Hi and welcome back to Attentionology for K – 5 Teachers!
Think about it…better still…catch your students’ attention by asking them to think about it, about this…
every season and every holiday has its own special symbols and patterns.
Where I live, for example, bright red and gold maple tree leaves are distinct symbols of fall. When green summer trees begin to turn colors, Halloween catches our attention here, too…
Try a Halloween-Time trick that invites kids to enjoy a spooky tradition, and “jump for joy” about nature’s seasonal bounty…
…Host an OUTDOORS – INDOORS SCAVENGER HUNT
It’s easy, fun and functional…
Tickets Please – Set up computer time in your classroom for printing tickets to the Scavenger Hunt along with lists of items to scavenge for outdoors and inside your classroom.
Choose a Halloween design for your tickets and scavenger lists. Set out some Halloween decor in your computer center to focus students’ attention on the theme.
Your Outdoors Scavenger Hunt tickets may promote Halloween-Time Fun Outdoors to Stay in Tip Top Shape!
Below the ticket title, print:
- Exercise Outdoors = Energy in School
- Eating good foods = Healthy Bodies & Minds
- Outdoor Fun = Less Stress
- Happy Halloween!
This theme can help students make a connection between spending time outdoors and staying healthy. Healthy students are better able to sustain attention.
Bring the Outdoors In – Invite kids to experience the natural wonders of a season like fall by challenging them to find Halloween-ish treasures right outside your classroom window, such as:
- spider webs
- ghoulish rocks
- sticks that look like a witch’s broom
Before taking students scavenging outdoors, point out the natural wonders they can discover simply by looking all around your classroom, such as:
- sunshine streaming in a window, or
- shadows from clouds blocking the sun, darkening sections of bookshelves and desks
- water in the sink, flowing in through pipes connected to community sources. NOTE: This activity offers multiple connections to science units, including the study of water, one of earth’s precious resources.
Plan your Indoors Scavenger Hunt to include time for students to search around the classroom for small inexpensive Halloween-time treasures, such as small plastic spider rings, that you place on shelves, floor corners, etc for children to find.
Your Indoors Scavenger Hunt tickets may also invite students to a Halloween Pattern Paper Poem Party.
For the Poem Party, buy a variety of patterned paper with Halloween designs and invite students to Pick a Pattern – Write a Pattern Poem.
Follow these steps:
- Let students choose a piece of patterned paper. Note: Craft paper is somewhat expensive so you may want to cut large pieces into smaller sections before kids choose paper for their poems.
- Post my poem, In Line with Halloween, (see below) on the board.
- Post a piece of Halloween patterned paper that includes Halloween-time images in the design, such as spiders, stars, the moon, bats, a haunted house, pumpkins, candy corn, ghosts, spider webs and black cats.
- Read the poem aloud. Encourage students to listen for words that match the paper pattern and for the rhyming pattern of the poem. Note that the first and fourth lines of each stanza rhyme with each other.
- Ask students to write poems about the designs in their paper patterns.
- Explain that they are writing poems from pictures to “paint pictures with words!”
- Encourage children in grades 1 – 2 to write rhyme word pairs like spooky, kooky/black cat.
- Invite students in grades 3 – 5 to write more and longer lines with rhyme.
- Make a Halloween-time Bulletin Board. Post students’ patterned paper and poems. Ask volunteers to present their writing with spooky-sounding voices to dramatize the action in their poems.
In Line with Halloween
Whenever it’s time for Halloween
Dancing spiders, sparkling stars
Shine under a crescent moon,
Making a showy, spooky scene.
_______
Who’s hiding in the haunted homes,
Some rooms dark, the doorways lit?
Is it six flying bats or is it one
Unseen witch stirring new soup bones?
_______
Spider webs tell a writing spider’s story,
Pumpkins wait for faces to be carved tonight,
Children shout trick or treat in costume,
Counting their candy in Halloween glory.
_______
Ghosts and goblins run down the street
Slipping past sly, scary black cats,
Curved tails dancing to a Halloween rap.
It’s time to go home now; let’s eat!
Remember, you don’t need to be a magician to work magic in any instructional setting!
Speaking of instructional settings…we know that they begin at home when children are toddlers. Start the learning early with tips from SmartParentAdvice.com. Check out https://smartparentadvice.com/fine-motor-skills/
Do you share Halloween-time fun with your children and class? Please send comments.
Talk with you again soon,
Barbara ♥ The Lovable Poet