Two Good Reads for Preschool Halloween

It's almost Halloween again, so our usual favorite Halloween books are out. Ladybug's favorite is still Ghosts in the House! This adorable story involves a witch who takes care of her ghost problem by washing the ghosts in the machine and turning them into useful household linens like curtains and blankets. As a family we've developed a game where Ladybug tosses a blanket over a parent's head, shouting, "Haunted!" Then she yanks the blanket off. Ticklefest follows. I say the game was developed as a family because each parent claims to have invented it. I think Ladybug gets the credit.

The new favorite is Run Home, Little Mouse, which isn't marketed as a Halloween book, so it might be easy to miss. But it's a late fall, spooky nighttime book, making it a great Halloween read. As Little Mouse runs along in the night, he comes across glowing eyes in the darkness, visible through cutout holes in the pages. Turning the page reveals the animals who are peering out at him: fox, owl, weasel, crow, cat, bats, and eventually his own mouse family. This one was an instant hit with Ladybug, who read it repeatedly, recounted the plot to us, and requested it again this morning.

Bonus: we've started the "Spatial Relationships" chapter in math, talking about how things are positioned relative to one another. Bug's favorite is to run up the stairs or the playground ladder and shout, "I'm up above Mama! Mama is down peblow!" While reading Ghosts and Little Mouse, she pointed out the various positions of the ghosts all over the house and talked about how Mouse had to run past all the animals. I love quality book tie-ins that happen spontaneously.