I’ll admit I’ve never been THAT big of a Halloween fan, even though I consider myself a very festive person! But since starting my current job, I just LOVE halloween-themed therapy materials, and how they excite my students. Today I’m highlighting a few of my favorite picture books.
Skeleton Hiccups by Margery Cuyler
This has been my favorite for the last 2 years! This book tells the story of a Skeleton who wakes up with the hiccups, and goes about his day hic-hic-hiccuping. His friend, Ghost, tries to help him get rid of the hiccups.
What I Like About It:
- There is a clear problem and solution. This is perhaps what I search for most often in picture books! Students can identify the Skeleton’s problem: a bad case of the hiccups and how the problem was solved: scaring himself in the mirror. It’s also fun to use a mirror at the end and make silly, scary faces.
- There are so many actions in this book, particularly everyday, functional actions like taking a shower, brushing teeth, having a catch…ok maybe not polishing bones 🙂 but we can let that slide. The actions are described with simple subject-verb-object sentences on a blank page, with the corresponding illustration on the page beside it. Great for having students re-tell and incorporate verbs, as well as act them out.
- The repetitive “hic-hic-hic”- even my most minimally verbal students seem to chime in as this repeats throughout the book! It’s predictable and engaging, check and check.
Re-tell FREEBIE
Here is a freebie, available in my TpT store with 2 organizers for re-telling the story: one for writing and one for drawing. Also included is a writing prompt for describing how students have handled the hiccups.
Go Away, Big Green Monster by Ed Amberley
This is a classic and for good reason! Who doesn’t love building the parts of the monster to create a face and then deconstructing the monster?!
What I Like About It:
- Incorporating body parts and allowing students to use their own bodies as well as label body parts
- Describing facial features by attributes, such as color and shape
- The repetition of the facial parts appearing and disappearing
- Targeting “go” using AAC devices every time it says to “go away”
- Creating monsters using a “roll and build” game and describing them, comparing/contrasting each other’s monsters
- Following up with the STEM activity making fizzy monster balloon heads
The list goes on! What are your favorite Halloween books?
