In the beginning of September, I brought out all Rosebud’s fall and Halloween themed books. She has been wanting to read them every night, so I thought I’d share the ones she really enjoys.
1. Five Little Pumpkins.
I’ve had this book since her first Halloween and she loves it. It’s a simple rhyme about pumpkins. They have finger plays and songs for it as well. She loves to read along and his it memorized now.
2. Who’s There on Halloween.
This is another cute Halloween book. It has hints for different Halloween related characters like the witch, ghost and spider. She has this book memorized too, but she hasn’t figured out that the point is to guess by the clues before you turn the page.
3. Boo! A Halloween Peek-a-boo.
This is a short, but silly Halloween book. A dog chases different Halloween characters in costume who say different things. Rosebud likes when I do silly voices with this book. I just introduced this one to her this year because it has paper pages, but she always asks to read this first.
4. Scratch and Sniff Halloween.
Who doesn’t like scratch and sniff books? They are fun until they lose their scent, but Rosebud has been having fun reading this one regardless. You can smell the minty witches brew, the spooky pumpkin or the sweet lollypop.
5. Big Pumpkin
I just ordered the paper copy of this one, but we like to listen to the audio version I found on Youtube because it’s sung to a song. If you’ve never read this book, the witch wants to make pumpkin pie, but the pumpkin is too big to take off the vine. The witch, ghost, vampire and others try to remove it, but it doesn’t work until a bat comes along with the solution. This book is good because it’s an actual story, but it is not too long that an older toddler won’t sit through it. Rosebud is growing out of the simple board books. Although she still loves them, I think she’s ready for longer stories.
What are your favorite Halloween books? Tell me in the comments.
5. Building
6. Toothbrush
1. Put water in a bucket or water table with a variety of objects and different sized cups. They can learn about sinking and floating, less vs more and if an objects properties change in water. For example, a sponge or cotton ball will become heavier in water. The whole idea is for them to experiment and to see how things work.
2. Give them blocks of any kind and let them build whatever comes to mind. Rosebud likes to build castles, roads, cities and tree houses just to name a few. Bigger blocks get stacked on top of smaller blocks. Different shapes don't always work well together. The blocks may not balance well depending on if you are building on carpet vs a hard floor. There are so many ways that blocks can be used for teaching and learning problem solving and logical skills.
What you need:
After breakfast, we decided to make another sticker collage. This time with fish and flowers. Less than ten minutes later, I was scrambling again to find something to do.
Rosebud loves to go through my drawer of craft supplies which mostly consists of beads, shells and other jewelry making items. I had some string and larger beads so I thought, why not try some beading. It's a great fine motor activity and Rosebud loves to wear necklaces. I cut the string and put a little piece of tape on the end. We often do that for the kids at work to make it easier to pull the string through the beads. However, when we started beading, the tape was making the string too big to pull through the beads.
I had to go to plan B. I was hesitant to use the wire, but I was supervising her and knew it would be easier to get the beads on. I showed her how to string the beads which she was having trouble with. I expected this, as it was her first time. I decided that I'd put the beads on for her, but she had to pick out her beads and hand them to me. She picked out a couple of beads and then lost her train of thought. When I'd ask her which bead she wanted next, she'd say, "making a necklace." Then just scattered the beads around.
What did I learn?
