Homeschool Preschool - Halloween

 Books

We love "Big Pumpkin" and "Room on the Broom" and read them over and over! They are both longtime favorites around here!

Five Little Pumpkins

We watched a video on YouTube of the classic "Five Little Pumpkins" song. Then I invited Sweet E to color this free printable from Primary Playground.

Then she cut out the pieces herself!

And we did a retelling of the story, while we sang the song together. It was so much fun, and she was singing it all Halloween season long!

5 little pumpkins sitting on a gate.

The first one said, "Oh my, it's getting late!"

The second one said, "There are witches in the air!"

The third one said, "But we don't care."

The fourth one said, "Let's run and run and run!"

The fifth one said, "I'm ready for some fun!"

Then oooo went the wind,

And out went the light,

And the 5 little pumpkins

rolled out of sight.

Spider Ten Frames

Free printable from Where Imagination Grows. And she used our magnetic spiders as manipulatives.

Ghost Hunt

This is a favorite activity from last Halloween that we had to do again! Here's a handy checklist I made for Sweet E, using some letters I wanted to review this week.

And I hid ghosts all around the house, that I had written a letter onto using Honey Pot's UV pen. So you can only see the letter when you shine the UV pen's light on it. Here is what the ghost looks like:

And here it is with the UV light shining on it!

Sweet E searched all over, finding ghosts...

shining her light, and identifying the letters!

We did this activity a few times in a row, moving the ghosts to new places each time.

Great activity for letter review!

Learning Notebook

Beginning sounds and stamping!

Letter Gg review and stickers!

Witch's Brew Math

I made this page in Photoshop, for a quick dice game. Sweet E rolled the dice, and had to use balls of playdough to make the right number of bubbles coming out of the cauldron.

I love hands-on math!

And she even practiced writing her numbers.

Mummy Craft

We ripped up strips of paper towels and used them to make a little mummy! Idea and free template from Pocket of Preschool.

Sweet E glued them on, and cut out the template herself!

Lastly, she added some eye stickers. So cute!

Homeschool Preschool - Beach/Ocean Activities

In the two weeks leading up to our beach trip, Sweet E and I did lots of beach and ocean activities! It had been two (pandemic-filled) years since our last vacation, so we were overdue. Take a look at the fun learning activities we did to help us get psyched!

Books

Painting Sea Stars - Invisible Numbers

A spin on our usual invisible number activity. As usual I wrote numbers inside each sea star with a white crayon. But this time I also provided Sweet E with a page of dots, so she could count them up and color in the box that matched the number she just revealed.

Rice Sensory Bin - Ocean Animal Sorting

This free printable came from Teachers Pay Teachers, and Sweet E had SO much fun with it! I used a scalloped circle punch to cut out all the ocean animals, and I hid them in a bin of our rainbow rice.

As Sweet E found them, she could name the animal and match it up where it belongs.

It became a sort of a game, to see which ocean animal would win! Lo and behold it was the shark. 😉

She happily finished finding each and every one!

Even Little M&M joined us at the end, and the two of them kept hiding the ocean animals back in the rice so they could find them again.

And at the end, well, you know what always happens...😂

Cutting Practice

Learning Notebook - Using Stencils

Ocean Puzzles and Games

Feed the Shark Game

Free printable shark from Mommy Made That, though instead of using the colored fish, I printed blank fish from somewhere else and added numbers for a dice game!

Sweet E counted up the dots on the dice.

Found the fish with that number, and fed the hungry shark!

I had some extra fish, and Sweet E wanted to cut them out herself for some more scissor practice!

Clamshell Sound Match

I saw this idea from Turner Tots, but there was no free printable so I made my own in Photoshop. Sweet E needed to pick up a picture, and put that "pearl" into the clamshell with the right beginning sound.

Travel Journal

When each of the kids turned three, I had them decorate a composition notebook for a travel journal. (Sweet E is 4, but this was her first vacation since turning 3.) Then, each evening of our trip, I sat down with her and transcribed her version of that day's events. Honey Pot and Little M&M write about their days on their own now, and they have so much fun looking back on previous entries!

Shapes and Kinetic Sand

To begin, I drew a square in our kinetic sand, for Sweet E to cover with seashells. This was a nice, tactile way to do some shape review!

Then Sweet E wanted to draw her own shapes, which was wonderful!

She chose a triangle...

Then drew a rectangle to cover...

Then a circle...

And finally, a heart. Loved that she came up with all of these by herself. And how cute is that heart?!

Octopus Color Code

I saw this idea on Instagram from APlayFilledLife. Such a fun, quick activity for letter review and beginning coding skills!

Sand Castle Craft

First Sweet E helped crush up some graham crackers. This craft idea comes from Making Mama Magic, except they used real sand instead of graham crackers.

I put the graham cracker crumbs into a small sand pail, with a shovel, and invited Sweet E to create a sandcastle in her inflatable tray (which I LOVE for containing messy activities).

She started by squeezing glue onto all the lines.

I expected her to just do the outline, but she wanted to do the windows too!

Then she sprinkled the "sand" on top.

After dumping the excess off, she was left with this beautiful creation! Love how it came out!

Collecting Seashells - Countdown

Every time we go to the beach, we make some kind of a countdown. Paper chains are great, but I love coming up with fun, new ways to count down. This year we made a bucket, with a slot inside. Then each morning, the kids can place the seashell with the highest number inside the bucket, and see how many days are left.

Now that our trip is over, we've got lots of holiday fun coming up--Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas all in a row! Stay tuned!