October Preschool Work Trays

Hello all! I thought I'd share with you some of the work trays we've been using this month. These aren't all our trays, but I thought I'd show you the ones that are Halloween related in case you're looking for some theme inspiration. I've had a blast setting these up! *Some affiliate links included below for your convenience.*

Transferring

We do a lot to build the strength of the pincer grasp, so learning to write goes more smoothly. That means a lot of using spoons and tongs.

Using a strawberry huller to transfer felt spiders. I got mine from Hobby Lobby. The spiders were stickers, but I was able to pry the adhesive dot off the back pretty easily.

Mini tongs for transferring glittery pumpkins between buckets. Can't remember where I found these specific buckets.

Spooning rhinestones and using a clothespin to transfer feathers. (My feathers from Jo-Ann's; pumpkin bowls from Michael's.)

Clip clothespins to bucket and remove. I found my cute Halloween clothespins at Michael's. Getting them off the bucket is much easier than getting them back on.

Spooning marbles onto a bathtub tread. Can't recall where I got my wooden spoon and bowl.

This is just a paint pallette from the craft store and some bat rings left over from last year's Halloween and tongs.

I used 2 colors so they could work on patterning as well as transferring.

I put out some pouring practice with little Halloween buttons, but haven't been brave enough to do wet pouring yet. I think we'll try it next month. To get used to working with water–and to strengthen hand muscles–we're trying sponge transferring this month.

I put water in one of the little ghosties from Michael's and the kids use a sponge to soak up the water and wring it out in the next bowl. I can't believe how quickly the water gets dirty!

I saw this thread organizer at Jo-Ann's a while ago and I knew it would come in handy for something. Once I came across these Halloween erasers left over from 2nd grade, I knew it was a perfect match. It's been a big hit with the kids. I'm trying to figure out what else to do with it after Halloween. If you have any ideas, please let me know!

Target had some fall themed colanders in the dollar section, so I snapped up 1 of each kind. I have a couple kiddos that are still pretty young and I thought sticking the colored pipe cleaners into the colander would be appealing. So far there hasn't been much interest in it, but some friends came by to see our preschool room last week and they LOVED playing with it. So if it doesn't work for 3-year-olds, 30 somethings will enjoy it!

Language

I was so excited when I found a Halloween Toob at Jo-Ann's that I called my sister from the car on the way home. I wasn't exactly sure what to do with it, but I'm happy with what turned out.

The idea is to match the word and the object and then find the beginning sound. I printed the letters and used my 1 inch punch to cut them out. I sent them through the Xyron with the printed side down (so the adhesive would adhere to that side) and then stuck them to the back of a large glass pebble.

You can download Halloween words if you want to make your own.

I found these little bubble gum containers at the dollar store. I added the 6 letters we've practiced so far to the lids.

Three of the little ghosts (table scatter from Target last year) fit in one container, so I used some Sharpies to label each ghost with a letter (2 capitals and one lower case for each box) and now they can be sorted.

Math

I found these foam spider webs at Target last year. From the way they were packaged I thought they were a double thickness, but they're not. So I glued them together! Because the spaces in the web were meant to be punched out, I had to do some First Aid on the backs.

But from the front they look pretty good!

I had some magnet numbers from Dollar Tree, but they were in primary colors. Not really the Halloween vibe. So I soaked them for a few minutes to loosen up the paper cover and then painted the number black. The kids enjoy counting out the spiders (table scatter.)

I found this drink bottle at Target last year, but it was missing a straw. That worked out well for my plans.

I painted a wooden cube in orange, green, and purple. I labeled one of the purple sides "1" and the other side "2" and repeated it for the other colors. We had some kids still working on numeral recognition, so I wanted to keep it simple. Now that they've played this enough, some of the kids want higher numbers so I think I'll make a die numbered 1-6.

The kids roll the cube on the felt mat (to keep the noise down!) and put the corresponding number of match sticks into the witch's brew.

For this tray, I used a white marker to label 6 little pots. The idea is to add the correct number of bats (table scatter) to each pot. Because some kids are still working on numeral recognition, I put dots on the bottom of each cauldron so the kids could check.

I found the bats last year at Target, but I think I saw them (and the spiders) at Jo-Ann's this year.

This tray is supposed to help kids work on their one-to-one correspondance, but it's just not been popular AT ALL! Poor little tray that nobody loves. :(

I started by having some of the purple bats in the bowl. When no one chose this tray, I switched to ghosts. Still no one picked it. Third try: little foam stamps from Dollar Tree. No takers yet. I'll have to see if I can maybe talk it up a little. Pumpkin ice cube tray and wooden tongs are cute though, don't you think?