Witches Grotto
Gemma Everson and her little witches join us today for a spooktastic Witches Grotto Day!
Hello, my name is Gemma Everson and I am a children’s author, a teacher and also a mum.
My girls and I love having fun around this time of year, dressing up as our favourite spooky characters. Today we will be having lots of fun making spells, potions and dressing up as witches. Don’t forget your broomsticks!
9.30am Activity:
Witches Bubbling Brew
Let’s begin by creating a bubbling potion! You will need a large saucepan, some cooked spaghetti, washing up liquid and a straw! Say a magic word and blow into the potion to make it bubble and froth! You could add paint or food colouring to really make it interesting!
Grown Ups:
Talk about what you can see happening as the bubbles appear. Challenge your child to make a large bubble or lots of little bubbles. You could make up some rhyming spells before you blow each time such as ‘big black cat’ and ‘small brown rat’
10.30am Activity:
Design and Describe a Witch
Draw what your very own witch would look like. What colour are her clothes? What is she like? What does she like to do? You could colour in the witch below or maybe even dress up and pretend you are a witch!
Grown Ups:
This activity will help your child to use their imagination as they take on the role of the witch. Help them to use new vocabulary to describe their appearance and personality.
1:30pm Activity:
Making Witches Brew – Numbers!
For this activity you will need a dice and the activity sheet provided. Roll your dice and see which number you get. Find the picture that matches your number and put it into your cauldron. At the end, empty it out and see how many of each creature you have. I wonder how many you will get? You could also try finding objects to match other sounds like 'c' 'e' etc like we did.
Grown Ups:
This activity will help your child to recognise numbers and encourage them to count and match. Try and encourage them to predict which creature will be the most popular in the potion and help them to count them out to check.
2:30pm Activity:
Making Witches Brew – Sounds!
Pick a sound that your child is learning – ‘s’ is a good place to start. How many things can you find that begin with that sound? Put them in the cauldron to complete the spell! Think of a magic word to make the brew bubble and froth!
You could also try finding objects to match other sounds like 'c' 'e' etc like we did.
Grown Ups:
This activity will help your child to hear and recognise initial sounds in words. You could develop this activity by sound talking a word such as d-o-g or sh-e-ll and see if your child can find the object and add to the pot.
