Have You Been Boo'd? Teaching with Halloween Boo Grams

Halloween is approaching. It's one of our favorite holidays because my husband loves anything scary. My kids are also little zombie-freaks who like a good scare. I'm more of a mediocre scare girl myself, but I still like to decorate for Halloween. This year I learned about Boo Grams. I love fun stuff like this, and I think you can use it to teach your kids about giving and sharing at a time other than Christmas.

Basically you create a boo bag or basket and secretly leave it at a neighbor's house. You can fill your boo gram bag with all sorts of goodies. We haven't begun working on ours, but I'm thinking of putting stickers and other Halloween goodies in for the kids, along with some Halloween sprinkles and a cookie cutter for making some homemade goodies.

Inside your boo gram you put this note:

You've just been boo'd, but you don't know by who. Keep the scaring and sharing going by making up your own boo gram for another friend or neighbor. Drop it on their door and RUN! Happy Halloween.

There are variations to the different notes available for boo grams, and the one above is our own custom gram that we made up ourselves. If your neighborhood has never done this, get started and create a new tradition. Once you do a little scaring and sharing of your own, others will probably join in the fun. I'll post pics of our boo gram process next week. Happy Halloween and Homeschooling!

Halloween Songs

I have only two Halloween songs that I can remember learning as a child. They are Old Mrs. Witch and 5 Little Pumpkins. Below are the words, as I remember them, to these two Halloween songs. There is also a short song, sung to the tune of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" that my daughter and I made up to go along with a ghost craft. 5 little pumpkins is a great song to go along with teaching ordinal numbers. We will be doing a craft and lesson plan for the 5 Little Pumpkins song that I'll post later this week. If you and your child practice the song, you'll be all set to do the lesson plan. Happy homeschooling!

Old Mrs. Witch

Old Mrs. Witch Old Mrs. Witch
Tell me how you fly, tell me how you fly

I fly on my broom stick up in the sky.

Old Mrs. Witch (repeat)
Tell me what you see (repeat)

I see a little jack o lantern looking at me

Old Mrs. Witch (repeat)
Tell me what you'll do (repeat)

I'll fly on my broom stick and SCARE YOU! (Yell loudly)

5 Little Pumpkins

5 little pumpkins sitting on a gate
the first one says, "Oh, my it's getting late."
The second one says, "There are witches in the air."
The third one says, "Oh, I don't care."
The fourth one says, "Let's get ready for some fun."
The fifth one says, "Let's run and run and run."

Oooohh went the wind, out went the lights, and the 5 little pumpkins rolled out of sight.

Flying, Flying, Little Ghost

Flying, flying little ghost
You're the one who scares the most
Trick or treaters walking by
As you chase them from the sky

Flying, flying little ghost
You're the one who scares the most.