Happy Halloween everyone! Halloween is such a fun holiday and is a great time to spend some time with your kids doing arts and crafts. A really funny Halloween book that preschoolers like is “skeleton Hiccups”. Kids always seem to get a kick out of this book because let’s face it: hiccups are funny and when a skeleton has hiccups, it’s super silly!
For a literacy and creative arts focus, read the story “Skeleton Hiccups” with your kids and then do a skeleton craft with them. All you have to do is draw a skull on white paper, cut it out and make eyes, a nose, and teeth. Glue that on to a piece of paper and use Q-tips to make the bones. Break the Q-tips to make smaller bones too. Dip the Q-tips into glue so that they are completely covered and then glue to the page. And just like that you have a skeleton!
This is also a great opportunity to extend the activity to a science focus. Talk to your kids about the skeletal system and our bones. Kidshealth.org is a great website to teach your kids about bones and bone health. Look up some x-rays of animals and humans on the computer. Ask them how the x-rays differ and how they are the same. Kids health also has great videos about how the body works. There is a fun video on how your bones and skeleton work on YouTube. Activity Village has a great game called “roll a skeleton”. This activity will help your preschooler work on their fine motor skills (cutting and assembling the skeleton) and math skills (number identification). Download the pdf file here http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/skeleton-game
Learning resources has a floor size skeleton puzzle that would be great for preschoolers. Working with a puzzle like this is great for visual-spacial learners as well as kinesthetic learners. The puzzle can be found at https://www.amazon.com/Learning-Resources-Primary-Science-Gear/dp/B0008JIL90/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1478025727&sr=8-1&keywords=skeleton+puzzle
Melissa and Doug also make a great human body magnetic play set that would be fun for kids to play with and extend their learning. It can be found at https://www.amazon.com/Melissa-Doug-Magnetic-Human-Body/dp/B001SVX6NI/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1478025727&sr=8-2&keywords=skeleton+puzzle
Skeleton craft materials:
Q-tips, school glue, construction paper, scissors, white paper, crayons, pencil
Free worksheet for identifying parts of a skeleton: Clip art by Teacher’s clipart at https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Human-Body-systems-clipart-BUNDLE-Science-clip-art-337576
Other Resources for teaching preschoolers about the Skeleton and bones:
Activity Village skeleton game:
https://kidshealth.org/en/kids/bones.html
Kidshealth presents how the body works with Chloe and Nurb:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i42FSNA9bAY
“Skeleton Hiccups” read aloud:
About Margery Cuyler, author of “Skeleton Hiccups”
http://www.margerycuyler.com/home.html
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