House of Burke: Cauldron Count & Sort

Happy Fine Motor Fridays!

The stores are filled with Halloween everything, and I'm loving it. I can't resist picking up tons of seasonal stuff for toddler homeschool whenever I am out and about! On a recent trip to Target, I stumbled upon these amazing Halloween erasers in the Dollar Spot and seasonal section. We have already used them for a ton of activities, and I'm sure we will use them for plenty more.

This activity was one of my favorites! I set up four cauldrons that I picked up at the Dollar Tree and a plate filled with the Halloween erasers: bats, candy corn, ghosts, and large multi-colored eyeballs.

I placed an eraser in front of each cauldron as a "key" for K to use to sort the rest of them. I explained to him which eraser went where and how to use the visual aid. The concept clicked right away and he went right to work sorting. One of his favorite activities is playing with our counting bears (affiliate link), and this activity is just like that! He used his fine motor skills to pinch the small erasers and pick them up.

As he sorted, he talked to me about the different erasers and what each of them were. This is a great activity to increase Halloween vocabulary. We talked about the different colors of each, especially the candy corn and the different colored eyeballs.

I had him find certain colors to place in the cauldron. The eyeballs were larger than the rest, so he used his fine motor skills to move them around the cauldron until they all fit nicely.

After sorting for awhile, he was ready to dump out the cauldrons. I asked him to turn each of them over onto the orange paper.

He separated the erasers into piles and then we counted them. K is still learning to count to 10. It is something that he has been struggling with a bit. He repeated the numbers after me as we counted. He does really well with a lot of repetition. Typically he likes to count items as "1,2,1,2,1,2.." etc. I helped him to count his way to 10 and beyond.

If you have an older child, they could make a chart and graph the number of erasers in each cauldron!

Kingston loved this activity and has been using it for the past week. This would make a fun Halloween busy bag or travel activity also!