Tricks and Treats! October, 2010

You will find many seasonally appropriate activities this month. In addition to the items on these pages, you will discover a new power point, some printables, and two new YouTubes as part of October's offerings. Be sure to check the Downloads page. We also have a special Autumn Mix which contains seven favorite songs from Happy Everything. Check the Song Store to see the seven titles. You might want to continue right here and learn about the Story Bracelets.

Story Bracelets

Oral language, comprehension skills, and sequencing can be nurtured with these story bracelets. All you need are plastic beads and pipe cleaners. (You can also dye pasta different colors with food coloring and rubbing alcohol to make beads.) You’ll find a few examples below, but you can easily adapt this activity to almost any story or song. It would also be fun to let children create original stories with bead bracelets.

Hint! Children would not need to make their own bracelet for each story. You could easily make one and then let children take turns retelling the story.

Three Pigs
Once upon a time there were three little pigs. (3 pink beads)
The first little pig built a house of straw. (1 yellow bead)
The second little pig built a house of sticks. (1 brown bead)
The third little pig built a house of bricks. (1 red bead)
One day a big bad wolf came along. (1 black bead)
He went to the house of the first little pig and said,
“Little pig, little pig, let me come in.” (Touch yellow bead.)
The little pig said, “Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin.”
“Then I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house in”…
(Continue with the wolf going to the house of the second and third pig.)
The wolf climbed up on the chimney so he could get the pigs.
But the pigs put a big pot of boiling water in the fireplace. (1 blue bead)
When the wolf hit the hot water, he jumped out of the fireplace and was never heard from again.
And that’s the story of the three little pigs!

(Twist ends of pipe cleaner to make a bracelet.)

Three Pigs

Three Billy Goats Gruff -
3 white beads for the billy goats
1 brown bead for the bridge
1 green bead for the grass
1 purple bead for the troll

Little Red Hen -
1 red bead for the hen
1 pink bead for the dog
1 black bead for the cat
1 orange bead for the duck
1 green bead for the seed
1 yellow bead for the wheat
1 white bead for the bread
3 yellow beads for the chicks

Little Red Hen

Goldilocks and the Three Bears -
3 brown beads for the bears
1 yellow bead for Goldilocks
1 orange bead for the porridge
1 red bead for the chair
1 blue bead for the bed
It can also be used to give children a warning to help them bring closure to their activities. For example, “I’m going to set the timer for 3 minutes and when it goes off we’re going to have a whisper clean up.”