posing with the newly decorated pumpkins. Doesn't Big B look proud? He really had fun!
We also had a design your own monster activity that I snagged in the Target dollar bins a few weeks ago. Fun, easy, and not messy at all.
We have been bombarded with Halloween activities today and I'm sure tomorrow will be the same! Now that I am a mom, I really wish more parents would give out pennies or pencils....
1 comment:
Its so funny that you commented on my homechool blog b/c I just wrote about you on my other blog and gave you all the credit for the idea!! So Thanks! I was looking for something easy and simple that would involve daily things such as reading at nap time, snacks and crafts that I could just integrate throughout the week and not have to always be sitting down to learn.... your Joy School was the whole inspiration!
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