Halloween is such an exciting time for kids and adults!  Dressing up as your favorite superhero, storybook character, monster, or princess is a great time to have fun! The activities that I’ve prepared make it easy for your little one to use their imagination, be creative, and learn at the same time.  Fine motor skills are so important at this stage in a Preschoolers life.  Those small, precise movements of the thumb, finger, hand, and wrist need to be practiced so they can become stronger.  The activities that follow will help with those skills.  Like my other sensory bins and projects, you can find all of the materials at your local Dollar Store and around your house.  There’s no reason you have to spend a lot to have fun!

Eyeballs and Spiders and Dough- Oh, My!

All the little ghosts and goblins are sure to love this fun filled activity!  All you need is playdough, eyeballs, and plastic spiders to get started.  As your Toddler or Preschooler plays with the dough, talk to them using action words.  “Stretch the playdough”, “Knead the dough like you’re making bread”, “Roll it on the table, then flatten it”.  Next, have them make spider imprints on the playdough.  They’ll love seeing their creations!  Manipulating the playdough is a great activity for developing fine motor skills.  You can model counting forwards and backwards with the spiders, too.

Spiderweb Painting

 I found all of the items for this activity around my house.  I used one side of a cardboard box and used tape to create a web shape.  Then my kiddo painted each section with different colors.  We talked about each color after we finished and talked about other things that were the same color.  “The sun is yellow, too.”  “That part of the web is blue like the sky.” I like to use the large handled paintbrushes because it’s easier for their little hands to hold.  Be sure to place newspaper underneath the box if you’re painting inside. This is sure to provide lots of entertainment for your budding artist!

Spider Web Meets Sensory Bin

This fun filled sensory bin was made using rice that I dyed orange for the base.  Plastic spiders and eyes from the Dollar Store make this bin complete for only a few dollars!  After the paint dried on the web, we used sensory tools to pluck the spiders from the rice bin.  Tweezers were perfect to grab each spider and place on the web.  As we moved the spiders, we counted them.  Since language development is so important at this age we talked about the characteristics of spiders.  For example you could say, “Spiders have 8 legs, these spiders are black but they can be other colors, too.  Most spiders have 8 eyes but they don’t always see very well.  They make webs so they can catch their dinner (prey).” 

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