Happy spooky season families! This month in Toddler 1 we have been exploring the wonders of Halloween. Chloe introduced some items at the beginning of the month by posting some ghosts and pumpkins around the door. Some children were interested in them right away and each day they went to the door to look at them. We decided to do a whole month of spooky activities!
We have incorporated many different types of learning with different types of activities and materials. Our most popular activities have been the sensory bins, light table and painting pumpkins. In the sensory bin we added different textures, colours, and shapes. This allows children to explore multiple senses like hearing, smelling, touching. Sensory bins are great for using our fine motor skills and pincer grasp. Many children were excited to see the ghosts and pumpkins in the bin, they then related them to the ghosts hanging from the ceiling. Children can make connections with objects that are familiar even when located in different parts of the room. Some children liked picking up the spider rings and seeing how many they could fit on their fingers, some used the cauldrons to collect and count items. When we brought the light table out we brought a new object into the room but added familiar objects. This allowed children to explore the objects in a different way. Emily was singing Old McDonald but instead of using animals she replaced them with pumpkins, bats, ghosts and leaves. We found some leaves on our previous walk so some were very interested in them being on the light table. Melina talked about red, yellow and orang leaves as she counted them and put them into her cauldrons. Finally, we got super messy using our fine and gross motor skills to paint pumpkins. Everyone picked out the colours and we splattered them all over the tarps in the classroom. We did start off doing finger painting on the pumpkins but halfway through some children discovered painting their arms. By the end of the activity a few children were covered in paint head to toe!
We are so excited to see what else our toddlers will get up to this month as we explore more spooky activities!
