Halloween Fun with Books and Music

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Halloween can be a great time to explore scary things and make-believe. There are some terrific resources out there to help kids enjoy different aspects of the holiday… besides candy!

We love the book The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything by Linda Williams. It has wonderful sound effects and movement opportunities right in the book. It’s about a little old lady who goes for a walk in the woods. On her way back she meets various items such as two shoes, a pair of pants, and so on until she meets a pumpkin head that says “BOO!” Jenny added a little singing refrain: “You can’t scare me, you can’t scare me. You can’t scare me, so let me be” each time a different object shows up in her path. Young kids love singing the refrain and making the sounds each time an object is mentioned.

The weeks leading up to Halloween are often a time when kids explore the concept of fear. There can be a certain thrill from being creeped out or scared by a story. A great book with lots of scary and fun poems and stories is Scared Silly by Marc Brown, author of the famous “Arthur” series.

Another activity kids do is to make up their own songs. They can use an existing melody or create their own. David worked with some 4th grade students who created scary lyrics and made up their own melody around Halloween one year. Their song is called This Holiday is Halloween and we recorded it on our Friends CD. It begins:

When the sky is dark and the moon is bright
Goblins dance by firelight
Wolves are howling in the night
Witches flying into sight

One of our favorite Halloween stories of all time is The Hallo-wiener by Dav Pilkey. It’s an endearing and funny story about a dachshund who gets teased for looking like a hot dog, but he saves the day in the end. This book pairs nicely Jenny’s song Hey, Hey, it’s Halloween.  It’s a fill-in-the-blank song, which gives kids an opportunity to give their costume ideas:

Hey, hey it’s Halloween!
There’s many different costumes to be seen
I’m gonna be a __________, isn’t that neat
And I’ve got a __________, to make it complete.

Two of a Kind wishes you a fun and safe Halloween!
Jenny and David Heitler-Klevans, Two of a Kind