Grrr! Sink your teeth into this Make a Monster Playdough Activity! Students will choose a learning center task card and create a monster by following the “recipe”.
Children will have a wildly good time while strengthening the following skills:
– Counting
– One-to-one correspondence
– Number recognition
– Number quantity
– Set recognition
– Spatial relations
– More/less/same concept
– Language
– Social emotional
– Fine motor
– Following directions
Print these 10 activity cards out on cardstock. For heavy use, lamination is recommended. Supply students with playdough, googly eyes, foam triangle pieces, craft sticks, buttons, beads, and fuzzy sticks/pipe cleaners.
Be sure to facilitate conversation during this activity. Ask your students to describe their creations, and ask them which items they used more/less/same of.
Just some ideas – the foam triangles may be used as teeth and horns, the craft sticks and fuzzy sticks/pipe cleaners as legs and arms, or vice versa! But, of course, all of the items should be used ANY way the children see fit.
This Halloween sensory bin is made of just a little bit of spooky and a whole lot of fun!
Children learn best by using their senses. Tubs filled with a variety of substances and materials enable young ones to use those senses to explore things that capture their attention. As they manipulate the objects, they are seeing, touching, smelling, and hearing. This allows them to collect information and make discoveries, which leads to the practice of many learning concepts.
Young learners build language, social emotional, and problem solving skills as they work alongside their peers to delve into the bin’s contents. They increase their math skills by counting, sorting, and classifying different elements. Quantity comparisons are also made as they decipher who has more “spiders” or “rocks” in their “cauldrons”. Additionally, scooping, pouring, and picking up different items helps to strengthen fine motor skills and eye-hand coordination.
Without a doubt, sensory bins are one of the best hands-on learning tools. So hurry and gather up a container and some spooky goodies!
Trick or treat! This Halloween Math and Literacy Activities pack contains 14 worksheets and 8 learning center activities that practice the following skills:
– Counting
– One-to-one correspondence
– Number recognition
– Number quantity
– Set recognition
– Number formation
– Patterning
– Measurement (nonstandard)
– Quantity comparison
– Shape recognition
– Association
– Classification
– Attribute variance
– ABC Order
– Letter recognition
– Beginning sound recognition
– Visual discrimination
– Visual memory
– Phonological awareness
– Fine Motor
– Following directions
– Social emotional
Please note that the center activities in this packet are designed to be printed (on cardstock) and laminated, and to be used and enjoyed for many years to come.
AUTUMN MIX PATTERN CARDS (COLOR 6)
Provide young learners with a small amount of Brach’s Candy Autumn Mix. Work with children to identify and extend the patterns.
MONSTER NUMBER QUANTITY TASK CARDS (COLOR 10/B&W 10)
Provide students with googly eyes. Learners will give the monsters their eyes by placing a numbered group of items on its corresponding task card. Encourage younger children to use one-to-one correspondence while counting. Older children can use this activity to practice set recognition.
HALLOWEEN ROLL & COVER SHEETS (COLOR 4/B&W 4)
Provide pom poms, vase gems, or some other small manipulative for students to use as markers. For individual use, have the child roll the count the dots (or recognize the “set” of dots), and find and cover the corresponding number on the sheet. Repeat until all of the numerals are covered. In small group, give each child a sheet and have them take turns rolling the die. The first person to cover all of their numbers wins. Trade cards and play again!
HALLOWEEN COUNT THE ROOM (COLOR 10/B&W 10)
These cards are to be used in conjunction with the Halloween – Count the Room worksheets. Place the 10 cards (tape, clip, prop, etc.) around the room. Working with a small group, give each child one of the 3 worksheets and a writing utensil (clipboards are optional). As students discover each card, they will count its items and record the number on their worksheets.
CANDY CORN MEMORY GAME (COLOR 24/B&W 24)
Place the cards in rows, face down. Prompt students to turn over any two cards. If they match, they keep the pair and go again. If the pictures don’t match, they are turned over and it is the next player’s turn. Encourage children to “take a picture with your brain” to help them recall what is on each card and where it is. The game is over when all the cards have been matched.
SPOOKY SYLLABLES TASK CARDS(COLOR 10/B&W 10)
Supply learns with mini erasers, link cubes (to form towers) or some other small manipulative to use as counters. Encourage children to say each picture name and clap and count each word part. Once they have determined how many syllables are in the word, prompt them to place the correct number of manipulatives in the adjacent space.
Provide clothespins, mini erasers or some other manipulative for children to use as markers. Students will say the picture name and clip or mark it’s beginning letter.
BOO! THE FRIGHTFULLY FUN ALPHABET CARD GAME(COLOR 53/B&W 53)
An engaging spin-off of the classic game Old Maid. Print these sheets out on cardstock (laminate for heavy use) and cut into cards. In a small group, shuffle and deal all of the cards. Players will sort through their cards, placing any letter matches face-up on the table.
Starting with the dealer, each child will takes a turn fanning out their hands so that the player to their left can draw one card. Some children may struggle to fan their cards, and that’s okay. Just make sure to emphasize that the children should try to not let the other players see their cards. As your students make letter pairs in their hands, prompt them to discard them immediately onto the table. Depending on how you’d like the game to play out, the player left holding the unmatched card, the BOO! ghost, either loses or wins.
WORKSHEETS (14)
With these 14 worksheets children will measure monsters, compare sets of Halloween items, color by numbers, trace shapes, identify some spooky sounds, and so much more!
We're Gigi and Zoey. We teach a two-year program (preschool and pre-k), and we're passionate about Early Childhood Education and the philosophy that children learn through play. Our goal is to prepare children for kindergarten while making learning fun.
We hope that our resources inspire you, and that you will share them with your little ones.
GET THE MAKE A MONSTER PLAYDOUGH ACTIVITY CARDS HERE.
- Arts and Crafts, Early Literacy, Fall, Fine Motor Skills, Halloween, Language, Mathematics, Sensory Processing, Social Emotional Development, Teachers Pay Teachers
- counting, following directions, number quantity, number recognition, number sense, one-to-one correspondence, playdough, set recognition, spatial relations
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