Halloween is around the corner and the children have been talking about pumpkins and decorations. I set out new play and learn invitations to respond to the children’s interest in Halloween. During the week, I observed their interactions with the materials.

Trick-or-Treat Invitation

This shelf had been used before as a house and it had been rotated out during the last few weeks.  I brought it back this week to set up a house / street concept to respond to their interest in costumes and trick-or-treating. I added loose parts and peg people and observed.  The story play and conversations focused on going out for Halloween treats.

Pumpkin Invitations

Other invitations included pumpkin face designs, pattern making, tic-tac-toe, and haunted house designs. All areas were quite popular. I will change the cut and paste station next week by adding in samples of different emotions that pumpkins might show on their face.

Dot Stickers and Fine-Motor

We extended dots and pumpkins by adding circle stickers to these pre-drawn pumpkins.  The children enjoyed adding to the pumpkin and of course, I enjoyed the fine-motor exercise they were receiving.

Rotating Materials

I also brought back the dinosaurs.  I had plastic dinosaur figures out from the start of the year and I noticed that they were not being played with, so I rotated them out.  As soon as I did that someone noticed so I let two weeks pass and then brought out a different dinosaur set.  This one was wooden and had moveable background pieces.  I also incorporated a variety of loose parts to observe how they would use them with the dinosaurs.  Most of the loose parts became food and some did use the ten-frame mat to count the gems “food”. 

Next Week

We will continue with this core group of invitations next week and will add a fence building invitation fo children to recreate the Five Little Pumpkins Sitting on a Gate song.

Happy teaching,

Lynda