During our calendar time I try to include a few theme related songs, action rhymes, or finger plays. All of the kids really enjoy this time and the songs are a great addition to our regular calendar routine. This month we are including some Halloween songs.

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

I usually spread the songs out in between our other calendar time activities, and then we will also sing the songs throughout the day, before story time, and during other daily transitions or down time.

I didn’t get any pictures of us doing these songs this morning, but this is a glimpse of our actual calendar.

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H is for Halloween Packet

We are loving this free printable H is for Halloween Packet from Oopsey Daisy. It includes many different activities. Some of our favorites to use for calendar time so far are:

• The Five Little Pumpkins Sitting on a Gate Traditional Rhyme—There is a cute printout included.
• Halloween Movement Cards—The big kids loved doing these movements, and the babies tried their best to join in.
• Halloween Fine Motor Skills—This page lists some cute theme related hand movements to practice with kids.

There are also a couple of great stories with retelling pieces and a cute little pumpkin book.

Stephanie over at Twodaloo also has a great tutorial for making your own 5 Little Pumpkins finger puppets.

Color Songs

This month our focus colors are black and orange. The big kids are working on spelling color words, and the little kids are working on learning to identify the colors, so these songs are a fun way to incorporate both. I also give the little kids something to hold that matches the color song we are singing so they have a visual and tactile connection.

We use the color songs from Frog Street Press. The videos were available on YouTube, but they are no longer there. Hopefully they will be put back up soon. The lyrics are available here on Mrs. Gusso’s Kindergarten, and the The Sing And Read Colors CD is also available for purchase.

The Skeleton Dance

We use a lot of YouTube videos. So many of my favorite songs from the classroom have been turned into videos, and I love finding old favorites to share with my kids. The Skeleton Dance is a big hit with all of the kids here.

Bats Are Sleeping!

The Bats Are Sleeping song from Pre-K and K Sharing is another great movement rhyme.  Miss Carole shares many more fun Halloween song lyrics and great suggestions for how to move along with each song. We made some slight modifications to this song for our own purposes.

Before beginning the song the kids roam around the room acting like flying bats. Then we begin to sing.

Bats are sleeping, bats are sleeping (Slowly bend over at the waist and flap arms more slowly to act out falling asleep)
Upside down! Upside down! (Sway back and forth very slowly)
Waiting for the night-time. Waiting for the night-time….(Be still)
Then  fly around. Then fly around. (Slowly begin to flap arms again while standing straight up. Then begin to fly around more quickly.)

What are some of your favorite Halloween songs and action rhymes?

GET A FULL SET OF HALLOWEEN THEME ACTIVITIES

Watch this short video to see just a few examples of the types of activities and printables included in this set:

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.