Halloween Toddler Story Time

I am so ridiculously behind on these blog posts, case in point: Halloween Story Time posted in December. It is definitely still worth telling you about, if nothing else but for Fall 2014 Story Time planning purposes XD

We started the way we always start, with our Bread and Butter. Thanks, jbrary! In addition to our usual modes of saying hello (fast, slow, quiet, loud, silly, nice, etc), we said hello as spooooooky as we could, and boy, was it eery.

After our usual Open & Shut Them, we were ready to get down to business. 

I found this great flannel adaptation of Ed Emberley's Go Away, Big Green Monster through Flannel Friday on Miss Courtney Meets Bobo. She transformed the titular monster into a Big Orange Monster, and the result is pretty perfect.

Picture lifted from her blog, because I forgot to take photos.

 Big Orange Monster has..
 2 heart-shaped, yellow eyes
and a big, red mouth
2 leafy, green ears
purple, squiggly hair
sharp white teeth,
and a long, bluish nose,
But you don't scare me, Big Orange Monster!

Go Away...
long, bluish nose
sharp white teeth,
purple squiggly hair,
leafy, green ears
big, red mouth
heart-shaped eyes
And don't come back... until Halloween!

Then we did the classic action rhyme, "Five Little Pumpkins".
In case you don't know or remember this gem, it goes:

Five little pumpkins sitting on a gate (Start with five fingers up)
The first one says, my it’s getting late. (Put one finger down)
The 2nd one says, there are witches in the air. (Ooh! Another one down)
The third one says, but we don’t care! (And another one down)
The fourth one says, I’m ready for some fun! (And another one bites the dust!)
The fifth one says, lets run and run and run!
Then WOOOOOO went the wind, (Make creepy woooooo-ish motions with your hands!)
and OUT went the light, (CLAP!)
And five little pumpkins rolled outta sight. (Hide hands behind back)

Then Jbrary hooked us up again with another wonderful action rhyme: Pumpkin, Pumpkin.



Finally, after we put on our glasses, it was time to start the first book!

It's Halloween Night, by Jennifer O'Connell
Super cute, toddler friendly intro to costumes with plenty of opportunities for guessing!








For our thematic tumbling dice movement, we used a dice with different animals on each side of it. Before each throw, I would say, "Sleeping, sleeping, all the children were sleeping, and when they woke up they were....". Then I would throw the dice, and we all pretended to be whatever animal was rolled. Then we all went to sleep and did it all over again. Again, again!

Next I busted out an old classic, Little Miss Muffett. We went through it slowly a couple times to figure out what it all meant, and then acted it out. We pretended to be skittish Miss Muffett, and then we pretended to be the creepy spider. Fun and screams abound.

This provided a natural segue to our next rhyme, Itsy Bitsy Spider. You all know this, I'm sure, but do you know the teeny tiny spider? Or the GREAT BIG SPIDER?! Jessica from Intellidance turned us onto these variations, and we bust them out on the reg.

Then we read Brooms are for Flying, by Michael Rex together, and it was the best.

This book has tons of imaginative movement prompts, and is pretty much perfect for this theme and age. The kids lovvvved it.









After a little dance party (with scarves!) to Play Date's Dance Like A Monster, it was time to pretend to be monsters (and skeletons and ghosts and bats and...) ourselves.

If you’re a monster and you know it, stomp your feet!

If you’re a monster and you know it, stomp your feet!
If you’re a monster and you know it and you really want to show it
If you’re a monster and you know it stomp your feet!
 
If you’re a skeleton and you know it, shake your bones!
If you’re a bat and you know it, flap your wings!
If you’re a pumpkin and you know it, roll around!
If you’re a kid and you know it, say TRICK OR TREAT!

I found this amazing little rhyme on KCLS's wiki, so we did that. We were now all little ghosts.

Little ghost, little ghost, turn around,
Little ghost, little ghost, touch the ground.
Little ghost, little ghost, make a scary face,
Little ghost, little ghost, run in place.
Little ghost, little ghost, count to two,
Little ghost, little ghost, now shout, “BOO!”
Finally, it was time for our final book.

Skelly, the Skeleton Girl, by Jimmy Pickering
Super cute, minimal words, right amount of creep. Love.







And with some bread and some butter, it was time to say goodbye.

Happy Storytiming, friends!
~Emily