>Halloween Sensory Boxes
>OK, I’m going to be a little bit of a downer before I get into the rest of this post. I do not like Halloween. I just really don’t care about the whole “witches, spiders, mummies” thing. Obviously I liked to trick-or-treat as a kid…and I’m sure I will love trick-or-treating with my children someday…but as an adult I really don’t care about Halloween.
This DID change a little when I started teaching 3 years ago. I had a Jehovah’s Witness in my class for the past 2 years, so I was unable to do Halloween activities, and I was really jealous of the teachers that were able to do all of the fun kids Halloween activities! This year…I got my chance 🙂 I wanted to share with you the most fun activity I did with my boys this year!!
I teach Kindergarteners (all boys) with Autism. If you know about Autism, you probably know that they have a lot of sensory needs. This can be visual, tactile, auditory…or a combination of those and others! Part of my job is to introduce these boys to things that they may be averse too…of course after establishing routine and rapport in a safe environment. Halloween provides the perfect set-up for this!
So I made sensory boxes for my students. I searched for ideas on the internet for what to fill these boxes with, and I found the best list from Oopsey Daisy’s blog. PLEASE check out her page if you have a few extra minutes – this lady is superwoman! She has some AMAZING ideas and downloads for educators of your children or parents! You will not regret checking out her site!
Here’s what was in the boxes:
Monster Hair: Yarn
Monster Teeth: Popcorn Kernels
Witch Tongue: Bananas (sliced long-ways)
Witch Fingers: Long Carrots (*This was one I had never heard of-brilliant!!)
Eyeballs: Peeled Grapes
Monster Brain: Cold cooked spaghetti
YUCK! But so fun! I took some old shoeboxes, cut a hole in the top, and put a food storage container in each box. It really didn’t look pretty…keep in mind that this was about a 20-30 minute activity out of a 6 1/2 hour day…so I wasn’t able to devote hours to the prep! But we covered it with some construction paper, and I found images on the internet to help my boys visualize what they were touching…
Since you could see in some of the boxes, I let the kids look at the picture (while I covered the hole) and I then held the box above their heads while they reached in and felt. Their reactions were PRICELESS! Some of them refused to touch it while it was in the box…I ended up showing them that it was NOT REALLY witch fingers…etc. Then they would touch the objects. It really was a great learning experience though! After the activity, I had them complete a worksheet where they had to match the pictures from the boxes to the pictures of what was REALLY inside. I had some kids ask to touch them again…so they weren’t that tortured 😉
christinasadventures 
>Christina,Thank you SO much for your kind words. As a teacher, hearing from another teacher means more than anything!! I am so glad that some of these activities worked for your kids!! Enjoy your Halloween!~Alison
>With this one statement, you became one of my hero's, "I teach Kindergarteners (all boys) with Autism." Kudos to you and keep up the AMAZING work!
>Christina,Oh, sounds like soooo much fun! I'll bet those boys loved it! I used to teach first grade b/f kids. 🙂 Thanks so much for stopping by my blog!
>I bet they were afraid to put their hands in the box. (You guys would have been afaid to do that at age 5 also.) sounds like a great hands on project for them.