I love October!! It is my favorite month. Fall is here 🍂, decorations are up🎃, and it's my birthday month 🎂!
Halloween Theme
October is also a fun time in the classroom. We focus on lots of fun Halloween activities each year including learning new vocabulary, playing Halloween games, and sorting and graphing Halloween candy.
These along with 9 additional Halloween-themed activities are included in my Halloween Thematic Unit in my TPT store!
Trick or Treat Practice
Throughout the month of October, my class practices trick or treating in our weekly social skills group:
Week 1: We start with introducing AAC for saying "trick or treat" and "thank you" within the classroom
Week 2: Then, each staff member (myself, my paras, and our SLP) each set up a station for students to rotate through and practice while we pass out candy.
Week 3: Next, we practice trick or treating within the office with all the office staff
Week 4: We are ready to trick or treat with our families!
And we connect it to this fill-in the blank writing activity.
Pumpkin Carving
One of my favorite annual traditions is hands down carving pumpkins with my class! We have made some super cute jack-o-lanterns over the years!
We also use pumpkin carving as a great opportunity to do some sensory exploration and discuss the texture and feel of the insides (affectionately referred to as the "pumpkin guts"!).
And it is also a great opportunity to work on sequencing!
One year on our hayride at the farm they did a "spooky storytime" and did the Little Old Lady with props. It was SO MUCH FUN! And was a great way to get the kids engaged. After that year, we always acted out the story with spare clothes in the classroom. It was so fun!
Find the activities above in my Picture Book Communication and Comprehension Supports in my TPT store. Click the images below to get them!
Halloween Crafts
Some fun Halloween crafts we have done was a group pumpkin pinata project for our Halloween Party and some footprint ghosts! Having classmates paint each others feet led to LOTS of giggles!
What a busy month! I love how my little class can mix in so much fun with our learning.
Halloween Bundles in my TPT store
The units above are available individually or in a variety of bundles! Click the images to find them in my TPT store!
The holiday season is my absolute favorite time of year outside and inside of the classroom! My students and I always have so much fun celebrating the holidays. And the first holiday to kick things off will be here before we know it! Keep reading to learn more about how I celebrate Thanksgiving in my special education classroom.
ELA Ideas
Each November, I introduce our Thanksgiving vocabulary words which we will use throughout the month during various activities and stories.
A big vocabulary concept we focus on at this time is the idea of past and present we typically do the accompanying unit from Unique Learning System and supplement with other fun stories and activities including this sorting activity.
We also read I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie by Alison Jackson. I use picture-supported communication boards to make the story accessible to all my learners.
After we read the story together several times throughout the week, we like to watch it on YouTube as well. This can be a great independent activity for students during centers time. I will set them up on their Chromebook (or an iPad with guided access 😉) and also provide the picture-based communication board from when we read as a group.
Social Group Ideas
The absolute highlight of our Thanksgiving unit is our classroom Thanksgiving Feast. It is such a fun tradition and we love to invite staff throughout the school to stop by during their lunch period to join the fun.
During the Thanksgiving feast, each student practices asking peers or staff to pass the different foods using this picture-supported script.
After the feast, all of the students fill out a taste test rating each of the foods they tried. We send it home that evening and my parents have really appreciated having this little "cheatsheet" for their family Thanksgiving dinner, especially for our picky eaters who sometimes surprise us by trying new things after participating in the preparation and getting excited about their peers trying new things too.
Math Ideas
Before the feast, we talk a lot about buying the foods we will need. Some years we have checked ads and on one rare occasion we actually took a class field trip to the grocery store to buy our feast foods! It was kinda stressful but kind of great at the same time... as many things can be in our classroom!
To go along with the idea of shopping for our feast foods, I have a fun menu math activity that I made for students.
What better tool for teaching fractions than a pie?! I admit it can be messy but messy is memorable! Some years we baked a pie during cooking and then used it to talk about fractions. In other years we bought mini-pies. And one year a VERY sweet para baked mini-pies for every student so they could each have their own.
I created another follow-up activity to assess their fraction knowledge.
Cooking & Craft Ideas
We try to make as much of our Thanksgiving feast as possible at school. Aside from the turkey. We tend to outsource for that!
The kids have a blast making these turkey cupcakes for dessert!
They also have so much fun when we make "Pilgrim ink" with charcoal during our concept study about the past. They think writing with feathers is the funniest thing ever.
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