October is here and so it's time to bring out some Halloween centers and activities! Here are a few of things my students will be using this month. (Some of these activities are close to 15 years old, and are in desperate need of being remade, but the kids don't mind, and they still work!)
Fine Motor Center
This week, the students are using tweezers to transfer small plastic spiders into the pumpkin shaped ice cube tray which just so happens to also be a ten frame! They can roll the die to see how many spiders to transfer. I also have a second tray in this center so they can take turns rolling the die with their partner to see who fills up their tray first.
We also have this wire shelf that the students can lace the ribbons through.
Sensory Tub
Each month I add a new sensory tub for the students to explore. This is our Halloween tub and it is full of pom poms, felt spiders, felt webs, mini erasers, witch's hats, ghosts, and witch's cauldrons. I also always provide tongs, tweezers, and scoops to work on fine motor skills while picking up the items, and a tray to help contain the mess.
Story Retelling
Each year, my Kinders cannot get enough of the "Five Little Pumpkins" chant! I added the story pieces to our Story Retelling Center felt board...
...and we also act out the story for each other with our pumpkin stick puppets.
Morning Games
In our Morning Game basket, I have activities that might not really fit into a center. Mini erasers are always a big hit! I just set out a container of erasers along with a tray to try and contain the mess. The students can use the erasers pretty much however they wish. They usually sort them, stack them, or make different shapes.
This is our "Boo!" game. Super simple, and it could definitely use a little face lift after all these years, but it is still a class favorite! I just drew a jack-o-lantern face and cut out. On the opposite side I wrote lowercase letters, but you could label yours with whatever your students are learning at the time. A few of the jack-o-lantern have the word "Boo" written on them instead of a letter. To play, the first player turns over a card and says the name and sound of the letter written on the other side. If they get it correct, they get to go again. Their turn is over if they can't identify the name of the letter and the sound, or if they get a "boo" card.
I have several of these Sight Word Board Games for different themes throughout the year. Each one is programmed with different sight words that we are learning at that time of year.
Classic memory games are always a favorite too, and so easy to switch out with each new holiday or theme. This one has seen better days, but still gets chosen over and over again!
Nonstandard Measurement
With each new month, I hang a new measurement chart on our classroom door. The kiddos help measure each other against the pumpkins and then they record how tall they are on the paper next to the chart. The recording page says, "_______ is ____ pumpkins tall."
Pocket Chart Activities
In this pocket chart activity, the students read the sentence, "I can see __ pumpkins." Then they find the card with the correct number of pumpkins and place it next to the sentence.
This "hide and find" pocket chart game is one my Kinders beg to play each day. I have different ones for different themes and concepts we are learning. This "Where's the Spider?" game practices number recognition up to 20, and upper and lowercase letter recognition and sounds.
I choose which concept I want the students to practice, and place the cards in the pocket chart, hiding the spider card behind one of them. The students take turns coming up and guessing where they think the spider is hiding by pointing to a card, saying the number, letter, or sound on that card and then looking behind the card to see if the spider is there.
This file can be found in my Teachers Pay Teachers store, here.
Writing Center
In the Writing Center, I have Halloween vocabulary cards and sentence starters. The kinders write the sentence on a piece of a paper and choose a word from the vocabulary pocket chart to finish the sentence.
Counting Cards
These Spider Web Counting Cards are great for practicing number recognition, counting, one-to-one correspondence and number order. Here, my students are using the mini spider erasers from Target to add the correct number of spiders to each card. If you don't have these mini erasers, you can always cut the ring part off of some spider rings to use instead. I have included full page cards to use if you will be using spider rings. Spider rings are bigger than the erasers, and this way the cards won't get too crowded.
These cards are available on Teachers Pay Teachers, here.
Hope you have a great October!!