Tag Archives: Halloween activity

Halloween Activity Basket

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It’s officially spooky season!

We love Halloween in our home and have so much fun with it every year. Last year, I made a Halloween preschool activity box for Mila and decided to make a new one this year! Filled with fun activities, this basket gives her busy tasks to do after school or while dinner is getting made. I love to have fun and engaging activities for Mila when she comes home, but sometimes, I can get busy. This basket will have the same activities in it all month long so she knows what to expect.

Let’s dive inside.

I got most of the items in person at Target, various dollar stores, and Joanns Fabrics. BUT, I searched online to find you all similar items incase you’d like to do this with your child. As with any links I have on here, I might get a small percentage with every purchase.

First, I got this orange basket at the Dollar General. Their baskets are always so good at an even better price. To make it festive, I used The Letter Vee‘s printable with some fun yarn.

I also have some other fun Halloween printables from The Letter Vee. She has a ton listed that are perfect for spooky season, but I put the spooky alphabet sheet for letter recognition and a coloring page. Both are great for a quiet activity. There’s also some blank papers in there for Mila to draw or trace.

Speaking of tracing. I added in some Halloween cookie cutters. She can practice tracing these and cutting them out. I’m excited what she creates with these.

Here’s some fun cookie cutters I found online:

https://zuli.ly/sl/n/t/r12M
https://amzn.to/3CaVisK

Another fun tracing element I added were Halloween resin letters from Beags and Bubs! We love their resin letters and sensory sets. These particular letters are Halloween themed and we’ll use them all season long. Mila can trace them and also use them with the letter sheet too. They’re a staple in our home to play with.

If you do want to get some resin letters OR sensory kits from Beags and Bubs, use MILA15 to save!

Since Mila absolutely loves to paint and color, I added some wooden crafts from different dollar stores. These are so great for kids to create with. They’re cheap and they always end up so cute. She has a wooden jack-o-lantern and pumpkins. We use these crafts all the time so she’s very familiar how to work with them.

One fun activity that I actually made using The Letter Vee printable was this Halloween matching/memory game. I linked the video of how to make it to the picture. This just sits in a bucket and has been a big hit!

We also added some Halloween books. Most of our Halloween books are on Mila’s reading shelf in our home. She always has access to books and I plan to change these ones out every few days so she can be surprised.

Here’s some Halloween books that we love. If there’s some of the ones that you love and we’re missing, comment the titles below!:

Okay — that’s a TON of books, but they’re all so good. We have a lot more at home, but I had to limit myself to this amount for right here. Again, if you have a book we need to read for Halloween, please comment below.

On to the next item in the basket. STICKERS!

Mila is no different and loves stickers. I added a Halloween sticker book and some from the dollar store too. These will provide so much fun for her. She can use the wooden pumpkins or paper to stick them too.

I love this sticker book option from Amazon!

The rest of the items are ones you can find any where, and again, are staples in our home.

Here’s a closer look at everything inside this Halloween basket. It’s linked to an Instagram post where you can hear the sound with it too.

We love how everything turned out and I can’t wait for Mila to enjoy this all October long. I’ll make sure to share all the fun Halloween Activities we do the next few weeks. You won’t want to miss it!

What was your favorite item in the Halloween Basket?

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Preschool Book Pairing Activity: Room on the Broom Handprint Art

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The best way to learn is through books! To introduce Mila to Halloween concepts, we’ve been reading a ton of different ones. Lately, Mila’s favorite has been Room on the Broom. We extended her learning by pairing the book with an activity to make handprint art.

Again, it’s another decoration that Mila and I will be able to look at in the future and remember our times when she was little!

All we used for this craft was…

I want to start off by saying, I most definitely helped Mila with this craft. Older kids could probably do this alone. But, I used hot glue, cut out the hat, and made the broom. Everything else she had a hand in making… literally.

First, I painted her hand with green paint. Then let her press it on the canvas to make the witch.

While it was drying, I assembled the broom and hat. For the broom I used this cute gold pipe cleaner for the base. Then I cut up ribbon to make the straw part of the broom. I combined them by making a loop with the pipe cleaner and twisting it off.

The hat was easy to make. All I did was cut out a witches hat on black paper and hot glued leftover pipe cleaner for the base of the hat.

When the green paint was dried, I hot glued down the broom and the eyes.

Next, we made the hair. I took a few pieces of orange yarn and braided it to look like the witch in the book. Mila loved helping cut out the pieces and was very impressed with how much it looked like the original witch. She’s finally impressed by my skills!

After that, we glued down the hat and added facial details and the night sky with a permanent marker.

Mila absolutely insisted on drawing the witch’s nose and the moon.

I absolutely love how this turned out… with all of Mila and I’s crafts. It’s festive and we put a lot of hard work into it. Doing a book pairing activity with her also underlines the importance of reading and teaching her that reading is fun and valuable.

Hopefully she’ll want to continue reading and extending upon those lessons in the future.

What’s your favorite Halloween book that we need to get next year?

Pumpkin Washing Sensory Bin.

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Another day, another fall activity! Today’s play is a Pumpkin Washing Sensory Bin.

We love sensory play for so many reasons. To summarize all of its benefits, it helps children’s brains in a ton of ways! It also gives me a minute to do a chore or task that needs done around the house too.

Now that it’s spooky season, I’m finally letting Mila pick pumpkins from our pumpkin patch on the side of our house. It led straight to this activity.

Before we paint or decorate these pumpkins, I thought they needed to be cleaned off. Instead of me just doing it, I thought it would be so much fun for Mila… and I was right. All I had to do was set up this station.

The only materials I used were:

The only thing I told Mila was that the pumpkins needed cleaning and she could use more water and soap if she needed.

Let’s just say… she went to work right away!

This activity is so simple and Mila had came up with a big story of why they needed washed. She pretended they came from a different farm and not just outside our home. I always love listening to how her mind works.

That’s what makes sensory play so fun for everyone.

I actually left this activity out for the next day and she kept on playing. Lets hope painting or carving pumpkins goes this smoothly too.

Do you paint or carve pumpkins?

I’ve done both, but I’m thinking Mila may like painting more than carving this year. I’ll keep you all updated when it happens!

Preschool Activity: Halloween Activity Box.

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October is right around the corner and we’re gettin really excited for Halloween! To prepare Mila and to give her some activities to do when she’s not at preschool, I made this Halloween Activity Box.

It’s full of fun, but I’m saving a lot of activities we’re doing for the month of October. You’ll have to keep coming back for more.

I actually love Halloweven! It’s probably my favorite holiday besides Christmas. You get tk dress up and just feel magical for the month. Plus I love all the outdoor activities and the yummy treats.

This year seems just a little extra special because Mila is so excited and knows what’s going on.

I know she’ll be happy to see this box too!

Halloween Books

There are a TON of cute Halloween books out there, but I love these three! By the way, if you have any Halloween book recommendations, please let me know in the comments.

My two favorite classics are The Nightmare Before a Christmas by Tim Burton and Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson. Yeah, I know The Nightmare Before Christmas is a controversial book on whether is Halloween or Christmas, but we read and watch it during both holidays!

Tim Burton is one of my favorite creative minds. So, we have some activities around this particular book and I want to introduce Mila to some of his movies this season too. Room on the Broom is fun for Mila at this age because she tries to follow along and does a great job! I have an activity for this too!

Our newest Halloween book is All Hallows’ Eve in Salem by Kristian James. I found it on Instagram and knew I needed to get it for Mila. The characters are adorable and I already want to plan a trip to Salem for Mila and I!

I promise, you’ll want to get this book for your kids too!

Play Doh Monsters with Eyes

Mila loves to play with play doh in her activity boxes, that’s why I include them!

This time, I added craft eyes for her to make monsters and to practice counting. It’s really cute to see all the creations she comes up with!

It’s such a simple activity, but she literally plays with it for a while. When there’s multiple ‘monsters,’ she pretends to do different voices and have conversations. It’s so much fun.

Plus, we use these craft eyes all the time! They make projects cuter and they’re perfect for Halloween!

Spooky Worksheets and Stickers

For this activity box, I didn’t use worksheets from Mila’s normal preschool workbooks. There’s none quite that spooky. I did find some cute worksheets that are perfect for the preschool and toddler level, coloring pages, and stickers!

I found the foam stickers and sticker book at Joann’s Fabrics, but this pack is cute from Amazon.

Stickers can be used for telling stories, counting, or making collages. Your child will lead you.

The little coloring page was also from Joann’s!

I found two printables that will have multiple uses. They’re both so cute and Mila really liked how they both looked.

The monster letters are from The Letter Vee. They’re so adorable and I’ll have Mila color them in first, then practice letter recognition with her resin letters.

I also had to print out this Halloween Countdown from Celebration Stylist! They have SO many cute Halloween printables. The Boo Banner hanging over the activity box is from them too! Plus a few other things that you’ll see in October posts.

Anyways, this countdown can be used as a countdown or to practice counting in general. I’m sure Mila will be using her stickers to do the countdown!

Potion Kit and Ghost Friends

You’ve definitely seen this fizzy ball before! They’re seriously such a hit with Mila. This month, we’ll be using them to make a witch’s potion. She loves using her ladle with our new bowl, so I’m excited for her.

I’m doing a post about a different witch’s potion next month too.

Mila and I also made these little stuffed ghosts out of an old sweatshirt. We had a lot of fun with them and Mila liked drawing their faces (not pictured). It was so easy to do! I’ll post a video or blog about how to do this too!

These are just some fun ways for Mila to play and pretend. It’s always nice to have a little brain break.

Miscellaneous Tricks

As always, we love using resin letters in all of our activity boxes. I cannot wait to show you my new set from Beags and Bubs. It’s in the mail right now, but they’re ADORABLE!

Not pictured in this post were face masks. I decided to add them in there because masks are associated with Halloween snd the characters on the packaging are our Halloween costumes. Plus, anytime I can make time for Mila to practice self care, I do!

There were also crayons, markers, and some other tools to play with the play doh too.

This is probably my favorite activity box so far. I love letting her discover different holidays. This can easily be converted and customized to more boy themed too. All of the elements are perfect for both boys and girls though!

I can’t wait to start doing more spooky crafts and activities and share them all with you.

What are some of your favorite Halloween activities to do? Or what are your favorite Halloween books you enjoy reading this time of year? Let me know both in the comments.