Introduce your toddler to Halloween fun with these four great activities from the team at the Australian International School that will help develop their skills along the way.
Boo! Halloween is on its way! Want to introduce your little one to all the fun of this season, but in meaningful ways? Trick or treating and playing dress up are great ways to celebrate Halloween (even in Singapore), but the right activities can also help your child achieve developmental milestones.
From Halloween books to read together, to mastering a recipe for spooky biscuits and enjoying sensory play with home-made play dough, our guide to Halloween activities for toddlers will provide loads of fun while your little ones learn along the way. Kirsti Hitz-Morton, the Assistant Head of Curriculum at the Australian International School (AIS) Early Years Centre has put together these great activities that kids will love – and that will develop your child’s mathematical, language, creative and fine motor skills, too!
1. SPOOKTACULAR BAKING
Halloween is a wonderful time to get creative in the kitchen and make spooktacular treats, and this can also be a fun way to introduce mathematical concepts in a way kids can connect to real life. Bake star and moon-shaped cookies in the lead-up to Halloween and count the number of ingredients that go into the mix. Once they are baked, discuss the shapes of the cookies (eg. the sides are straight, this star is bigger than that star, this star has five sides). Click here for kid-friendly cookie recipes everyone in the family will love, courtesy of Despina Joannidis, AIS Food Technology Specialist.
2. STORIES OF THE NIGHT
Dim the lights, create a reading nook under a tent and read Halloween-themed children’s stories to boost your little one’s language skills. Let your child practise repeating lines of the characters using different scary voices for the monsters, witches and ghouls. Reading together is important for creating strong family relationships, but also one of the easiest ways to increase school readiness, through building your child’s vocabulary, while improving their listening, concentration and imaginative skills. This collection of fun Halloween reads come recommended by Denise Jackson, AIS Early Years Library and Inquiry Center Coordinator. Click here for the printable list!
3. PUMPKIN PLAY DOUGH
Guide your child in making pumpkins from homemade coloured play dough. Creating the pumpkin balls helps develop their fine motor skills by building up strength in their small hand muscles and tendons. Then, to develop individual finger control, ask your child to decorate the play dough pumpkins’ faces with natural materials such as cloves for the eyes and a cut cinnamon stick for the mouth. Click here for the Australian International School’s tried-and-tested recipe for an easy, no-cook play dough. Shhhh… it’s a secret recipe!
4. FRIGHTFUL FASHION SHOW
Dressing up is probably the highlight of Halloween for little ones, but this activity is also a great way to build problem-solving skills. Turn dress-ups into a frightful fashion event, ideal for Halloween sleepovers and play dates! Make this an engaging process by encouraging your child to use their curiosity and creativity – gather props from different characters and ask your child to think of ways to create a look using the props (eg what sort of monster can they become using a witch’s hat, a cat’s tail and a pirate’s hook?). Then, asking them to stay in character, let them walk, stomp, crawl or fly on a broomstick on the catwalk! Click here for some great shops you can visit to put together a fun Halloween outfit, and for more costume inspiration, check out the HoneyKids guide to finding great Halloween costumes in Singapore.
For more Halloween inspiration, join the Australian International School’s free playgroup on 28 October and meet the Early Years specialists who recommended these great activities. This playgroup will be guided by AIS’ Music, Literacy and Mandarin specialists, and promises a morning of indoor and outdoor play and interactive learning for children aged one to four years old – come join the fun!
Such purposeful, child-led activities are at the core of the Early Years inquiry-based curriculum at AIS, which is framed by the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Program and puts children at the centre of the learning journey. Want to see the AIS program in action? Book a personal tour to see the Early Years Exhibition of Learning. For more information, head to www.ais.com.sg.
This post is sponsored by the Australian International School.