October 31: Preschool Storytime: Halloween

(Please note that I let the children pick which books we read of the 8-9 books that I bring with me to the storytime. The ones listed are the ones we read.)

Opening song:                                 (Tune: "The Farmer in the Dell")

                         We tap hola like this

                         We tap hola like this

                          Hi-ho cherry

                          We tap hola like this

                          Continue with other verses:

                          We drop hola like this...

                          We circle hola like this...

                          We spin hola like this...

                          We toss hola like this...

                           We roll hola like this...

Talked about that Halloween is today
The children that came in costume shared what they were dressed up as
Letter Hh and its sound
Found it on the Alphabet chart
Talked about things that start with Hh
Made lowercase h in the air



Book: "The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything" by Linda Williams

I gave each child a set of pictures of the shoes, pants, shirt, gloves, hat, and pumpkin head for them to build the scarecrow as we read the story. I found the pictures on teacherspayteachers.



Shaker song: We sing the whole song in English and then change a few words to Spanish. 
(I provided each child of picture of one of the characters in the song to hold up each time we named that character.)

“The Pumpkin in the Patch”
(Tune: "The Farmer in the Dell")

The pumpkin/calabaza in the patch, 

The pumpkin/calabaza in the patch,
Hi-ho on Halloween,
The calabaza in the patch.

The pumpkin/calabaza calls a witch/bruja,
The pumpkin/calabaza calls a witch/bruja,
Hi-ho on Halloween,
The pumpkin/calabaza calls a witch/bruja.

The witch/bruja calls a bat/murciélago,
The witch/bruja calls a bat/murciélago,
Hi-ho on Halloween,
The witch/bruja calls a bat/murciélago

The bat/ murciélago calls a ghost/ fantasma,
The bat/ murciélago calls a ghost/ fantasma, 

Hi-ho on Halloween,
The bat/murciélago calls a ghost/ fantasma.

The ghost/ fantasma scares us all.
(Ghost child says BOO!)
The ghost/fantasma scares us all,
Hi-ho on Halloween,
The fantasma scares us all.

We all scare the ghost/ fantasma. (Everyone says boo to the ghost.)
We all scare the ghost/ fantasma,
Hi-ho on Halloween,
We all scare the ghost/fantasma.

Book: "Duck and Goose, Honk! Quack! Boo!" by Tad Hills

Action Song: We sing the whole song in English and then change a few words to Spanish.
(I provided each child of picture of one of the characters in the song to hold up each time we named that character.)

“White Ghost, White Ghost”

(Tune: “Brown Bear, Brown Bear”)

White ghost/ fantasma, white ghost/ fantasma, what do you see?

I see a black bat/ murciélago looking at me.

Black bat/murciélago, black bat/murciélago what do you see?

I see a green witch/bruja looking at me.

Green witch/ bruja, green witch/bruja what do you see?

I see a gray skeleton/esqueleto looking at me.

Gray skeleton/esqueleto, gray skeleton, esqueleto what do you see?

I see a red mask/máscara looking at me.

Red mask/máscara, red mask/red mascara, what do you see?

I see a black cat/gato looking at me.

Black cat/ gato, black cat/black gato?

I see a pink princess/princesa looking at me.

Pink princess/princesa, pink princess/princesa, what do you see?

I see a blue dinosaur/dinosaurio looking at me!

Blue dinosaur/dinosaurio, blue dinosaur/dinosaurio, what do you see?

I see an orange jack-o-lantern looking at me!

Happy Halloween!

As some of the children appeared to be very tired, I selected to skip a third story, do the goodbye song and start craft time.

Goodbye song:                               (Tune: "The Farmer in the Dell") 

                         We tap adios like this

                         We tap adios like this

                          Hi-ho cherry

                          We tap adios like this

                          Continue with other verses:

                          We drop adios like this...

                          We circle adios like this...

                          We spin adios like this...

                          We toss adios like this...

                           We roll adios like this...

Craft Time:   For Halloween, I always give the children two choices for craft time. Today they had a choice between a Halloween wreath and a skeleton. For the wreath, I modified an idea found here. For the skeleton, I modified a craft idea found here. I felt it was too hard for them to paint a skull, so I found a clip-art of a kid-friendly skull online. 

Modeled both the Hh  page and the craft before the children starting working on them

The children each completed a dot page for letter Hh. You can find these dot pages here. 

            or         

*All pictures have been taken and are shown with parental permission.

I always let the children pick which three books I read from the ones I bring with me. These are some additional suggested books that the children didn't pick:

• "Not Very Scary" by Carol Brendler
• "Skeleton for Dinner" by Margery Cuyler
• "Snowmen at Halloween" by Caralyn M. Buehner 
• "Curious George Goes to a Costume Party" by Margaret and H. A. Reys