Fun Ideas for Halloween Themed Centers or Work Stations for Preschoolers
My new favorite thing is setting up options for our Center/Work Station time at preschool. I love it. It is fun and very inspiring for both the kids...and for ME as a teacher. I hope your find something to enjoy with the preschoolers in your life!
1. Halloween Card Making
My preschoolers just finished up a week where we had a post office in our school. It seemed like a perfect transition to set up a Center for Halloween Card-making. I put out a TON of stickers, some orange construction paper cards, and a "coffin" for sticker backs.
*Money Saving Tip: I bought all of these stickers last year the week after Halloween and saved them for this year. I plan to do the same again this November :) I also used a Melissa and Doug toy bin to hold all the stickers for this station-which works great!
2. Halloween Coloring Station
The kids at my preschool can draw or do art any time during our hour-long choice time. They are wonderful at creating all kinds of pictures on their own! But, I thought it might be fun for them (and a chance to work on fine motor development with "coloring" instead of scribbling) by getting us these special Halloween coloring books :) They had them at the dollar store last year!
3. Invitation to Play: Pumpkin Patch Farm!
I set up this invitation to play in a very large, shallow storage bin. It is a great size for two or three preschoolers to use together. I set up the bin and then put out a bunch of our Little People Farm toys (tractors, animals, produce bins, etc).
I discovered that the Little People Farm accessories could fit in the tops of toilet paper rolls...so I used those to divide the bin into a dirt section and a cracked corn section. I just hot glued the tubes together. I also stuck some bird-seed in some bowls.
We raise chickens at my preschool so I used their food-grade cracked corn in this bin...that way any dirt or corn can just be put out in our yard at the end of the week for the chickens to munch on! Easy clean-up. I also picked to put this on our wood floor and it took me about 30 seconds to sweep up the tiny bit of corn that spilled over the edge.
The kids at my school commented that this was their FAVORITE center choice from all year :) And what I loved most what that aside from the mini pumpkins, I didn't have to buy anything. It all came from our yard, or our toy bins!
4. Halloween Cookie Cutter Fun!
Who doesn't love play-dough!? We have a bunch of Halloween cookie cutters out for exploration and play with our dough for Halloween week :) This is great for fine motor, but also works on sharing and taking turns in larger groups.
5. Halloween Beading
Another great way to work on fine motor development! The kids can make bracelets for themselves or to give to friends :)
One thing I do to keep myself from going crazy is to pre-cut a bunch of string and put tape on the end so the kids can do their beading independently. Then they only need help at the end when they are ready to tie it!
6. Exploring a Balance with Fall Objects
Which is heavier? What a great question to explore freely for preschoolers. A balance is a fun tool for kids to use and if you put out a bunch of pumpkins and gourds they can explore it with Fall/Halloween objects!
The kids at my school really, really enjoyed exploring at this center! I put out a bin with smaller, "toy" fall objects, and another bin with real pumpkins and gourds.