Halloween Picture Book Linky Party

Next week is October and I can bust out the Halloween books! First Grade Found Me is having a Halloween Picture Book linky party. I have lots of Halloween books so I tried to narrow it down to my top five! I always start with the following 3 books. They are great introductions to pumpkin activities, talking about pumpkin pie, and carving a jack-o-lantern.

Big Pumpkin is another version of The Enormous Turnip. Lots of different Halloween characters all take their turn at trying to pull up the Big Pumpkin. Drat...hmmmphh..Love the repetition. It's  a great lesson on teamwork. It's also a great story to act out. And there's pumpkin pie. mmmm...

A cute story of a snitched pumpkin. An old man and an old woman go searching for their pumpkin. The old man wants pumpkin pie. mmmm.....

Now that we've read about pumpkins and pumpkin pie, it's time to read about the life cyle of a pumpkin. I love this book because it is so simple and has great pictures. After we read this story, we do a quick little science experiment.

Will our pumpkin sink or float when we drop it into a tub of water? The kids love this.

 Then we carve it open, stick our hands inside the pumpkin and say "ewwww!" Everybody gets some seeds to take home and save for spring planting.

 Then we paint some paper plates orange, sequence the life cycle of a pumpkin and we are now ready to retell to our parents.

I love Diane de Groat's holiday books. I have them all, featuring the character Gilbert. I used to love to read this before we had our Halloween parade. It would set the mood. But now no more parades. But I still like reading it. And the kids love shouting "trick or treat, smell my feet" !

This last book is great to read the day after Halloween. Who can't relate to eating candy until you're sick? A little lesson on sharing and self-control. (But all that candy is soooo tempting!)

What are your favorite Halloween picture books? Link up at First Grade Found Me and see what others are sharing.

Randomness

Wow, hard to believe 6 weeks have already gone by.  A new grade level and a new LA program and I am drowning....glub, glub, glub. I miss kindergarten... I still haven't unpacked all the materials that come with Treasures, our new program... all we do is assess... no fun allowed and I think the Fun Police will be coming around soon. JK. They won't be necessary since there isn't any time for fun.

OK, kidding again. Sort of. We did make this cute project that I saw on A Teeny Tiny Teacher's blog that came from Hadar. (Click on the link and it will take you to her TPT store.) I needed something quick for Back To School Night and I thought this would be perfect so the parents could see some basic fine motor and writing skills.

No matter how much you model, there's always one that doesn't quite get it. Oh well...

 I wanted to show you the mini pocket chart stands my dad made for me. 

I saw these at First Grade Fabulosity. Why didn't I think of this? I say that because I asked my dad to make this chart stand for my puppet theater. 

Why didn't I think of going mini for all those mini charts I bought from Target?! Well, that's what Pinterest is for, I guess.  By the way, I scored on that puppet theater. I think it was regularly $28 and I got it for $5 at Lakeshore. Love that store, especially when they have great sales. I also live near their outlet store, even better.

One more thing before I sign off. It's fall, which means apple time. My friend Karen at Through The Looking Glass has a cute little apple bitty book freebie at her site. Hop on over and check out it out.