Halloween’s sneaking up on us. It’s spooky like that. If you’re looking for Halloween activities, KidsOutAndAbout.com has two lists of events, divided into “Fun” and “Scary.”
Geek Mom had a list of fun Halloween books that I thought you might like. I was actually unfamiliar with most of these, except for The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything, written by Linda Williams, illustrated by Megan Lloyd, which I agree is awesome.
Of course, they missed a couple of our favorite Halloween read-alouds, so I wanted to share them here.
Ten Timid Ghosts, by Jennifer Barrett O’Connell, is a fun one to read, and it helps kids to see that scary stuff isn’t necessarily so scary. This is also a great book for the little kids because they want to count the ghosts (on, like, every page, like, every time you read it) and the illustrations offer visual cues to the “mystery” of how the witch is scaring the ghosts. So it’s a great early literacy activity, because kids will really want to examine the pages.
The Runaway Pumpkin, written by Kevin Lewis and illustrated by S.D. Schindler, is Cute W’s favorite Halloween book to read because it has a great refrain that, once you conquer it (because it can feel a bit tongue-twistery), seems to mimic the runaway pumpkin as it rushes and bumps and tumbles down a hill. It also features the many delightful foods you can make with pumpkin, so if you’ve got a picky eater, it might encourage curiosity about trying pumpkin bread or soup or pie.
If you’ve been reading the blog for a while, you might remember that last year’s birthday party for J was Halloween-themed, and I wrote a bunch of posts about treats and activities. I went poking around the archives and found some additional items you might want to check out as well. So here are a bunch of links to my earlier posts:
- Guest Post: Your Halloween Dinner This is a pumpkin soup recipe from June, my foodie colleague at KidsOutAndAbout.com
- Halloween Treats: Pumpkin Cheeseball These are cute and tasty!
- Halloween Treat: Jack-o-Lantern Oranges Adorable, heathful
- Halloween Treat: Forked Eyeballs An interpretation of a Family Fun project by an non-food stylist
- Halloween Food Smackdown Gingerbread skeletons vs. Pudding graveyard
- Halloween Treats: Popcorn Balls, Web Cupcakes, & Green Lemonade
- Easy Craft: Chalk skeleton on black construction paper
- Bobbing for Apples and Pin the Spider on the Web Easy activities for kids
Erin
We read Creepy Carrots this year – it’s really cute!