Are you ready for a fun, interactive Halloween craft? Check out this super cute hidden cat pumpkin craft! I love that the pumpkin opens, revealing the hidden cat. It was pretty easy to make and turned out great! I think your preschooler will love this one.
After you print the template, color the pumpkin and the cat. Be creative! We added a jack-o-lantern face to our pumpkin.
Cut out the cat and the pumpkin. Once you have your pumpkin cut out, cut along the dotted zigzag line, making your pumpkin into two pieces.
Stick the brad through the dark circle (on the left side) of the top pumpkin piece. Then stick the same brad through the dark circle of the bottom pumpkin piece. Close the brad. Now you have created a hinge that allows your pumpkin to open and close.
It’s time to attach the cat! Add glue to the front side of the cat’s body and then stick it onto the backside of the bottom pumpkin piece. Make sure to leave the cat’s head sticking up so that you will see it when you open the pumpkin. Let your project dry before having lots of fun opening and closing your pumpkin.
I was looking at Halloween images on Canva and I came across these cute pictures of children dressed up for Halloween (and the cat too!). They were too adorable to ignore so I turned them into a Halloween stick puppets craft! Stick puppets are one of my go-to kids’ crafts. They lend themselves well to imaginative play. I love seeing children act out adventures with the there stick puppets! Are you ready to make your own stick puppets?
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More Crafts:
Do you like puppets? My son and I think puppets are a lot of fun! We’ve made quite a few together. Check out some more of our puppet ideas:
Add some spooky STEM fun into your preschooler’s learning with this Halloween graphing activity!
Halloween Graphing Activity:
Start by printing this free template. The Halloween graphing template includes the di, colored tiles, and graphing chart. I used regular printer paper; however, if you use cardstock, then your dice will be much sturdier.
Begin by cutting out the dice. Gently fold the gray tabs inward. Then begin to fold your squares into a cube shape. Add some glue to the tabs and glue them onto the underside of the squares as you form your cube. The very last tab is hard to glue and might require tape. Once your cube is formed, set it aside to dry.
Cut out all of the colored tiles. You will have 4 of each color–red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. Each color corresponds with one of the Halloween pictures. Here’s the color scheme: witch=red, pumpkin=orange, moon=yellow, Frankenstein monster=green, bat=blue, and spiderweb=purple.
Now it is time to begin Halloween graphing. Ask you child to gently roll the di. Which Halloween picture is on top? Is it a purple web? Take a tile of the same color and set it on the graph above the corresponding-colored Halloween picture. Keep rolling the dice and setting tiles in the correct columns until you reach the top of the column. Since you are not gluing the colored tiles to the chart, you can use this activity over and over again. The witch was the first to reach the top for us. Which Halloween picture made it to the top of your graph first?
Why STEM?
STEM stands for science, technology, engineering, and math. It is important to introduce these concepts to preschoolers in a fun way so that as they get older, they are excited about STEM subjects. What are preschoolers learning in this activity? Preschoolers are learning their colors (science)! They have to identify the color on the di, find the same color on the chart, and then correctly add the same color tile to the graph. Preschoolers are learning how to graph, an important math concept! Add some extra math into this activity by counting how many of each color tile is on your graph and how many tiles your have altogether. Preschoolers are also learning about engineering as they help build the di!
More STEM Activities
If your child enjoyed this graphing activity, I made a free blank di template so you can customize it with your own pictures. You can add computer images, stickers, or draw whatever you want on the dice and graph for your child to practice more graphing skills.
It’s spooky season and young children want to get in on the fun! Here are eight fantastic witch-themed stories that are not scary, but add a fun, spooky element to reading time. Grab your broom and be prepared to read these over and over again! Be sure to check your public library for these books. My son and I also made lists of our favorite MONSTER stories, SKELETON books, and BAT stories to share too!
This is one of my favorite books! My son and I love this rhyming story about a kind witch who keeps losing things as she flies through the night. She repeatedly has to stop and look for her missing things. While searching for her belongings, she also finds new friends. Soon her broom is full as the witch, a cat, a dog, a frog, and a bird soar through the night. Suddenly a hungry dragon appears and captures the witch! It looks like this might be the end for the witch, but her friends come to her rescue and chase the dragon away 🙂
A girl and her cat move into a haunted house! Turns out this little girl is actually a witch and she knows exactly what to do with ghosts! This is a fairly short book, with not a lot of text per page. The illustrations are done in orange and black and really capture the reader’s attention. Your preschooler will enjoy studying the pictures and seeing the witch’s creative uses for ghosts.
Tom Fletcher’s “Who’s in Your Book” series is so much fun! Each book is interactive and filled with super cute illustrations. My son really enjoys these stories and we read them over and over again! In this book, the little witch has landed in your book and she is making a huge mess. Stop her! Oh no, now she cast a magic spell! Help defeat the spell by using your finger as a wand. Follow the steps to save your book!
Author Jane O’Connor of the Fancy Nancy series introduces you Lulu the witch. Lulu is so excited to start school! Her first day goes great — she loves her teacher (Miss Slime) and her broom flying lesson. She likes all of other witches in her class, except for one. Sandy Witch does everything better than Lulu and Lulu is feeling frustrated. A rivalry ensues until both little witches come down with lizardpox. Lulu and Sandy both return to school covered with spots, afraid their classmates will make fun of them. Sandy and Lulu bond over their spots and become friends afterall.
This is a cute story about an imaginative little girl. While it is an older story, my son still likes it! In the book, this little witch has a problem — she just can’t get her spells to turn out right! She looks the part–she has a black witch hat, and a witch nose, and pointy witch shoes, and a cat–but no magic. Turns out the reason little witch can’t do magic is because she’s really a girl playing dress-up.
I love counting books! They are a fun way to incorporate math into preschoolers’ learning. Preschoolers will love the pictures of the witches flying past other “spooky” creatures like skeletons and mummies. The illustrations are bright and cheerful without being scary. Examine each picture closely and try and find the owl and cat hidden in every scene!
Mrs. Blackhat is a witch who loves the color black so much that everything she has is black. Along comes an orange cat. What is Mrs. Blackhat supposed to do with a cat that isn’t black? She tries to cast a spell (with hilarious words like “toilet trouble”), but nothing works. Find out what happens to the cat by checking out this fun, rhyming story from your library!
The “How to Catch” series is wildly popular with young children with their rhyming stories and bright illustrations. In this book, a real witch comes to the neighborhood on Halloween night to steal all of the candy. Oh no! The Catch Club kids set all sorts of zany traps to try and catch her before all of the candy is gone. Each trap-gone-wrong will get your child giggling as the witch escapes. I love that the kids use household items like cardboard boxes, so anyone reading this book can get ideas to make their own traps and continue the fun at home!
Disclaimer:
Check your library for these and other witch-themed stories. To help cover the costs of this site, I joined Amazon’s Affiliate program. If you buy a book through one of my links, then I get a small percentage of the sale (at no additional cost to you). Thank you for your support! Happy Reading 🙂
My son loves Halloween and I love pumpkin spice, so pumpkin stories are a natural fit for us! We own a few of these and have checked out the rest from the library. Check your library for these pumpkin books too! It was hard to narrow our choices down to a dozen, but I didn’t want this post to be too long 🙂 We hope you and your preschooler will enjoy these pumpkin books as much as we do!
Splat is a good-intentioned, lovable kitten who finds himself searching for the perfect pumpkin for his mom. He and his mouse friend, Seymour, scour the pumpkin patch, but none of the pumpkins are quite right until Splat finds a gigantic, round orange pumpkin! How is Splat going to get this huge pumpkin home? Well he’s going to roll it all the way home by running on top of it, of course!!! Your preschooler will love Splat’s runaway, rolling pumpkin and sympathize with his quest for the perfect pumpkin.
Christopher Pumpkin is the cutest pumpkin! Created by a witch to help get ready for a scary party, Christopher Pumpkin struggles to do anything the way witch wants. Christopher P. likes pink and sparkles and unicorns, not scary, spooky stuff. The witch gives him one more chance to do something scary or else she’s going to cook him. Will Christopher be able to turn his sparkly, cutesy decorating style into something scary? Check this one out from your library and find out! Told in a rhyming style, with bold, bright illustrations, preschoolers will love reading this one over-and-over again!
I adore Duck and Goose. They have the best friendship and such sweet adventures together. In this short, sparsely worded story, Duck and Goose go looking for a pumpkin in very unusual places. Your preschooler will giggle as they look for a pumpkin in a lake and on top of a tree stump. Fortunately, their friend, Thistle, comes along and tells them about the pumpkin patch 🙂 (non-holiday story)
This story is about a woman who HATES pumpkins! She won’t even look at them. So when a truck accidently spills pumpkins in her yard, she does everything she can think of to keep them from growing. The pumpkins, however, thrive in her yard. When fall comes, she finds that she has too many pumpkins! The woman devises a great plan to get rid of the pumpkins and along the way, ends up making new friends with her community 🙂 This sweet story is perfect for fall / Halloween and a heartwarming display of the joy of sharing and connecting with others.
The Runaway Pumpkin
5.The Runaway Pumpkin by Kevin Lewis–
In this funny story, siblings Buck, Billy, and Lil, go up a hill search of a big pumpkin. The one they find is gigantic and soon, they have it rolling down the hill and destroying everything in its path. The family members below are too intrigued by dreaming of eating eat it to be concerned about the damage its causing. It finally comes to a stop and Granny turns this gigantic pumpkin into a whole bunch of yummy pumpkin foods for a Halloween feast.
Duck, Cat, and Squirrel and three good friends who like to make pumpkin soup together. Everyone has a specific job to do. One day, Duck decides he wants to switch jobs, which leads to a fight among the friends. Duck leaves in a huff. Soon Cat and Squirrel go in search of their friend. Will Duck want to come back and make soup with them? Kids will love Cooper’s illustrations and enjoy going on the fall journey with these characters. The book also includes a recipe for pumpkin soup that you and your kiddo can make together! (non-holiday story)
I loved the Berenstain Bears when I was a kid and I’m excited the their books are still available so I can share them with my son! In this Thanksgiving-themed story, the Berenstain Bears are entering the pumpkin contest. Of course the cubs and Papa really want to win first prize! Mama Bear gently tries to teach Papa and the cubs about the true meaning of Thanksgiving, but the bears are too consumed with the idea of winning to listen. When the family doesn’t win first prize, the Bears begin to understand the true meaning of Thanksgiving and being thankful for what they do have.
This is the story of two little mice who unknowingly fall in love with the same pumpkin! One wants to make the biggest Jack-o-lantern and the other wants to win the town’s biggest pumpkin prize. When they realize that they have both picked the same pumpkin, the mice work together to help it grow.
Lucy and Sparkle have fun doing autumn things together. They visit a pumpkin patch, explore a corn maze, and play games. Things get a little too spooky for Sparkle, who is afraid of a pumpkin monster. Lucy, who enjoys being scared, learns that not everyone likes to be a little scared. This is a sweet story about two friends who learn to respect one another’s feelings. Plus it ends with an awesome rainbow from Sparkle’s magic horn and yummy treats for the friends to enjoy together.
This short book will bring out the giggles as farmyard friends run from the pumpkin monster! Wait a minute, did that pumpkin just quack? Slapstick comedy, bright illustrations, and a confused duck make this book a preschool winner 🙂
Preschoolers’ favorite cat, Pete the Cat, brings the pumpkin finger rhyme to bedtime in this fun book. Count along with these cool, rhyming pumpkins sitting on a gate. Kids will love the pumpkins’ costumes and the fantastic Halloween illustrations!
The Disney Jr. Halloween movie started as a book! This is a sweet story about a square pumpkin who just doesn’t seem to fit in the with round pumpkins in the patch. The round pumpkins make fun of Spookley for looking different. But one Halloween, a storm starts blowing the round pumpkins all over the place! Oh no, there is a hole in the fence. Will they roll right out into the bay? It’s up to Spookley, the square pumpkin to save the day. Preschoolers will enjoy this rhyming story and will be keeping an eye out for a square pumpkin next time you go to a pumpkin patch.
More Books!
I hope you and your preschooler enjoy these pumpkin books! There are so many pumpkin books available that we love, and we hard a hard time narrowing down our choices for this list.
Looking for more great stories to read together? Check out my FALLfavorites, ZOMBIE book recommendations, 12 MONSTER Stories post, and my GHOST Stories for preschoolers.
I’ve joined Amazon’s Affiliate program to try and help cover the costs of this site. If you buy a book through one of my links, then I get a small percentage of the sale. Thank you for your support! Happy Reading 🙂
Add some spooky fun to your learning activities with these preschool Halloween worksheets! Download these free worksheets and practice writing letters, phonetic sounds, counting, and writing numbers 1-25 in numerical order. Read some Halloween bookstoo and make it a spooky day!
ABCs
It’s almost Halloween and the alphabet has never been this spooky!
Science Experiment: make this fall-themed Pumpkin Fizz and watch as the fizz forms when the vinegar mixes with the baking soda!
I Spy Counting Worksheets: my son loves the “I Spy” challenges, so I have made a lot of them. Try the Bat I Spy,Fall I Spy, and Owl I Spy worksheets too.
First, paint your child’s hand white. I like to use Crayola Washable Paints. They are easy to wash off which is fantastic since we somehow seem to get paint everywhere.
Second, stamp your child’s hand onto black paper.Tip: have baby wipes or a wet paper towel nearby to quickly wipe the paint of your kid’s hand.
Third, cut out hand print. I cut an oval around my son’s handprint. Let the paint dry.
Fourth, draw a face with your sharpie. It’s easier to draw the face before you attach it to the craft stick. My son wanted a happy ghost, so his has smile 🙂
Fifth, attach the ghost handprint to a craft stick. I used glue dots because they do a great job at instantly attaching craft pieces together without having to wait for anything to dry. If you aren’t familiar with glue dots, think of them as super sticky, clear round stickers. They are easy to use and don’t leave any mess! These are my go to for gluing/attaching crafts together. If you don’t have glue dots, then use white school glue.
Now your cute little ghost stick puppet craft is ready! Booooooooooooo! What adventures will your stick puppet go on?
More Ghost Fun:
Check out my Ghost book recommendations. These stories are all preschooler-approved and should be available at your local library!
Ghost Dot Paint Craft
Want to make another ghost craft? Try this cotton-swab dot ghost painting craft. Not only is it cute, but it helps preschoolers work on their fine motor skills too!
I joined Amazon’s Affiliate program to try and help cover the costs of this site. I get a small percentage of the sale if you purchase something through the links I provided. Thank you for your support! Happy reading 🙂
Here are ten preschooler-approved bat books! We rarely see bats where we live, so when we do, it is pretty exciting! Twice over the last couple months, I saw a bat outside of the library where I work 🙂 So of course, I had to pull out my copy of Bats at the Library! Check your library these great bat stories.
Stellaluna is a preschool classic! Kids love this young fruit bat. In the story, Stellaluna is separated from her mother and ends up being adopted by a bird family. My son loves watching Stellaluna try to bird things Stellaluna realizes that she needs to be true to her batself and not try to be something she’s not. This sweet, loving story about family ends on a happy note!
Bat thinks he has found the perfect home! However, it turns out that this is squirrel’s home. Since they sleep at opposite times, they don’t have a chance to communicate in person. Squirrel doesn’t want to share her home so she leaves Bat notes trying to get him to leave. Bat misinterprets the notes and thinks they are friends now. Kids will giggle at the misunderstandings and love the happy ending.
Brian Lies makes great bat books! This is one of several “Bats at . . .” series. The bats also go to the library, the ballgame, and join the band! In this beach themed one, the bats enjoy a fun evening at the beach. Lies’ rhyming text and beautiful illustrations will make this a bedtime favorite.
The finger puppet book is so cute! It has very few words, but my son and the library’s storytime kids just love it. The gently, rhyming story and the fun puppet make this book a preschool favorite 🙂
This book cleverly disguises bat facts into the storyline! A little bat thinks he’s a superhero because of all of his amazing bat abilities. The other bats tell him that those abilities don’t make him a superhero, just a regular bat. However, when a family of mice need rescuing, Superbat swoops in and saves the day using his bat abilities!
Get ready for cuteness overload in this story! Best friends, Horace and Hattie, are two adorable little hedgehogs who love to play together. One fall day, Hattie becomes sad that the leaves are falling off of the tree. Fortunately a distraction in the form of a new squeaky friend comes at just the right time. The squeaky young bat joins the hedgehogs in a game of hide and seek until it’s time for the bat to go home. Horace asks the bat for a favor and the new friend is happy to help. The little bat tells its colony Horace’s request and they pull off the most spectacular surprise for Hattie 🙂
Littlebat badly wants to go to the library’s storytime and listen to stories with the kids. Mama bat explains that it is too dangerous for a little bat to go into the library when people are there, with the exception of one special day. Littlebat can’t wait for the special library day. Mama tells him to be patient and watch for changes. Soon the seasons change from summer to fall. The library starts decorating for Halloween, and finally, the day comes when Littlebat gets to storytime! He blends in with the Halloween decorations and gets to hang out with the kids and listen to stories 🙂
These cute bats just want to dance! This book incorporates great bat illustrations, humor, a variety of dances, and learning to tell time all rolled into one. Readers will want to dance along with these grooving bats.
I know I’m little biased since I work at a library, but this truly is a fantastic bat book! It’s rhyming story tells about all of the fun things a bat (or kid) can do at the library! Brian Lies’ illustrations and attention to detail are fantastic.
Bats and counting, oh what fun! The bats put on a fantastic theatrical performance in this cute book. Count along at the bats take the stage. You won’t want to miss the bats’ grand finale!
I joined Amazon’s Affiliate program to help cover the costs of this site. This means that I get a small percentage of the sale of if you buy a book through one of the links I’ve posted. Thank you for your support! Happy reading 🙂
More Bat Fun:
Coffee Filter Bat Craft
Bat I Spy: count how many of each type of bat you can spy!
Bat Counting: color in the number of bats as shown.
My son and I really love coffee filter crafts. After the success of our Coffee Filter Leaves craft, we decided to make bats. Our coffee filter bat craft turned out awesome! We experimented with colors and liked the way the purple, blue, and black markers looked together.
-OPTIONAL: googly eyes, glitter glue, or metallic sharpie to make eyes
How to Make Coffee Filter Bats:
Clothespins:
First paint your clothespins. We painted ours purple and black. I like to use Crayola Washable Paints; they are easy to wash off. Begin by painting one side of the clothespins. Let them dry. Later, you can paint the other side while your coffee filters are drying.
Coffee Filters:
Color your coffee filter with markers. It is important to use markers that easily wash off of surfaces because the color will bleed through the coffee filter. Don’t worry about how your coffee filter looks. The colors will run together after your spray it with water and any design you had will be gone.
Now it is time to spray the coffee filters! This is my son’s favorite part. Once you begin spraying the coffee filters with water, the color will immediately bleed onto your surface. We chose to spray ours on the grass. If you don’t have an outdoor area that you can make a mess on, then make sure that whatever surface you are using is cleanable. You can also put wax paper under your coffee filters to catch the run off liquid. We learned that the more water your spray, the less vivid the colors are. Experiment with lightly versus heavily spraying your coffee filters and see which way you like best.
We left our coffee filters on the grass to dry in the sun. They dried in about 20 minutes (it was a warm afternoon). They will take longer to dry if they are on wax paper.
Now, to make them look like bat wings you have to fold the coffee filter in half. I trimmed semi circles along the edges of the coffee filters, which gave them a bat-wing look.
Keep the folded side at the top. In the middle of the coffee filters, pinch the coffee filters (from top to bottom) to tuck them into the snap-end of the clothespins. Now you have bats!
Coffee Filter Bat Craft
We didn’t have any googly eyes small enough to fit on the clothespins. My son and I used silver glitter glue to make eyes on a couple of our bats. We gave one a smile too! Experiment with metallic sharpies, glitter glue, and googly eyes to see which you like the best for your coffee filter bat crafts.
More Bat Fun!
Check out my book recommendations for great bat books to read after you make this craft.
I joined Amazon’s Affiliate program to try and help cover the costs of this site. I get a small percentage of the sale if you purchase something through the links I provided. Thank you for your support! Happy reading 🙂
My son loves Halloween and “spooky” things in general . We read tons of monster/zombie/skeleton/ghost books all read round! Here is a list of 8 skeleton stories to enjoy with your kiddo for Halloween (and all year long):
We are obsessed with Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas!!! We had to include our favorite skeleton, Jack Skellington, in this list 🙂 This book is based on Burton’s poem, but closely resembles an abbreviated version of the film. Jack lives in Halloweentown, where the inhabitants celebrate Halloween, but no other holidays. Growing bored with the same thing every year, Jack decides to take Santa’s place at Christmas and spread joy not only to Halloweentown, but to the whole world. Despite his good intentions, nothing goes right. However, through this series of trials and errors, Jack learns the true meaning of Christmas.
In this rhyming counting book, preschoolers meet a number of spooky characters. Kids will love counting all of the monsters, wizards, and cats who make their way to the party. The story is filled with fun sounds that preschoolers will want to say, making it an interactive reading adventure.
This is a silly story about a skeleton who gets the hiccups. The skeleton tries all of the usual human remedies, but nothing works! Preschoolers will giggle at all of the humorous results of skeleton’s attempts to drive the hiccups away. Finally a ghost friend comes up with the perfect solution–scare the hiccups away! Ghost holds up a mirror and skeleton shrieks and the hiccups jump away 🙂
Get ready to sing-song your way through this book! This rhyming book, complete with awesome illustrations of a skeleton band, help teach kids about the bones in the body. There are excerpts on each page that provide more anatomical detail for older kids.
This is cute, reassuring story about being afraid of the spooky creatures on Halloween night. A young skeleton named Sammy has to run an errand through the woods before he can go trick-or-treating. Uh-oh, something is following Sammy. Yikes, it’s a mummy! Turns out this scary mummy isn’t so scary after all; it’s just Sammy’s friend dressed up in a costume. Preschoolers will love the illustrations and want to read this one over-and-over again!
This is a cute story about a young skeleton named Bonaparte who keeps losing his bones. He is literally falling apart and is nervous about starting school with his condition. His monster friends, including Franky Stein, try and help ease his fears by coming up with creative ways to keep Bonaparte’s bones together, but all of their attempts are unsuccessful. Finally the friends come up with a great idea — a service dog! The dog fetches Bonaparte’s bones and brings them back to him. This enables Bonaparte to participate in all of the fun activities his friends are doing at school.
Kristyn Crow writes great spooky books for preschoolers! In this rhyming, rocking book, Skeleton Cat comes back to the land of living after his bones are struck by lightning. He goes searching for the perfect band to accompany his drumming. Preschoolers will love the illustrations and the rock-n-roll fun of this book!
In this Halloween-themed version of the folk tale, Stone Soup, a hungry skeleton named Finnigan arrives in a new town on Halloween night. Looking for some yummy food to share, Finnigan finds that none of the spooky inhabitants want to share with him. Finnigan declares that he is going to make bone soup from a magic bone that he has! The town’s inhabitants are intrigued by the skeleton’s declaration and they come to check out the soup. Little by little, they offer ingredients to the skeleton to add to the soup. Soon, there is pot of yummy soup with plenty to share with everyone.
I hope you enjoy these skeleton stories! I’ve joined Amazon’s Affiliate program to help cover the costs of my site. If you purchase a book through one of my links, then I get a small percentage of the sale. Thank you for your support! Happy Reading 🙂
More Books!
Check out my ZOMBIE book recommendations, 12 MONSTER Stories post, and my GHOST Stories for preschoolers list.
Stellaluna realizes that she needs to be true to her batself and not try to be something she’s not. This sweet, loving story about family ends on a happy note!
