Halloween movement ideas, a dance story, and a short Halloween story!

Hello and Happy Fall,

Here is a playful movement lesson plan based on the classic picture book Barn Dance! by Bill Martin, Jr. and John Archambault, along with a Halloween-based warm-up and a very short original story!

Halloween Warm Up and the

Barn Dance! Dance Story

WARM UP

The children will make up movements for the Halloween characters below. Ask them to stand in a circle. Begin with "Bat,"  ask the children to move away from the circle like a bat, and then back to their spots in the circle. Continue this same exercise through the list:

Bat

Scarecrow

Rolling Pumpkin

Robot

Black Cat

Falling Leaf

Outer Space Alien
Spider

Take suggestions from the children for more ideas, and continue this activity as long as the children are engaged.

 BARN DANCE! DANCE STORY

*A special thank-you to Kathleen Smith, fellow creative dance teacher, who introduced the ideas for this lesson plan to me.*

Materials:  

• The book Barn Dance! by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault
• Lively musical selections, such as a classical piece, and blue grass instrumentals
• Optional props (1 per child): 
• Sparkly/swirly streamers (crepe paper or fabric)
• Bandannas
• Orange paper plates

Instructions for presenting the dance story:

Read the book aloud to the children. Ask the children to spread out in the space.

Retell the story through movement, using the following movement prompts. Allow the children to explore each one until you move on to the next one.

It is a very quiet, clear night. Lie down and listen to the night sounds. Now wake up, stretch, tiptoe to the window, and sneak outside.  (Note:  remind the children this is a pretend story, and they should never sneak out of the house!)

Now let's dance about the night: the sparkly stars, the floating clouds, and the wind!  (play classical music selection, and pass out swirly streamers if you have them)

Listen!  The scarecrow is calling all of the animals with his music. How does a scarecrow move? Let’s move like the scarecrow. Can you play a pretend fiddle, like the scarecrow?

Now move like the animals who were following the scarecrow to the barn!  There were horses, sheep, cows, pigs, raccoons, foxes, rabbits, chickens, skunks, and crows!  (play a bluegrass piece)  

Help the children put on bandannas, give everyone a "pumpkin" paper plate, and instruct the children to go to a corner of the room to hide (like the little boy in the story), asking the children to cover their faces with their paper plates. One by one, call the children's names. When you call a name, instruct the child to put her "pumpkin" down, run and jump over the apple barrel, and go back to her hiding place.  

Now ask them to all come out together and spin around like the pigs (play another bluegrass piece). Finish this section by asking each child to make a shape like a dizzy pig, and turn off the music.

Now grab a pretend apple!  It's time to go home! Do you hear the rooster crowing? That means the sun is coming up.

Walk quietly up the stairs, and sit on your bed. Take a bite out of your "apple." Was it a dream, or did the barn dance really happen?

And now, for a short (97 words!) Halloweensie story:

                     

             

                Prelude

Oh my deary, time to get ready.

What shall I wear to the Hallow’s Eve Ball?

My crookedy hat,

my raggedy gown, 

my tappity boots

for my clackity dance. 

My face will be painted a ghastly green,

with lumpity warts on full display. 

My scraggledy “do” I’ll primp and prime, 

with cobwebs twisted and tangled and tied.

And what shall I bring?

My cleverest spells, 

my gnarliest broom,

my trickedy, terrible, powerful wand.

The finishing touch:

My stinkedy, horrible potion perfume.

A little dab here, a little glop there, 

and I’ll be the smelliest of them all!

Montessori-Inspired Spider Math Activities Using Free Printables

By Deb Chitwood from Living Montessori Now 

Many young children are frightened of spiders ... and many young children love spiders. Spider activities can be helpful in either case. Of course, Halloween is another good reason for spider activities. 

So, today, I'm sharing ideas for free spider printables and Montessori-inspired spider math activities. I had a post here in 2013 with Montessori-inspired spider activities using free printables. I couldn't resist adding some more spider activities today except with the focus specifically on spider math activities. And I have a post at Living Montessori Now with free spider printables. 

You'll find many activities for preschoolers through first graders throughout the year along with presentation ideas in my previous posts at PreK + K Sharing. You'll also find ideas for using free printables to create activity trays here: How to Use Printables to Create Montessori-Inspired Activities. 

At Living Montessori Now, I have a post with resource links of Free Printables for Montessori Homeschools and Preschools.  

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links at no cost to you.  

My Spider Counting Book Free Printable: Spider Counting Book from Fun-a-Day 

My Spider Book (Image from Fun-a-Day)

For this activity, I used a Multicraft tray, washable stamp pad, and Crayola Twistables for drawing the spider legs. Use a stapler or whatever form of binding you like to make a book. 

Younger children could just make one page if they prefer. This printable is simply cute ... and so are the fingerprint spiders. So this is a great activity for young children with a fear of spiders.


Spider Counting and Transferring Activity

  Free Printable: Spider Numbers (part of my subscriber freebie pack, so just sign up for my email to get the link and password … or check the bottom of your latest newsletter if you’re already a subscriber) 

For this activity, I used a Multicraft tray, plastic spiders, toast tongs, and Bambu large condiment cup to hold the spiders. There are 72 spiders in the package, so there are plenty for this and the DIY spider cards and counters. 

This activity works well for younger children who are working on counting and transferring skills. Just choose one number and the corresponding number of spiders. 

 

My 2¾-year-old granddaughter, Zoey, loves transferring objects with tools like toast tongs. She thought this was lots of fun. 

For our floor work, we always use a Montessori Services hemmed work rug. 

DIY Spider Cards and Counters Free Printable: Spider Numbers (part of my subscriber freebie pack, so just sign up for my email to get the link and password … or check the bottom of your latest newsletter if you’re already a subscriber) 

For this activity, I used a a Multicraft tray, 55 plastic spiders, and a Melissa & Doug wooden box to hold the spiders. 


 

I like to lay out my numbers and counters in the traditional Montessori way of rows of two counters with a left-over counter centered below the bottom row. This gives a visual impression of odd and even. For more about creating DIY numbers and counters and a link on how to present the lesson, check out my DIY Cards and Counters post.  

Spider Web Lacing 1-25 Free Printable: Spider Web Lacing 1-25 from Making Learning Fun 

For this activity, I used a bamboo plate holder and black yarn (7" x 25 plus a bit more). One of the plastic spiders could be added to the finished web. 

This is an advanced lacing activity but very cool!  

Spider Skip Counting Puzzles

  
Free Printable: Spider Skip Counting Puzzles by Kim from Life Over C’s at Creative Family Fun 

For this activity, I used a pencil box to hold the puzzle. There are a variety of puzzles in the pack, so pick the level appropriate for your child or students.  

Roll and Draw Spiders Game Free Printable: Printable Roll and Draw Spiders Game from Childhood 101 

I like that this is a mixture of math, science, and drawing. I think this would make a nice multi-age cooperative game by having one game board where the younger children can count the dots and older children can draw the spiders.  

Spider-Themed Puzzles for 2-Digit Addition Free Printable: Spider-Themed Puzzles for Double Digit Addition from Life Over C’s 

For this activity, I used a multicraft tray, piece of felt, golden beads from Alison's Montessori (you could use the tens and colored bead bars if you prefer), a Montessori Services basket to hold the tens, and a smaller container I have for the ones.

  

(Note: The layout doesn't show the step of putting the tens and ones together to find the total.) I would have the child complete the puzzle after adding the beads as a control of error (way to check the work).

More Free Spider Printables

Go to my post at Living Montessori Now for links to free spider printables from around the blogosphere: Free Spider Printables and Montessori-Inspired Spider Math Activities. And be sure to subscribe to my email list if you'd like to get an exclusive free printable each month (plus two more awesome freebies right away): Free Printables.

Helpful Post with Animal Classification

Montessori Animal Classification

Halloween Posts at Living Montessori Now + Halloween Pinterest Board

• Montessori-Inspired Pumpkin Activities, Homeschool Halloween
• Montessori-Inspired Pumpkin Unit
• 25+ Montessori-Inspired Halloween Activities
• Halloween Grace and Courtesy, Montessori-Inspired Friendly Ghost Activities
• Montessori-Inspired Halloween Activities
• Montessori-Inspired Skeleton Activities
• Free Spider Printables and Montessori-Inspired Spider Activities
• 20 Pumpkin Phonics Activities
• Free Halloween Songs and Rhymes for Circle Time
• Halloween Activities for Montessori-Inspired Themes and Parties
• Montessori-Inspired Pumpkin Hammering for Toddlers
• 20+ Pumpkin Hammering Activities for Preschooler
• Free Skeleton Printables and Montessori-Inspired Skeleton Activities
• Kids’ Halloween Activities Pinterest Board

If you'd like to focus on manners with children, please check out my eBook Montessori at Home or School: How to Teach Grace and Courtesy! It's written for anyone who'd like to feel comfortable teaching manners to children ages 2-12. I'm also one of the coauthors of the book Learn with Play – 150+ Activities for Year-round Fun & Learning!

Happy fall! :)

Deb Chitwood is a certified Montessori teacher with a master’s degree in Early Childhood Studies from Sheffield Hallam University in Sheffield, England. Deb taught in Montessori schools in Iowa and Arizona before becoming owner/director/teacher of her own Montessori school in South Dakota. Later, she homeschooled her two children through high school. Deb is now a Montessori writer who lives in San Diego with her husband of 41 years (and lives in the city where her kids, kids-in-law, and toddler granddaughter live). She blogs at Living Montessori Now.

Dollar Tree Treasures and Lots of Ideas!

Hi! I'm Carolyn Kisloski from Kindergarten: Holding Hands and Sticking Together.  I wanted to call this "Dollar Tree Finds and Million Dollar Ideas" but that sounded like a little much.  But, here are some great finds and some fun ideas I like to do with them and wanted to share with you.  How is that?!

My list said "leaf stickers."  I left the store many, many dollars later with many, many treasures- and no leaf stickers. These are some of the bags I hauled into school after my trip.
                                      

That is the beauty of the Dollar Tree.  Have you ever gone in, and for some bizarre reason not gotten a cart?  I KNOW-  what?!  I've done that, and then when my arms are overflowing, I sheepishly make my way back to get one, reminding myself never to do that again.

Tip of the day:  ALWAYS get a cart at Dollar Tree.  EVEN if your list has one item on it.  It's like eating Pringles.  You can't eat just one, and you won't get just one thing.  I think it's almost impossible.  Just skip right over those baskets, too.  They fill up wayyyy too fast.

Let's get started!

Instead of  leaf stickers, which I couldn't find, I got these beautiful leaves.
                                            

We made fall trees with the leaves, and practiced writing a sentence correctly. They stuck onto construction paper really well with Elmer's glue. If one was thinking about falling off, I just stapled it on to be sure it would stay.  I had the kids tear brown paper for the trunk.

I thought the leaves would also be fun for a Sight Word Write, so I wrote a sight word on each leaf, put a magnet on back, and made a tree on my white board.  The children have to write the words on the leaves that have fallen from the tree. They  do this after they finish their morning work.  They can just write the words on the back of their paper, or use this recording sheet.  I just change the fallen leaves each morning.   

If you would like a copy of the recording sheet, just click the picture below. 

Wouldn't this activity be precious with these leaves?  I found this picture on Pinterest, with no link back to anything- so if it is yours, I am sorry I'm not giving you credit. I love it!

This bulletin board from Boards Galore would be fun to make with these leaves, too.  You could hide children's faces, sight words, letters, or numbers in the leaf pile!

Don't you just LOVE these leaves from TypeInspire?  They would be so much fun for making names or sight words in fall!  I'm not sure what I want to do with them, but here they are if you can think of something fun. I just loved them.

Next, I found this packet of Halloween characters. There are 6 characters in a packet, and a sheet of stickers to go with each character.  My kids LOVED making them!

I had each of my children write "I am a ____________" and try to hear the sounds for the character they chose.  This was one of the first sentences they tried to write.  It was a great chance to have them practice leaving a space between words and put a period at the end of the sentence because it was where the reader would stop. 

I bought 5 of each of these animals last year to use for my reading buddies during independent reading time. I have 4 or 5 children in each group.  Each group has 15 minutes of reading time on the rug each day. They can have a reading buddy to read the books to, so these worked great to go along with some of our reading strategies. 

Stretchy Snake to stretch out the words

Lips the Fish to get your mouth ready for that first sound

Chunky Monkey to look for the chunks in words

I also bought 5 of each of these great camo helmets,vests, and binoculars.  

I am going to have 2 different camo centers for the kids.   The first one is going to be this mat that the children have to use to match the army guy's word to the word on the mat, and then record 10 of the words after they match them.  I just painted the fabulous landscape on a piece of cardboard from the back of one of my chart paper packs.  Of course the children will have to wear their uniforms when they accept this mission!

The next center is going to be a Camo Write the Room. I am going to put the camo sight words all over the room. They can wear their vest and helmet, and use the binoculars to find the words.  I also bought a camo tablecloth (for $. 97 at Walmart).  I was thinking I may put that up on a wall and put the sight words on that another time just to switch it up.   If you would like a copy of the recording sheets, just click on the picture below. 

 

If you would like a copy of the camo sight words, just click this picture.

You can also find camo pencils that  would be so much fun to use for these centers. 

These great dinosaurs would also work well on my mat (since it is so simple  versitile...). You could write sight words or letters on these guys!

I got these awesome mustaches for "Mm" day.  We all need a good mustache day.  After they wear them for a class picture, I am going to have them draw a big picture of themselves on paper and add the mustache to that to get the mustaches home safe and sound.  That way, the mustache will have another purpose, won't get lost somewhere, and the kids won't be wearing it all day- only until they use it for the picture they draw.

I am always on the look out for prizes to keep in my prize bin, too.  For Christmas and the end of the year, we play Bingo.  As each child wins, he/she gets to go to the prize table to choose a prize.  The kids LOVE this.  It's so easy for me, too.   I  always have a good variety of prizes on hand.

I find this is also handy in case a child is home sick for quite a while or breaks a bone or something and needs a little "pick-me-up" treat bag.

These are my latest additions.  I have lots of cars, trucks, balls, wands, coloring projects already.  I loved this glitter dough.  The glow in the dark snakes would also be good separated and given as "stretchy snake" reading and writing reminders.

I LOVED these wings.   The little skirts were too precious, too.  I bought wings for each of my girls. I only have eight girls. I'm not sure when I'm going to give these to the girls, but I do know I want a picture of each little girl wearing her wings.

I saw this sweet saying, and I am thinking that I may make something with each girl's picture and this saying for a gift for the parents. 

I also got some tiaras for my girls for sometime special, because who can resist a tiara?

I am going to go back and get something special for my boys next.  They had cowboy hats and vests, so I may get those for my little guys.

 Maybe I'll add this little saying to their cowboy pictures.

I'll probably just get EVERYONE a cowboy hat, and maybe we will make paperbag vests to go with them, because they have some pretty colored hats!

I also got a few of these finger lights just in case some of my readers need a little extra reminder to point to each word as they read.  These are so much fun!

I hope you found some fun ideas to use for this time of year.  Have fun shopping! I'd love you to stop over to my blog Kindergarten: Holding Hands and Sticking Together and follow me on Facebook.

Thank you for stopping by!