Bewitching in Readiness for Halloween

I am getting the library ready for Halloween. This is a time when my young students are quite excited about reading what is on display as they are busy planning their costumes and parties for Halloween. We saturate the library with witches, wizards, monsters, trolls, ghosts, goblins, ghouls, pumpkins, bats and spiders.

My Year 2 and some Year 1 students very quickly get hooked into a new series of novels that they haven't yet read. Even my Kindergarten students get very excited when they realise they can read Sally Rippin's School of Monsters books. 

I was reading a note from a teacher online about what series to recommend to this age group so here are my suggestions. Most have some pictures, some have colour, large font, are plot driven and the list is in roughly increasing reading difficulty and /or length. The number in brackets is how many titles there are currently in the series.

• Titchy Witch by Rose Impey and Katherine McEwen (12)

• Little Witch by Deborah Hautzig (6+)

• Witch in Training  by Maeve Friel (8)

• Woozy Wizard by Ella Woollard and Al Murphy (3)

• The Witch's Dog by Frank Rodgers (8)

• Heidi Hecklebeck by Wanda Coven and Priscilla Burris (witch) (30+)

• Isadora Moon by Harriet Muncaster (half vampire, half fairy) (14)

• Mirabelle by Harriet Muncaster (witch and fairy) (6+)

• Mona the Vampire  by Hiawyn Oram (5)

• Vampire School by Peter Bently (vampires) (6)

• The Haunted Library by Dori Hillestad Butler (ghosts) (10)

• Dorrie by Patricia Coombs (witch) (4+)

• Lottie Luna by Vivian French and Nathan Reed (werewolf) (4)

• The Goblin Princess by Jenny O'Connor (2)

• Wizzbag Wizard by Scoular Anderson (wizard) (3)

• Oliver Moon by Sue Mongredien (wizard) (12)

• Grunt and Grouch by Tracey Corderoy (monsters) (4)

• Undead Pets by Sam Hay (animal zombies) (8)

• Gargoylz by Janet Burchett and Sara Vogler (gargoyles, monsters) (16)

• Hubble Bubble by Tracey Corderoy (witch granny) (3pb 5cb)

• The Goblins  by David Melling (5)

• Winnie the Witch by Laura Owen (witch and her cat) (12+ and lots of picture books by Valerie Thomas)

• Rumblewick's Diary My Unwilling Witch by Hiawyn Oram (witch and her cat) (2pb 8cb)

• Araminta Spook by Angie Sage (haunted house and ghosts) (7)

• Witch Baby and Me by Debi Gliori (4)

• Polly and Buster  by Sally Rippin (witch and monster) (3)

• Amelia Fang by Laura Ellen Anderson (vampiress) (7)

• Bella Donna  by Ruth Symes (witch) (6)

• Fred Wizard by Simon Philip (3)

• An Awfully Beastly Business  by The Beastly Boys (werewolves, vampires, trolls etc)(6)

• Monstrous Maud by A.B. Saddlewick (witches and wizards)(6)

• The Worst Witch by Jill Murphy (witches, boarding school) (8)

• Diary of an Accidental Witch by Conor and Perdita Cargill(4)

• The Dragon in the Library by Luis Stowell (all the librarians are wizards) (3)

• Knitbone Pepper Ghost Dog  by Claire Barker and Ross Collins (ghost dog) (5)

• Goth Girl  by Chris Riddell (4) (spooky mysteries)

1st October National Ghost Hunting Day

I have just come home from school where I was doing the library displays for the beginning of next term. Halloween is quite popular with the children I teach, possibly because of the large number of expat families at school. I like the chance to get all the books out that feature ghosts, witches, wizards, monsters and 'creepy dark'. These books tend to only go out of the library at this time of year when they are 'facing'  children and being talked about. I also take the opportunity to do a pumpkin display and this year bats. In that way there is a good balance of fiction and nonfiction out and there's plenty to explore.

So when I noticed that in the USA the first day of October is Ghost Hunting Day I thought it very fitting that October starts and finishes with ghosts. There's so many good books to read with ghosts as characters. In the the picture books these are popular:
• Ghost in the House by Ammi-Joan Paquette
• Ghosts in the House by Kazuno Kohara
• Leo a Ghost Story by Mac Barnett
• Little Ghost by Vivian French
• We're Going on a Ghost Hunt by Susan Pearson
• We're Going on a Ghost Hunt by Marcia Vaughan
• Ghost  by Luk Depondt and Guido van Genechten
• Ready Steady Ghost! by Elizabeth Baguley
• Zen Ghosts by Jon M. Muth


As the school year gets closer to the end, I also have a larger number of fluent readers looking to immerse themselves in a good chapter book or series of books, so I have also put these 'ghost' stories out on display.



• The Haunted Library by Dori Hillestad Butler    (eight books)
• Ghost Hunters and the Incredibly Gruesome Ghost by Cornelia Funke (four books)
• The Toilet Ghost by Pamela Butchart ( one of the three stories from Wigglesbottom Primary)
• Agatha Parrot and the Odd Street Ghost by Kjartan Poskitt (one of six books)
• Knitbone Pepper Ghost Dog by Claire Barker (one of three books)
•  Ghosts on the Loose  by Tim Healey  (one of the Mortimer Keene series of five books) )
•  The Ghost Library by David Melling
• The Ghost Teacher by Tony Bradman
• The Little Ghost by Otfried Preussler
• The Case of the Graveyard Ghost and other Mysteries by Duncan Ball
• Ghosts by Raina Telgemeier


Here's quite a list to get you started on the ghost hunt!





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2nd November Halloween aftermath

Just wanted to share two classroom success stories that started with a children's picture book.

Firstly a library activity with a preschool class of four and five year olds.  We read a very short picture book called Say Boo! by Lynda Graham-Barber and Barbara Lehman. It is about a little ghost called Ben who is having trouble saying 'boo' and therefore isn't able to frighten anyone on Halloween. He practises and learns to say other words, all of which rhyme with 'boo'. He learns 'moo', 'coo' and 'whoo' from animals he meets until finally when crying, he realises that he is really saying 'boo hoo' which contains the word 'boo'. The children loved that Ben was struggling with something that they found easy, which I found a bit off putting, but they were equally pleased when he succeeded. We made a list of the rhyming words and then made a white paperbag puppet of a ghost. The children had to name their ghost a name that rhymed with 'boo'. They came up with really good names such as Lou, Sue, Spew, Stu, Choo, Woo, Floo and Prue. When we had made the puppets we 'floated' and 'rustled' round the library and then came back to re-enact the story and the rhyme I borrowed from here. Good fun was had by all.

Secondly, I lent the book, How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin? by Margaret McNamara and G. Brian Karas to a Year 1 teacher at school and suggested she read it and do as Mr Tiffin, the teacher in the book does with his class. She was very excited about it as it fitted in with her unit of work on celebrations and involved a lot of maths. In the book the teacher buys three pumpkins, a big one, a middle-sized one and a smaller one. The children in the class have to predict which will have the most seeds and then in three groups they clean out the insides of the pumpkin and estimate how many seeds they have. They also need to come up with a plan as to how to count them. The next day after the seeds have dried each group gets their seeds back to count. The Year 1 teacher did this with her class and the children are still talking about putting their hands in the pumpkin and what it felt like. They were involved in estimation, skip counting, hypothesising and testing and they had a lot of fun doing it.  If only I could put photos of children on my blog you would see this fun!