Halloween

This year Halloween falls perfectly on a Saturday. We are having an extra special celebration for the holiday with costume parades and trick-or-treating in the library. So, we're pulling out all the fun (and not-too-scary) books and themed activities for Halloween this week!

Books:

Toddler Books:

Pete the Cat: Five Little Pumpkins - James Dean

Just Say BOO! - Susan Hood

Plumply, Dumply Pumpkin - Mary Serfozo

Preschool Books:

Pete the Cat: Five Little Pumpkins - James Dean

Monster Trouble - Lane Fredrickson

Just Say BOO! - Susan Hood

Ghosts in the House - Kazuno Kohara

The Monsters' Monster - Patrick McDonnell

Plumply, Dumply Pumpkin - Mary Serfozo

Rhymes/Fingerplays/Songs:

My Little Pumpkin:

I've got a little red pumpkin, Cutest I've seen,

I hope my little red pumpkin turns orange for Halloween.

Source: Little Storybug

Mouse's Halloween House:

One day in the fall, a little gray mouse found a big orange house.

She nibbled a hole in the middle to make a door.

She nibbled two holes up near the top, to make two windows.

And then she nibbled a wide hole near the bottom, so that her children could run in and out.

Then she put a candle inside to light up the darkness.

The mouse's little house was a sight to be seen.

It was a Jack-O'-Lantern!

Happy Halloween!

Source: Jen in the Library

*One of my LA's made this flannel story and the audience LOVED it. The only tweak she made was to the candle bit. She, instead, made the "holes" double-sided. One side was black, the other side was neon yellow. We turned on the "light" (I turned around the flannel pieces on the front of pumpkin) to show the light glowing in the Jack-O'-Lantern.

Pumpkin, Pumpkin, What Do you See?

Brown owl, brown owl, what do you see?

I see a yellow moon looking at me.

Yellow moon, yellow moon, what do you see?

I see a white ghost looking at me.

White ghost, white ghost, what do you see?

I see a purple bat looking at me.

Purple bat, purple bat, what do you see?

I see a black cat looking at me.

Black cat, black cat, what do you see?

I see a orange pumpkin looking at me.

Orange pumpkin, orange pumpkin, what do you see?

I see a Jack-O'-Lantern looking at me.

Source: Sturdy for Common Things

The Little Orange House by Jean Stangl (a cut-and-tell story):

Source: Highlights Magazine - The Little Orange House

*The source of this story is Jean Stangl but the text version that a fellow librarian shared with me is in the link provided. It is a VERY cool story to tell aloud and my audiences LOVED it. For the very small audience members, we changed the ghost to be a black cat and made a cute laminated little witch and cat to put on the storyboard when we told the story.