Some Halloween Ideas from the Two's Room

Here are some things we did last October in the two's classroom.

Pumpkin Science Center

We put out different pumpkins and gourds along with pumpkin seeds, magnifying glasses, bowls, and rulers for the children to explore. 

Pumpkin Predictions 

Each of the children chose one of the pumpkins from the science center. We measured and weighed each pumpkin and I wrote down how the children described their pumpkins. Then each child predicted what they thought would be inside the pumpkins before we cut them open. Some of the predictions we got were a dinosaur, another pumpkin, and candy. 

 

Of course once we cut the pumpkins open, we saw that there were seeds inside. Everyone helped to scoop out the sticky seeds. 

And we made a jack o' lantern.

 

Seed Collage

We saved the seeds from the pumpkins and used them to make pumpkin seed collages.

Halloween Sorting

I found these Halloween erasers at Target.  We had lots of fun sorting them and making patterns with them.

 

Halloween Costume Dress Up

I found lots of Halloween costumes at Goodwill earlier in the year.  We put them in the dramatic play area along with Halloween bags and we pretended to go trick-or-treating. 

Spider Webs

We opened a bag of fake spider webs and the class helped to hang them around the classroom and put plastic spiders on them. 

Candy Corn Sorting

As a treat, we all tasted some candy corn and talked about the different colors on the candy. Then we cut strips of white, yellow, and orange paper into squares and glued them onto a paper candy corn cut-out. 

 Besides being a sorting activity, this also used lots of small motor skills as the children cut and glued. 

Happy Halloween!

Wrapping Presents in Preschool

Every year at Christmas time, I set up a present wrapping center in the classroom. Ripping tape, cutting, and folding paper are great small muscle activities for young children. Besides, it's lots of fun to wrap and open presents!

To set up, I fill the wrapping center with rectangles of wrapping paper,

bows,

scissors, tape,

an assortment of boxes,

and some small toys from around the room.

As children came to the center, I explained how to rip the tape and fold the paper around the boxes. After a little while, they can usually do the folding on their own, but the tape can be a bit more difficult (so be prepared to go through lots of it!)

Of course, opening the presents was the best part!

Even though they knew what would be inside, the children got so excited as they ripped the paper and opened the boxes!

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