Welcome to our “Halloween Week” – a collection of days filled with relaxed learning and fun activities all themed to the awesome holiday – Halloween! For this day, we turned our attention to vampires! Read on to check out a fun filled day of learning, reading, crafts, and activities all on these legendary creatures!
A TYPICAL DAY
All kids are different and you can definitely vary your day with whatever works for you 🙂 Our relaxed & learning fun day kicks off with an introduction to the day’s theme. Then, we move onto videos and themed activities (reading, writing – or story telling – time, crafts, food crafts/snacks, and games or experiments). Feel free to pick and choose whatever works for you 🙂
INTRO
Vampires have been featured or appeared in several cartoons, books, and movies, so it’s very possible that your kid is familiar with this creature – or at least a less scary version of this creature 🙂
Note: while the stories surrounding vampires may be a bit mature for younger ones, we focused a bit more on kid-friendly, not-so-scary aspects of vampires. Most of the books and videos we used throughout the day are also geared toward elementary age kids.
These resources are some great introductions 🙂
WHAT TO WATCH
We find that mixing in a short video themed to our day is a great way to add some learning fun! We try to pick informative videos OR mix in a cartoon favorite (where they don’t even realize they’re learning). Below are some of the videos we picked from for the day:
FOOD CRAFTS / SNACKS
What’s more fun than taking a break and having a simple snack??? Including the snack in your theme of the day! We find that our kiddos are more than happy to eat the snacks they create especially when they can arrange them into fun shapes and scenes!
The first two are quick & easy store bought (but sugary) snacks. The third is one that the kids can help create together. And the last few are some cool (but far more involved) recipes for Dracula fans 🙂
- Count Chocula Cereal & Count Chocula Granola Bars
- Red Jello with Fangs
- For Bram Stoker’s Dracula Fans:
READING
It’s no secret that reading is an important part of learning, which is why we pick out a handful of books that are fun and filled with some learning tidbits. For our older ones, we have them fill out some worksheets (or let them create some of their own comics) to describe what they read and/or learned! These are a few we picked from for the day:
- Disney Mickey Mouse: Dracula by Grace Baranowski
- What Is the Story of Dracula? By Michael Burgan
- Dracula by Bram Stoker
WRITING & WRITING PROMPTS
Just like reading, writing is a great way to keep kids learning by both encouraging their creativity and thought process as well as helping them practice their motor skills and penmanship.
If you’ve got a little one, have them trace words related to the theme: HALLOWEEN, VAMPIRE, CREATURE
If you’ve got older children, have them write a sentence or two up to a page or two (depending on their age). Encourage them to be creative AND give reasons for why they made certain choices. This was our writing prompt of the day (and we offered up some examples as well) but definitely pick something your kiddo might be interested in writing about!
- Imagine you were a vampire on a mission to convince the world vampires weren’t scary and evil. What are some of the things you would do?
- Vampires appear in several movies and cartoons. Do you have a favorite vampire character? What do you like about that vampire?
CREATE & CRAFT
If you’ve got a crafty little one, a simple craft is a great way to keep them interested in the topic. While their creative juices are flowing, you can also chat about what they’ve learned so far or ask them what else they’re excited about learning!
There are TONS of vampire crafts that you can find online that are super easy. For our craft of the day, we created a mini haunted house and some vampire figurines (how to link coming soon!).
STEM & STEAM ACTIVITIES
While crafting and writing get their creativity and imagination flowing, we also like to add in an activity that gets them thinking along the lines of science, technology, engineering, or math! These engaging activities or experiments are a great way to keep them learning!
THANK YOU!!!
Thank you so much for checking out our learning fun article!
If you did enjoy this, please let us know below or follow us on Pinterest. Also, If you’re still looking for more Halloween Learning Fun, check out our Halloween Week or Halloween Ideas!
Happy Learning & Happy Halloween!
