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we’re counting–hats, cats, and pumpkins: halloween grid games

home / Activities / holidays / halloween / we’re counting–hats, cats, and pumpkins: halloween grid games
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My kiddos are Halloween nutty.we're counting--hats, cats, and pumpkins: halloween grid games

They love our scarecrows out front, our pumpkins around the house, and the little plastic spider that hangs from a shelf in the kitchen. They sing Wee Sing Halloween songs all day long.

So I put all the objects of their affection together in a really basic grid game today and passed some time in the morning before we visited Maddy at recess.

Grid games are seriously awesome. Short, sweet, and so easy to play with very little cleanup.

The concept is the same as our last grid games, but I modified things slightly:

  • Hats, Cats, and Pumpkins Grid Game: Unlike our Sunny-Rainy Grid Games, this Halloween-ish one has pictures inside boxes. I wanted to keep the grids visable so that it would be easier for Cora to use.

The premise of this game is super-simple, but the early literacy skills it reinforces are really worthwhile.

The goal is just to fill your board with small objects–that’s it. The way players do that is by counting their way through each row, depending on the number rolled on a die or the number flipped on a playing card.

we're counting--hats, cats, and pumpkins: halloween grid gamesour hats board

Today, since I couldn’t find dice to save my life, I pulled out a deck of cards and used all of the 2’s, 3’s, 4’s, and 5’s. I only chose 2 each of 6, 7, and 8, and I chose only one 9 and 10. With the lower numbers, the game lasts longer, and players can more slowly walk through the left-to-right progression through the line and return sweep to the next line.

Owen and I later played with a Joker in the mix and said that he covered all–an instant win!–and that added a new level of fun to the game for him.

we're counting--hats, cats, and pumpkins: halloween grid gamesour cats board

We used clear glass pieces–nothing fancy but very fun for little hands–just the ones sold at craft stores that are sometimes in vases or in the bottom of fish bowls. Anything will work, though–Cheerios, marshmallows, Foamies, beads, bingo chips.

For each number rolled or flipped, that number of objects gets covered, line by line, beginning with the top left and ending bottom right–just like reading words on a page.

we're counting--hats, cats, and pumpkins: halloween grid gamesour pumpkins board, complete with fun glass game pieces

And that was it. Owen loved it and wanted to play a dozen times, and Cora played for a while but really just wanted to play with the game pieces. She played a few games as my partner, and then she ran off to play with a handful of game pieces and her dolls.

we're counting--hats, cats, and pumpkins: halloween grid games

grid game hats cats pumpkins

feel free to download and share–but please link to this post and not the attachment page! thank you!

Grid games, as I’ve said before, are a super tool for teaching one-to-one correspondence which emergent readers need to understand that every single number and letter is important and that a group of letters is makes one word. Grid games also work on emphasizing the movement of left to right on a page and the return sweep–reading one whole line from start to finish before moving to the line below.

Math-wise, grid games work on counting–whether it’s dots on a die or a number on a card–and then translating that number to a specific amount on a page, or the number of objects that are covered by a game piece.

Like most of our games, Owen and Cora had no idea they were learning as they played. I created this game knowing that Owen is a lover of any number game and that Cora is getting to the age where she can start to learn and understand concepts of print and number counting. We’ll play it again in the next few days, maybe this time with plastic spiders or candy corn as game pieces. Yum!

Want a few more fun halloween ideas?

  • halloween class party ideas
  • halloween ghost cookies
  • boo! your neighbors
  • alternatives to halloween candy
  • halloween jokeย notes
  • halloween learning
  • hats, cats, and pumpkin grid game
  • dinner in a pumpkin
  • candy experiments

 

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About amy mascott

teacher, mother, dreamer. lover of literacy, fun learning, good food, and three crazy-cool kids. finder of four-leaf clovers | dc metro ยท http://about.me/amymascott
tweet with me: @teachmama

Previous Post: « working on a happy face
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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Infant Bibliophile

    October 7, 2009 at 4:50 am

    What a great idea. My son would love this, I think. He loves counting, and we have a container of those glass beads that he really enjoys using. We usually use them on a mancala board, just fooling around, making patterns, counting, etc. but he likes games, so I am going to try printing or drawing some sheets like this. Thank you!

    Reply
  2. The Activity Mom

    October 7, 2009 at 12:05 pm

    I just made a candy corn one of these for B.=) You can print it at http://activitymom.blogspot.com

    Reply
  3. Rachel

    October 7, 2009 at 3:43 pm

    Great way to incorporate math into an activity!

    Reply
  4. Denise

    October 7, 2009 at 6:56 pm

    Yeah! Just this morning I was thinkging that I needed to make a Halloween themed grid game. Thanks for saving me the trouble!

    Reply
  5. Anonymous

    October 7, 2009 at 7:38 pm

    I brought this to work with me one day (I'm a nanny). The 6 and 4 year old liked it so much that when their grandparents came over later (with ice cream!) all the kids could talk about was the game. Thank you so much for sharing your ideas with us!

    Reply
  6. Raising a Happy Child

    October 7, 2009 at 11:18 pm

    We tried a similar game here, but it didn't work. I think she is too old to enjoy the manipulative aspect and too young to enjoy the winning aspect. What works well in our house is modified Chutes and Ladders where the winner gets chocolate in the end ๐Ÿ™‚

    Reply
  7. teachmama

    October 7, 2009 at 11:53 pm

    Friends–
    Thank YOU for reading!

    Glad it helped some and sorry it didn't work for RAHChild's kiddo–maybe another day?

    :*)
    amy

    Reply
  8. BananaBlueberry

    October 8, 2009 at 5:42 pm

    good idea-

    i like using a deck of cards when you can't find dice –
    that's a good one!!!!!!!

    Reply
  9. Crystal

    October 8, 2009 at 8:45 pm

    I was just making my christmas/birthday lists and need some advice. Son #1 will be 3 and son #2 will be 16months at Christmas. I want to mostly get them learning toys or books. I would LOVE, LOve, LoVe you to do a post or just email what you think some of the "must-have" gifts would be. Thanks
    crystalboom at hotmail dot com

    Reply
  10. Michie

    October 9, 2009 at 11:13 am

    I just wanted to say that I thought it was a brilliant idea to use cards when you couldn't find dice. Sometimes I get so stuck on things like that – thinking we can't play without dice. Thanks for showing me another idea.

    Reply
  11. [email protected]

    October 9, 2009 at 2:00 pm

    That's a great idea for the kiddies! Thank you for the lovely compliment you left on my blog! I deeply appreciate you. (:

    Reply
  12. Eliza

    October 9, 2009 at 8:19 pm

    What a GREAT idea!! I love this…and it's not too complex for my little ones. Thank you!

    Reply
  13. Our Country Road

    October 12, 2009 at 1:22 am

    Very fun! Thank you for sharing your grids.

    Reply
  14. Beth- the mama bee

    October 24, 2009 at 1:36 pm

    We made your math games and love them. I blogged about them here: http://mamabeefromthehive.blogspot.com/2009/10/fall-math-games.html

    Reply
  15. Jackie H.

    October 6, 2010 at 7:22 pm

    Love these! They are sooo festive!

    Reply

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931 shares