Great Halloween Read-Alouds-10/25/11

There will not be a single mention of food or cooking in this entire post...wait, that was a mention!  Oh well...
With Halloween right around the corner, I wanted to put in my votes for great Halloween read-alouds for preschoolers.  These are my current favorites to read to Eyrleigh and Rylynn and I'm planning on bringing them along to E's preschool class party on Monday.  Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson has all the qualities of a great preschool read-aloud.  It has a wonderful rhyming cadence and a repetative story that is easy for young children to follow.  There is even a "group participation" posibility if you want the kids to pipe up as the broom "whoosh"es away. 

Last year I bought The Spooky Wheels on the Bus by J. Elizabeth Mills from the Scholastic Book Fair.  Sung to the tune of the more traditional "Wheels on the Bus", this story is a great one for preschoolers and a reader who can sing.  Using the numbers one through ten and Halloween themed bus "parts" and riders, the whole class can sing and act out this story together.   This one is great for a party where sitting and listening just isn't in the cards.  The kids can sing, wiggle, and make all the silly noises they want and still be a part of the activity.

The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything by Linda Williams is not a novel pick by any means.  Almost every list I found of Halloween read-alouds included this classic.  Don't worry though, kids could hear this one 100 times and still have fun.  The repeating actions of the scary pumpkin man are great to keep kids engaged and acting out as the story goes along.  Wiggling, shaking, nodding, and clapping is sure to keep little listeners engaged in the story and though the pumpkin man is a little scary for the really little ones, the ending is cute and not at all frightening.

10 Trick-or-Treaters:  A Halloween Counting Book by Janet Schulman was a new one to me this year but I'm  adding it to the repetoire.  The rhyming verses and the counting back from 10 to 1 are great for a preschool class.  The kids are just beginning to recognize numbers and this book has big contrasting numbers on each page that kids can see.  Using their rhyming skills and the visual numbers, most 3 and 4-year-olds should be able to shout out the appropriate number as the story goes along.  It's a  great way to reinforce number recognition in a really fun story.
These are just 4 great read-alouds and I hope to find a few more in time for the preschool party next year!   Reading other reviewers, I think I need to find In The Haunted House by Eve Bunting  and Pumpkin Eye by Denise Fleming.  Have a great week reading to your kids!