Story Time Review

What Was That?... Halloween Mysteries

Halloween mysteries was the subject of our stories for the final week of our fall Story Time session. We read What's in the Witches Kitchen by Nick Sarratt, In a Dark, Dark Room by David A. Carter, The Little Old Lady Who was not Afraid of Anything by Linda Williams, and Algernon Greaves was Scary Enough by Peter Bollinger.

We sang the song Have you Ever Seen a Pumpkin (tune of Have you Ever Seen a Lassie) and the song We are Pumpkins (tune of Frere Jacques). We pulled the parachute out and bounced around a blow up jack-o-lantern just for fun.

With our older classes we played a what comes next game. I had purchased some Halloween themed erasers at the dollar store. Then we used them to make a pattern. For instance, Witch, Bat, Witch Bat, Witch, then I would ask which came next. I tried harder and harder patterns until I stumped them. The one that got almost everyone is the pattern of all alike things. Witch, Witch, Witch, Witch, Witch etc. Although it is a pattern, it was hard for the children to recognize it as such.

For our craft I had copied an outline of a Jack-o-Lantern onto orange colored cardstock. Then I had the children cut the pumpkin into random pieces to make a puzzle. Then I gave them a sheet of black paper and they reassembled their jack-o-lantern by gluing the pieces down. We then added some yellow eyes, noses and mouths and a green stem to complete the picture.  This was great cutting practice for the little ones, some of whom I could tell had never been let touch a pair of scissors.

Just for fun I handed out bat rings and glow-in-the-dark bugs for a Halloween prize at the end of class.

Michele Schumann
Children's Librarian

Registration for our next session will be held: Tuesday, November 5th at 10:30 a.m.