Haunted, Howling, Halloween- Letter 'H'

I approached the letter ‘H’ with some trepidation. I was having a super hard time coming up with things that started with ‘H’… minus Halloween. That kept sticking out to me. But it’s March… and this is our St. Patrick’s Day week. I tried and tried to think of other activities, but then, at library day, BooBoo found a Halloween book and handed it to me; our Halloween Party was born. I’m blessed to have friends who have friends as crazy as I am, so they were more than willing to bring their kids to our party.

We had a blast. We started out with foam hats (from a local craft store) and decorating them with big and little ‘H’.

 I had some sticky-backed  foam left over from our Fruit activity, so I cut some letter ‘H’s’ out (tip: draw the outline of the shape you want on the back of the foam so that you don’t have to deal with marker lines on the finished product). 

The boys loved picking their own hats and had a lot of fun decorating.

Afterwards, we broke out our Haunted Houses.

I used this template, attached it with paperclips to some black felt, and then cut the shapes out. I then freehand drew some ghosts and pumpkins and added the letter ‘H’ to them. This activity didn’t go as well as I’d hoped it would- it only lasted about 5 minutes all told. 

Next time, I’d probably make a bigger house, and make more things to put on it. However, BooBoo has been playing with it ever since then, so it is an activity with lasting power.

Then we traced the letter.

 Since there were going to be so many kids and all different ages, I found some pre made handwriting sheets. Here’s the page I used.Everyone seemed to enjoy this part, though most of the youngsters colored instead of wrote. I made sure to at least point to what was on the page and having them recognize and repeat the letter (minus the 18 month old, I just made sure he didn’t eat the crayons…)

Then I read the book that BooBoo found. The boys loved it. Even Goofy Girl was transfixed.

After that we broke for lunch. I put on the Curious George Halloween special (which happens to focus on hats) and took the opportunity to set up the last activity.

Haunted Hunt time! I found some ‘H’ shaped post-it notes at our local craft store and wrote simple clues on them. Like- ‘HOP to the kitchen and find something ‘cool’’ (fridge), ‘HOWL your way to the living room and find something cushy’ (couch), etc. Each action started with the letter ‘H’ and it eventually led us to the oven where I’d hidden a caldron with boxes of homemade gummy bears that I’d made the night before. The kids had a blast! Unfortunately, my camera person (a good friend visiting from out of town) forgot to turn on the flash, so I don’t have a lot of photos from this activity, but it really was the highlight of the day.

All in all, don’t be afraid to follow your kooky ideas. Who cares if it’s not October?  If Halloween is what inspires you about the letter ‘H’, do it! It’s all about teaching the letter and having fun with your kids.

Keep an eye out for our other holiday themed posts this week and make sure you check out the other letters from our previous Calendar Timeposts.