I have one last Halloween activity to share with you before we say goodbye to October in a couple of days. This one is so simple, but it’s been up at our house for the whole month. We’ve gotten a lot of use out of it, so I thought you might, too.

It’s an invitation to play. We tied thick decorative ribbon between two dining room chairs and set up a line for the kids to practice fine motor skills.

GET A FULL WEEK OF HALLOWEEN THEME ACTIVITIES IN OUR PRINTABLE PRESCHOOL LESSON PLANS.

In one of the chairs I set up a tray of felt stickers. Any festive foam, felt, or even card stock shapes would work. The tray also includes small clothespins.

Quick Tips: We originally tried using twine, but the shapes flipped over. Thicker ribbon tied tightly worked the best for us. You may want to test your ribbon before inviting the kids to play. We also found that these small clothespins were an excellent challenge for my preschooler. However, they were too challenging for my toddler. All kids vary, so you may want to see which will work best for your child or provide both large and small clothespins in a larger classroom setting.

Once the kids saw the invitation they immediately started adding items to the ribbon. Lovey’s first thought was to create a pattern. Tinker was more focused on the challenge of working the clothespins, so she did not pay much attention to the pieces she chose at first.

Other Activities to do with these Materials

This simple set up can be used for a variety of other activities. Here are some of the ways we enjoyed using it throughout the month:

• Making patterns
• Counting sets and adding them to the line
• Showing basic addition using two different kinds of stickers (for example, 3 cats and 2 bats)
• Acting out rhymes like “Five Little Pumpkins Sitting on a Gate” and “Bats are Sleeping” from our Halloween Songs post.
• Telling stories

GET A FULL SET OF HALLOWEEN THEME ACTIVITIES

The 132-page Halloween Lesson Plan Set includes hands-on activities and these additional printables:

1) -at Word Family Bat Game (in color and b/w)

2) Candy Corn Science Experiment Recording Sheet (in color and b/w)

3) Candy Corn Uppercase, Lowercase, and Beginning Sound Picture Puzzles for Letters C, A, N, D, Y, H, O and R (in color and b/w)

4) Candy Corn Counting Cards 1-10 (in color and b/w)

5) Halloween Costume Syllable Sorting Activity (in color and b/w)

6) Haunted House Colors Board Game-3 variations to work on color recognition or color word recognition (in color and b/w)

7) “Look at the Costumes” Emergent Reader-3 variations

8) 0-35 Halloween Number Cards (in color and b/w)

9) Halloween Roll and Graph Math Game (in color and b/w)

10) Halloween Picture-Word Cards (in color and b/w)

11) Build a Jack-o-Lantern Pumpkin Mats and Shape Pieces

12) My Jack-o-Lantern Recording Sheets-2 variations, one to focus on shape recognition and one to focus on writing

13) Spider Number Mats and Ways to Show Numbers 0-10

Also available on Teachers Pay Teachers.

Hands-On Holidays eBook

Less stress, more connecting this holiday season? Yes, PLEASE!

From the arrival of fall to Halloween to Thanksgiving and Christmas, the last four months of the year can be a wonderful opportunity for making family memories and spending time together, but they can also be stressful as we try to collect ideas, recipes, and activities to try together.

Stephanie Morgan, founder of Modern Parents Messy Kids, a site that’s been voted Best Craft Blog in Parents Magazine and one of babble.com’s Top 50 Craft Mom Blogs, recently released a new eBook to help us have a little less stress and more time to connect with family this year.

Stephanie’s goal is to make it easier on all of us to enjoy the holidays with our kids. Hands-On Holidays is 100 pages full of her family’s very favorite ways to connect as a family over the holiday season. I love the convenience of having so many ideas in one place, and most of them are simple enough for even my toddler to participate in.

The book includes picture book suggestions, DIY decor, activities, and treats. Bonus sections also offer even more ideas to enjoy. Click here to view more details.

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