A Little Behind

I have gotten a little behind on blogging.  It started with catching whatever many of my littles had. Thankfully, I am feeling SO much better.  We had a busy week that week, with Halloween and the excitement of kinders that goes with it.  Halloween was a whirlwind, but so much fun!  I had some mom helpers come in and help run centers.  We had some game centers, then our snack, then some crafty centers.  Next year I will shorten the game times, and extend the craft times to make it feel less chaotic for me.  Here is some of what we did.

Ghostly Bowling - We had water bottles that looked like ghosts and used a jack-o-latern playground ball to bowl.  One of my teammates let us borrow her set and the kids had a ball!

We played another game suggested by my teammate called "Witch's Brew."  You have confetti pieces (or you can cut out Halloween like shapes and give each kid a straw and bowl.  The pieces are all over the table.  The kids suck each piece up and get it in their bowl, to make their brew.  When time is up, they count how many pieces they got.

We played a version of "Clear the Board" using M & M's.  Who doesn't like chocolate before 9 a.m.? Original idea found here.  There are a whole bunch of other math games found here too.  I use quite a few of them in my classroom.

The next game we played was from a different teammate.  I called the game Candy Scoop.  Each player gets a spoon and two bowls.  One bowl has candy corn in it and the other bowl is empty.  The kids scoop as much candy from one bowl to the other in the amount of time you give them.  Then they count how many pieces they got. You can play multiple rounds and change the rules; i.e. using the other hand.

We measured different sizes of bats with candy corn using Jessica Boldridge's Bat Measurement Activity.  You can find it here for free.

Our fun snack, I have now done two years in a row.  It was inspired by an idea I saw on Pinterest that used pudding.  The link no longer exists :/.  I choose to do jello, because I love how bright and vivid the green is.

 
For our craft centers we had the Cauldron Kitchen (we made a few tasty treats), we had a painting center, a Frankenstein craft, candy corn craft and mummy craft. 

The kids painted stripes on a half sheet of paper, and a mom helper painted and stamped their feet for a handprint calendar we do for the families for Christmas.  When the kids were done painting they did some Halloween puzzles I found at Target in the dollar section a year or two ago.

In the recipe center kids made these sweet treats:

Snack idea from here, and here.

Frankenstein Craft similar to this one.

Candy Corn Craft similar this one.

Mummy craft similar to this one.

The crafts were all inspired by the links above.  Some of ours look the same some, are altered a bit.  Either way the kids had a blast.  I had the kids decorate a paper with their names and witch's legs to use to put all their crafts as we did them.  Here is what our floor looked like in the midst of it.

The day after Halloween my kids were pretty mellow and had a fabulous day of listening. It made for a very happy teacher who was worn out from being sick and all the excitement through the week.  I had the kids write about what they did for Halloween.  Here are some examples of their writing.

Early in the week, we finished up our bat study by labeling a bit bat and writing facts we have learned.  The kids were in groups of 3 and I was so proud of them.  One of my kiddos said something about this being really fun!

The kids just eat up all the facts about bats, and everything really.  Next stop... spiders!