Tot School--Halloween week

We had a busy, fun filled week full of Halloween activities.

Check out tot school for more great ideas.

And a question for those of you who do tot school as well.... scissors, what kind do you use? Also, can you send me a link to where you bought them (if online)?

Here is some of what we did this past week.

Sensory Exploration

halloween sensory tub with orange rice and halloween goodies and pumpkin playdough (with rolling pin and halloween cookie cutters)plus the carving of the pumpkin

Cooking

so much learning happens while cooking with children... pouring, stirring, measuring, language development, fine motor development, numerous math skills, literacy skills, and I could go on and on.....

This week we made Halloween peanutbutter cups, the yummiest apple muffins, and a Halloween House... not really cooking, but it involved food.

Literacy

check out our fun magnetic storytelling pieces for Go Away Big Green Monster

M has played with it over and over and over.... she pretty much has the book memorized by now, but she's learning something each and every time!

Stickers
Lots of halloween and autumn stickers including fun foam ones, but the biggest hit was...

make your own monster stickers

(M used a glue pen too for the first time and loved it!)

Beading

M beaded plastic spider rings

Simple Arts & Crafts

lots of painting this week including sponge painting with pumpkin shaped sponges and her monster grow capsules (messy because they're small but still fun!), a couple times, we used home-made puffy paint... fun to watch being made, fun to use, and fun to touch once dried! :)

M is using a q tip to paint a foam pumpkinM is painting on a wooden halloween cat here

Fine Motor Skills

M loved these little stampers and really had to use those little finger muscles to get the caps off and then hold it while she pressed firmly down and then put the caps back on

Counting and Sorting

I made up these mats (found an idea elsewhere and I'm sorry but I don't remember where, they were changed to meet the goals I had in mind) with different pictures on them of halloween images, M had to put one matching eraser on each image, M sorted them as well

M working on some more counting and 1:1

More Sorting

This is the fastest I've seen M sort anything (she was sorting halloween M&M's), but once she was done I realized (and had already anticipated) why (see second picture below).

Exploration and Observation

We grew a witch.

checking it out after being in water for a weekAnd M got to discover grow capsules as well (you know those little capsules when you put them into water and they "grow" into little sponge figures)... she loved the little monsters that "emerged" and enjoyed painting with them as well.

And we ended the week with

some trick or treating

at ZooBoo!

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