Monster/Halloween Unit Study Pre-K to 2nd

I *love* our local library! Not only are they awesome in letting us take out way more books than they should at a time, but they’re 100% behind us home schooling and do what they can to help us find things we need. It’s not a big place, so there’s not activities all the time, but they do have pre-K reading time twice a month during the day and at other times there are events in the evening. Tuesday evening was a Halloween party. It’s their night to be open late, so kids crowded in to play games, have a small snack, do crafts, and get another wear out of their Halloween costumes. Since I planned monsters/Halloween to be on Halloween week (before and after), the activities the kids did fall right into what we’re delving into. Awesome! They made mummy candy bars (those are still in my purse, oops!), could craft a spider from pipe cleaners and a pom pom, did some physical activity stuff (making a spider web by throwing yarn– our toddler got caught in the middle and they just kept on going, laughing), wrapped kids up with toilet paper in a mummy game, guessed how much candy corn was in a jar, and had free books, coloring pages, and book marks.

Over the weekend our 6 year old turned 7 so I’ve had to adjust her age on here: cue silent sobbing! Not much has changed, but she had a great party with family. We wrapped up soccer for the fall with games and banquets. We’ll probably add in swimming for some if not all of them for the winter, but I’m letting my husband makes those arrangements since we’re getting SO close to having a 4th child. Any time now, really, given my due date is mid- November. We’ll be talking monsters and Halloween stuff and just keep right on chugging until the baby arrives and dad will take over. Right now we’re using items from both our Fall Printables Board and Monster Unit Study Board. Each child has grade level (or higher) appropriate activities, we read a lot of books, have free reading time for the older one (still waiting for the 4 year old to jump that hump), listening to themed music and throwing in a movie or two just for fun– but don’t tell them that, I make them discuss them afterward– and I think they come up with some great conclusions!

Multimedia/Music:
Tinkerbell and the Legend of the Neverbeast-Disney–we talked about knowing who people are before you judge them
Monsters University- Pixar–working together
It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown– belief in something greater than yourself
Toy Story of Terror- Pixar– working together
Little People Halloween CD- we talked about the alphabet, common song tunes, and monsters!

Hands on: Candy Corn Science

Art:
Frankenstein’s Monster- cutting, pasting, making choices based on available options
Halloween Shape Monster- this incorporates following oral directions and shape knowledge

7  year old paper trail:

Halloween/Fall/Monster themed items including:
Monsters: Sleepy Hollow and Zombie Reading Comp.
Word search from Teach mama
Reading maps
Halloween noun/adjective
color by number
color by number
color by addition
subtraction pages
create an addition equation page
reading comprehension
writing fall words
word search
measuring
copy-writing
Upper and lower case alphabet writing
Halloween candy word problems (number line)
Halloween Rhyming Pairs
Halloween word scramble
Number line word problems
Creative Writing

4 year old paper trail:

Halloween/Fall/Monster themed items including:
line tracing/pre-writing skills
Handwriting practice
Color by number
Color by number
shadow matching
word to picture matching
counting, writing numbers, matching numbers
simple addition
patterns
beginning sounds
missing vowel fill in
copy-writing
Upper and lower case alphabet writing and Missing Letters
Halloween candy word problems (number line)

7 year old independent reading:
Designs by Isabelle (American Girl) by Yep
The jack-o-lantern that ate my brother by Marney

4 year old reading together:
I love you as big as the world by Van Buren
Pete the Cat and the Bedtime Blues by Dean
New Baby by Berenstain

Topical Reading:
Fancy Nancy Halloween… or Bust! by O’Connor
Halloween Cats by Marzollo
It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown by Schulz
Say Boo! by Graham-Barber
Boo to You, Winnie the Pooh! by Talkington
Boo to a goose by Fox
The monster under the shed by Awdry
I’m not scared by Wilhelm
Who Walks on this Halloween Night? by Ziefert
What Is Halloween by Ziefert
Wise Old Owl’s Halloween Adventure by Kraus
Where’s the Halloween Treat? by Ziefert
Boo Who? A Spooky Life the Flap Book by Holub
The Biggest Pumpkin Ever by Kroll
Arthur’s Halloween by Brown
The Spooky Old Tree by Berenstain
The Ghost of the Forest by Bererstain
A know Nothing Halloween by Spirn
Stellaluna by Cannon
The VERY Fairy Princess by Andrews
The VERY Fairy Princess A Spooky, Sparkly Halloween by Andrews
Bear Feels Scared by Wilson
The Teeny Tiny Ghost by Winters

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Linking up with the weekly wrap up, find guidelines and how to play along here: WWU.