Halloween {Eyeballs} Day

We have done several fun preschool days leading up to Halloween. Once a week we have our friend preschool and this was one of those days. It’s always more fun with friends!

• Read “The Eye Book” by Dr. Seuss 
  1. This is really a great book. I loved being able to point out the colors of the eyes and all the things we can see with our eyes.  
  2. It’s rhyming text made it easy for the kids to guess which word should come next.

• Mirror Fun
  1. Give each of the kids a small mirror.
  2. Have them observe their eyes closely and tell you what they see!
• Preschool Journal Page
  • Practice writing Ee and “Eyes”
  • Put eyeball stickers all over page.

• Squishy eyeball bags … a fun sensory activity that the kids really enjoyed. 
  1. Fill a plastic baggie 1/4 full of clear, light corn syrup.
  2. Add 1-2 drops of green food coloring and squish together until mixed. 
  3. Add several large googly eyes.
  4. Zip and tape the bag closed.
  5. Let the kids shmoosh the eyeballs around. Have them describe what they feel. We had great words … juicy, squishy, cold, slimy, gooey.

  

• Monster Eyeball Game … this game has two parts. We took our time because the kids were enjoying it and doing a great job!
  1. PART ONE:
     • Give the kids a paper sectioned into 6 squares.
     • Print and cut out shapes in different colors.
     • NOTE: I could have had the kids cut out the shapes themselves, but didn’t want to totally overwhelm them. So I just had them cut out one shape from the last color.
     • Have them glue one shape to each section.
     • Use a crayon to add arms and legs to the shapes. I told them not to add the eyes yet!
  2. PART TWO:
     • Beforehand, squish several (15-20) colored googly eyes into a ball of model magic (or playdoh) … I just love using model magic right now.
     • Have the kids use their fingers to find the eyeballs in the model magic.
     • As they find each colored eyeball, have them place it on the matching monster shape.
     • Continue until all of the eyeballs have been found and the monsters have lots of eyes!
     • TIP: we noticed that we could tell if there were still eyeballs hiding by listening for the googly eyes rattling in the model magic!

 

• Eyeball Hunt … this ended up being more fun than I had planned and I wish I had better pictures. I’ve realized that it’s more fun for the kids to help do the prep work sometimes. I was going to have the monster drawn and ready for them, but decided to let them do it … and they loved it!
  1. On a large cardboard box, draw the outline of a monster. Not scary of course. Add antennae, lots of arms and legs, eyes, crazy hair.
  2. Give the kids washable markers and have them color the monster!! Encourage them to add anything they’d like. My kids added teeth, polka-dots, hair and lots of color.
  3. Mom’s Turn! Use a knife to cut holes where the eyes are. Now you’re ready for the game.
  4. Hide ping pong eyeballs (found at the dollar store at Halloween time!) around the room or outside.
  5. Have the kids find the eyeballs and poke them through the eyeholes. They stuck just enough that the kids had to pop them inside.
  6. They loved it!

• Eyeball Snack
  1. Cut bananas into slices. Give the kids a box of raisins.
  2. Have them place one raisin on each banana slice to look like an eyeball.
  3. Place two candy eyeballs in a cup of pudding.
  4. I found these candy eyeballs at Michaels (Halloween time). You can also get them from Amazon here.

Last Minute Halloween Fun!

Here’s a quick, fun Halloween surprise for my kids in the morning.

1. Use a dry erase marker (wipes right off the glass)
2. Draw a few accessories to make a fun costume on a picture in a frame.
3. We have a pirate, a sheriff and a cute little cat!

  

Happy Halloween!

Halloween Fun

We’re getting close to Halloween! What a fun time of the year. A lot of these activities are not new, but just pulling them out once a year makes them so exciting for my kids. And I love it because they’re already made … ready to go!

 

• Fun Food … we started off with some extra “spooky” lunches  
1. Add eyes! I made a ton of eyeballs with royal frosting. It’s amazing how fun lunches are just by adding eyes!
• Use the tutorial here
• or I used a Royal Icing Mix from Jo-Ann (less than $3 w/ coupon), then added a mini chocolate chip for the pupil.
2. Give it a name! … mummy wraps, ghost slime, red swamp water (or blood, but that’s a little goory for me), and one-eyed crispy treats.

• Silly Pumpkin Faces
1. Print out several silly pumpkin faces (or draw them!)
• Click here for a scan of the ones I have. I printed them years ago and cannot find them again. Just remember, it’s a scan of a print, so not the best quality.
• Or there are similar pumpkin faces here.
2. Have fun trying to copy the silly faces!

• Mix & Match Jack-o-Lanterns
1. Cut a large pumpkin shape from orange craft foam. I made one tall and one wide.
2. Add a green foam stem.
3. Cut out several eyes, noses, and mouths from black craft foam (not the sticky back kind)
4. Mix and match the pieces to create lots of funny faces!

 

• Memory Match Game … you can adapt this for any holiday or letter! My 3-year-old loves memory match right now, so we’ll be making a few more sets for Thanksgiving and Christmas.
1. Cut out several 3”x3” squares from cardstock (I used 3x5 cards and just cut them to 3x3)
2. Get a package of Halloween stickers (if it has at least 2 sheets, you’ll have matches for each kind and you’re good to go!)
3. Make matching sets by putting the same stickers on 2 cards.
4. To Play:
• Place all the cards face down.
• Draw 2 cards. If they match, take the set. If they don’t, turn them back over and the next player goes.

 

• Halloween BINGO … I made up some simple BINGO cards. Click here or on the image above to print a set of 4!
1. Make a simple 3x3 or 4x4 grid.
2. Use clipart (I love Microsoft Clipart) to fill in each square.
3. Print an extra set to cut up and use for the drawing cards.
4. TO PLAY:
• Draw a card and show the kids the picture.
• Have them mark the same picture on their card. We have used candy corn or these little square counters.
• We just play until the whole card is full!

Pumpkin Fun

This is probably my favorite way to do a Pumpkin Life Cycle. I printed it out years ago and thanks to Pinterest, just found the printable again!

 

• Pumpkin Life Cycle
1. Use 2 orange paper plates (or cut out 2 orange circles like we did!)
2. Tape a length of green ribbon and a stem to the top of one plate.
3. Staple the two circles together to form a pumpkin pocket.
4. Print, cut out and color the life cycle pieces.
5. Starting with the “seed” at the very end of the ribbon (farthest from the pumpkin) tape the ribbon inside, fold on the dotted line, then staple to secure.
6. Repeat with each piece.
7. Finally, draw a jack-o-lantern face on the large pumpkin.
8. Now you can tuck the vine and life cycle pieces into the pumpkin pocket and pull out each one as you re-tell how a pumpkin grows!

  

• Pumpkin Hunt … these are the pictures from our Plumply, Dumply Pumpkin Hunt (thanks again Rachel!) This was just as much fun as an Easter egg hunt and more fun than I thought it would be in October!
1. Print your lumpy and round pumpkins here.
2. Hide the pumpkins around the yard just like you would an egg hunt. I gave the kids their trick-or-treat buckets and they had a ball running around finding them.
3. Sort the pumpkins into smooth vs. bumpy pumpkins.
4. Sort again by color (I printed a set in orange and a set in yellow)
5. Pumpkin Race … use the same pumpkins!
• Spread the pumpkins out all over the grass.
• Label one bucket with a lumpy pumpkin, a second with a round pumpkin (see bottom, right picture).
• The kids run out, find one pumpkin, run it back and place it in the matching bucket.
• Run out to find another pumpkin, run back….
6. Hide & Switch … let the kid’s take charge
• Have the kids choose one of the sorted buckets (after your pumpkin race)
• Let them hide their pumpkins all around the yard.
• Then have them switch buckets and now find all of the other pumpkins!
7. There are probably a million other things you could do with these. We had a fun afternoon!

Simple Ghost Windsock

We started off G week with Ghost activities to get in the Halloween spirit!

 

• Simple Ghost Windsock
  1. Cut out 2 black circles and 1 black oval.
  2. Glue them to the center of a white piece of paper.
  3. Insert your ghost face into a clear plastic page protector (holes side up)                                                                                   
  4. Cut a white garbage bag into strips (leave folded, cut, then open up).
  5. Tape 5-6 white strips to the back of the ghost.
  6. Roll the page protector into a tube and tape.
  7. Tie string to the holes and hang outside.

(These actually look a little creepy to me. I think I need to work on making a cuter scary ghost face!)

 

• Ghost Streamers
  1. Use those extra garbage bag strips, tie a few together and let the kids run out in the wind!
• Vienna Fingers Ghost Treats
  1. Need 1 pkg. Vienna Finger Cookies, white chocolate melting chips, mini chocolate chips.
  2. Melt your white chocolate (30 seconds in microwave, stir, then 15 sec. intervals, stirring in between until melted.)
  3. Dip cookies in melted white chocolate & lay on wax paper.
  4. Add 2 chocolate chip cookie eyes!