Story Hour: Halloween

Every year the Tuesday before Halloween we do a Halloween story hour. I have the kiddos wear their costumes, and we do science projects instead of a craft so they don’t get their costumes all messy. It is usually a huge hit! Science projects are cool no matter how many times you see them too so I can redo them and the kids still like them a lot. It’s a cool setup!

I had 6 kiddos and we read two really fun books about Halloween.

1. Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson
2. Pick a Pumpkin by Patricia Toht

I really loved both of these! Apparently Room on the Broom is a video also, so a lot of the kids knew the story because they had seen the video. That one as definitely a hit but they both are very good stories.

After that we moved on to our science projects!

I have a few favorites that I do year after year. I try not to repeat crafts because I usually have the same kids for two years, but science is cool every time you do it so I don’t worry too much about this one.

Here is a list of the projects we did:

1. Pumpkin volcano

2. Rainbow skittle melting

3. Disappearing ghosts

4. Ghost rockets

I didn’t get a picture of the pumpkin volcano but it it exactly what it sounds like. It is the classic baking soda/vinegar experiment but instead of putting it into a volcano, you use a pumpkin! The kids enjoyed this one but it wasn’t the coolest one we did!

Rainbow Skittle melting is always fun. All you have to do is place Skittles along the edge of a plate, and pour hot water onto the plate. When you do, the colors of the skittles begin to melt and will meet in the middle of the plate. If you wait long enough, you can even see the “S” from the Skittles come off and float around in the water.

Disappearing ghosts was a new one for my this year. I made my ghosts with a mixture of equal parts baking soda and water, and then formed them into ghost shapes and let them dry overnight. This was the exact same science as the dinosaur eggs I did last fall. The kids then got to spray the ghosts with vinegar and watch them fizz and disappear!

I always save the best for last: the ghost rockets. This is another classic science experiment- Alka Seltzer Rockets. Using clear film canisters (I got mine on Amazon), I place a piece of clear tape over the canister and draw a ghost face with a black marker. That’s all the prep! During the experiment, you place some of an Alka Seltzer tab (I usually use half) and HOT water. The hotter the water, the faster the reaction happens so you have to be quick! I put the water in, and then the tab, and then as fast as I can snap the cap on and turn it upside down. When the reaction happens, the canister part pops off the cap and goes flying! It’s always a teeny bit scary at first but once the kids figure out what’s happening they always enjoy it!

Story Hour: Halloween

Halloween was on a Wednesday this year, so we talked about it on Tuesday at Story Hour! I did this similarly last year, and messaged all the parents/grandparents and told them that their kiddos could wear their costume if they wanted! A few forgot but this was the whole group! As you can see, we had a lot of cool characters! I had 15 today and 2 of them were brand new! It was a really good group.

Last year on Halloween, I decided asking them to wear their costumes and then doing a craft was probably not a good idea in case they got something on them. So I decided to do Halloween Science instead! It was so much fun last year I decided to look for new experiments (mostly) this year and do it again.

But first, the story time part.

The three books I read this week were:

1. Me and My Dragon, Scared of Halloween by David Beidrzycki
2. T-Rex Trick or Treats by Lois G. Gambling
3. Five Little Monkeys Trick or Treat by Eileen Christelow

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They were all really fun books about trick or treating and the kids loved them!

Before we read our stories, we sang our normal song to get the wiggles out, found in the Story Hour Overview post. In between the first two stories, we did yet another Hokey Pokey! This one is extra fun because its the Spooky Pokey and they get to think of all Halloween parts to “put in”.

The Spooky Pokey

You put your pumpkin head in (lean your head into circle)…

You do the Spooky Pokey and you turn yourself around (hold up hands, wiggle fingers, make a scary, silly face; turn around in place)

Then give a little shout: “BOO!”

Add more verses or ask kids for ideas: witchy nails (wave our hands about menacingly); monster feet (stomp feet); zombie/mummy arms (hold arms out straight in front of you); vampire teeth (show teeth); bat wings (flap arms like wings); Ghost Self (try floating like a ghost); owl eyes (fingers make circles around eyes), hissing cat (make hissing sound), monster claws (hands with fingers curved in claws), scary face (make the scariest face you can!), skeleton hands(wiggle hands and fingers) or skeleton knees, etc.

The first time we did this one we did skeleton arms, pumpkin head, and bat wings. They liked it so much we did another set of 3 with dinosaur teeth, witch nose and monster claws. I have found that doing the song in rounds of 3 helps the kiddos (and me) remember better what we are doing!

The Science Projects:

I had two inside projects, and two outside projects, and I was very lucky the weather wasn’t too bad on Tuesday.  I found them all on Pinterest, and will provide links as the titles. Most of them are the same/similar reactions but used in different ways!

Spooky Expanding Ghosts

This was a baking soda/vinegar reaction. Vinegar goes in a water bottle, baking soda goes in the balloon, and the balloon goes on the water bottle. When the baking soda goes into the vinegar, the reactions causes the balloon to blow up! I drew a ghost face on the balloons with a Sharpie, but once it expanded you can barely see the face. Not sure what happened there!

Mini Pumpkin Volcanoes

Another baking soda/vinegar project! This is a standard volcano, but using hollowed out mini pumpkins instead. It also had me add dish soap so the reaction was bubbly! Food coloring was an option as well, but I didn’t use any because Halloween Costumes.

Popping Pumpkins

This one did not work the way I had hoped. It was another baking soda/vinegar reaction, with a sandwich bag. It was supposed to fill up and make the bag pop, but both times I did it they just opened at the top like normal.

I apparently didn’t get a photo of this one 😦

Ghost Rockets

I did this one last year and it was such a hit I did it again. I gave clear film canisters ghost faces, and did a HOT water/alka-seltzer experiment.  The hot water is important because it speeds the reaction along and makes the rockets fly higher!

If you look close you can see the trail the rocket is leaving, but the rocket popped up so high its out of frame!

Here’s an additional photo of all of us lined up outside before I started the experiments!

I usually don’t post a picture of the snacks but the Special Day person’s mom brought Halloween cupcakes! They had so much fun eating them and they were a mess when they were done. haha

I always love the Halloween Story Hour meeting and I am sure I will keep doing it this way in the future!!