Place treats in a bag.  Count items
. as they are removed from the bag.

For a sorting activity, use various
 Halloween treats such as spiders
and bat rings of different colors
or pumpkin and ghost light covers.
 

Display a skeleton decoration
 which can be purchased or drawn.
 Count number of ribs,  bones in hand,
.leg bones, arm bones.  Graph.
 

Pumpkin Count

Provide small plastic pumpkins.
 Number each 1-10. Have
 the children count out the
correct number of pumpkin
seeds to each pumpkin.
 

Cut five pumpkin shapes from orange felt. Use a black marker to give each one
 a simple jack-o-lantern face with a big smile but no teeth.  Then label each pumpkin
 with a different number from 1 to 5.  Cut 15 tooth shapes from black felt.  Place the
 pumpkins and teeth on a flannel board with the teeth to one side.  Have a child identify
 the number on a pumpkin and add the corresponding number of teeth to its smile.

Here's a tasty way to help your kindergarteners count by fives.  Prepare
 a batch of sugar cookie dough - add green food coloring to it; then have each
 child use a hand shaped cookie cutter to make a witch's hand cookie. Instruct
 each child to count to five as she presses 5 candy corns onto the fingertips to
 create fingernails.  Bake the cookies. Place each one a different paper plate,
 and then line them up on a tabletop.  Have the class count by fives as you point to
 each hand cookie.  Give your class a hand for counting; then invite them to eat up.

Attach various colored whiskers to cat's face cutout.
  Count number of whiskers.  Also count number of particular
 color of whiskers.  Remove whiskers and repeat using a different number.

Create a set of monster eye manipulatives by painting different colored
 irises on Ping-Pong balls.  When the paint is dry, invite children to
 sort the eyes by color into clean, empty egg cartons.

Update your calendar with these student made numeral cards.
  To prepare, give each child a white construction paper square
 that is sized to fit a numeral box on your class calendar.  Invite
 him to illustrate his square with a spider or a bat.  Then help him
 label his card with a designated numeral from the calendar.
  Replace your ordinary calendar numerals with these spooky bat
 and spider cards and use them during your daily calendar activities.
  To reinforce numeral recognition skills, occasionally ask a
 child to identify his calendar card and the numeral on it.

Number 5 paper plates from one to five.  Cut 15 pumpkins from  orange
construction paper.  Spread out the five paper plates and encourage the
children to name the number on each one.  Ask the children to
place indicated number of paper pumpkins one each plate.

 

Cut out 31 construction paper pumpkins and tape them over every date
  on an October calendar.  Allow a child to take one down each day,
  beginning on October 1, and have the students count how many days are  left. Each
 day ask the children to predict how many pumpkins will be  left after one is removed.

 

Laminate and cut apart several sets of spider & insect cards. Place in an envelope.
 Create patterning task cards on larger sheets of paper. If your children can read,
 use the words "insect" and "spider." If not, use simple symbols such as drawing
 of different spiders and insects. Children lay out picture cards to imitate the
patterns. Children can create their own patterns and have a friend discover
the pattern. Children separate the cards into sets of spiders and sets of insects
 and explain the reasons.
 

Beforehand, purchase two large skeleton decorations.
Laminate one and with the other, cut each bone out first, then laminate.
Encourage the children to match the bones to the larger skeleton.
 

Purchase a package of Brach's Dem Bones Tart & Tangy Candies.  Give each
 child a scoop of candy to sort by shape (skulls, ribs, bones, feet, and hands.)
  Then graph.  After graphing, have each child assemble a skeleton
 from his candies.  Then invite everyone to bite into the bones.
 

Bat Match

Make a duplicate of a bat pattern then trace and cut out a desired number
 of black bats. Use a white paint pen or correction pen to write a different
 number on the left wing of each bat.  Affix the corresponding number of
Halloween stickers on each right wing. Cut each bat apart at its wings; then
 place all the pieces in a center.  To use, a child assembles each bat by
 matching a wing set.  To vary this activity, program each set of wings with
 matching uppercase and lowercase letters or with pictures and corresponding
 initial consonant sounds.  For younger children, program each wing
 pair with identical letters, numbers, or sticker quantities.
 

Find an appropriate haunted house pattern.  Make several copies and
color, decorate, and laminate them as placemats.  Find white lima beans
 at the grocery store and turn them into ghost counters.  Add eyes and mouth
 to the beans and you have a great math center for Halloween. Have the
 kids put the ghosts in the haunted house and count them as they go.
 

Give each child a copy of the same spider picture or use plastic spiders.
 Find the answers to questions such as: How many spiders wide is your
 hand? How many spiders long is your shoe? Whose pencil is longer,
 yours or your friend's? How many spiders longer?
 

You may be able to find witch stickers or Halloween stickers. Make
sure that you have at least two identical sheets. Place two identical
stickers on one index card. One on the left side and one on the
right. Then cut the card in half in a funny shape. Follow with all
the stickers. Then set out the cards and ask the child to pick out
one, then find it's match. Next, place the cards together.

Use the "Five Hairy Spiders" counting poem to practice the concept of subtraction.
 If children are ready for math at the symbolic level, write the equation for each part of
 the poem. For example, as you say "One crawled away and then there were two, write
 3 ?1 =2 on the board or put a strip on the flannel board showing that number sentence.

Five hairy spiders jumped across the floor.
One crawled away and then there were four.
Four hairy spiders climbed the backyard tree.
One crawled away and then there were three.
Three hairy spiders walked across my shoe.
One crawled away and then there were two.
Two hairy spiders spinning in the sun.
One crawled away and then there was one.
One hairy spider caught a bug on the run.
He crawled away and then there were none!

Challenge the class to help you make up a poem that starts with
 one hairy spider and adds a spider with each verse. Use the same
 patterns to show each verse on the flannel board. For example:
One hairy spider crawled across my shoe.
Along came another; then there were two.
Two hairy spiders sat upon my knee.
Their brother came to visit; now there are three.

Create Halloween pattern cards by drawing 4 Halloween shapes/pics (pumpkin,
 ghost, witch, and spider)  construction paper and cut into individual pictures.
  Place all pumpkin, ghost, witch, and spider pictures in their own clear plastic cups.
 Place all four cups in the math learning center.  Cut large sheets of white construction
 paper or newsprint into 3" x 23".  Make several different pattern cards by gluing the
 small Halloween pics onto a short strip of paper. Duplicate the Halloween pattern
 cards (mentioned above). Color, laminate, and cut into individual picture cards
.  Duplicate enough pictures for each child to have his or her own picture card.

  Introduce the Halloween math center to the whole group by passing each child
 a large laminated Halloween pattern picture card.  Choose a sample pattern
 card from the collection made for the center.  Show a sample pattern card to the
 class.  Ask the children to look at their picture card to see if the picture card they
 are holding is seen on the sample pattern card.  If it is, they are to leave their pattern
 picture card facing up.  If the picture is not on the sample pattern card, they must
 turn their picture card face down.  Check the cards left to make sure the children
understood the directions. 

Next begin choosing children with matching picture cards to complete the chosen
 sample pattern by calling the children up front, one by one, to create the same
 pattern as the chosen sample pattern card.  After several children have taken
 their places in front of the group, holding their card by their chest for the others
 to see, ask the children, "What picture needs to come next to continue making
 this pattern?"  Invite the children to try to complete the pattern using the children
 who have remained seated with their cards facing up.  They must determine
 where they fit into the pattern. 

Once the pattern is complete, read the pattern aloud with the children, while
 pointing to each of the picture cards the children are holding.  Have these
 children sit down and now everyone turns their cards face up to begin the
 activity again.  Choose a child to come to the front of the group to build
 another pattern.  First, the child must choose a sample pattern card and
 show it to the class.  The children who see their picture card in the pattern
 will leave their card face up, while the others turn their cards face down.
  Allow the child up front to choose children with the matching picture cards
 to come forward (stand in front of the class in a row to make a "people picture
 pattern".) Once the pattern is complete, check it verbally with the whole class.
Repeat the process until several patterns have been made.

Extended activity: Leave the Halloween pattern cards on display for the children
 to build more "people picture" patterns.  If space is available, these pattern
 cards may be placed on the floor forming a long floor pattern.