I always start out a new unit with poems, chants, fingerplays, and songs.  Some of these are put into charts on the wall for the kids to read at a later time.  I also write out all poems onto paper and post those on a wall by the charts.  Luckily, my whole wall is corkboard, so I just stick the poems in the wall.  I have a whole collection of pencils with assorted erasers to fit various themes and seasons...pumpkin erasers for halloween, heart erasers for February, flower erasers for spring, etc.  I NEVER sharpen these pencils.  These are used for pointing at words in big books, poems, charts, etc.  They are a inexpensive way to  get the kids involved in reading.

Poems, songs, and fingerplays

I'm a mean old witch with a hat.  And I ride on my broom with my cat.  My shoes are pointed and my chin is too.  And you better watch out, or I might scare you!  I'm a mean old witch with a hat.     BOO!!!

Pumpkin, pumpkin growing on a vine, let me tell you...you look fine.
First a seed and then a sprout.  Now a flower's growing out.  Now the pumpkin's green and small.  Then it's orange in the fall.

Pumpkin, pumpkin
sitting on a wall.
Pumpkin, pumpkin
tip and fall.
Pumpkin, pumpkin
rolling down the street,
Pumpkin, pumpkin
good to eat.

This one is very simple, but it really gives the kids confidence in their reading ability when they can recognize the words.

This is Jack O ' Happy.

This is Jack O' Sad.

This is Jack O'Sleepy.

This is Jack O' Mad.

Jack has burst in pieces small.

In pumpkin pie, he's best of all.

This poem is done in one of our charts, and we also act it out using pumpkin faces glued onto craft sticks.  I also have each child make an individual book to take home and "read" to their families.

I see a ghost!

I see a bat!

I see a pumpkin!

I see a cat!

BOO!!!

Instead of writing the words ghost, bat, pumpkin and cat, I use pictures!  We also talk about exclamation points.  This is also done as a book and in our chart.

Fun thing to do!!
At Halloween time, I use long, creepy "martian" fingers as pointers.  The kids love it, and they each get one to keep.

We always read the book PUMPKIN, PUMPKIN by Jeanne Titherington to start our unit.  It has beautiful pictures and simple text.  The pictures are great for showing the sequence of how a pumpkin grows.  A great BIG BOOK for showing how a pumpkin grows is GROWING PUMPKINS by Melvin Berger.  That book has photos unstead of drawings.  After learning how a pumpkin grows, we do a really neat pumpkin activity.  Each child gets a paper plate and colors it orange.  Add a stem, and a long piece of green yarn.  Staple on a crumpled piece of tissue or napkin for the blossom, color a leaf and a seed and you get...

If you staple 1/2 a paper plate to the back, you can store the pieces in it.

Another great book we LOVE to act out is THE LITTLE OLD LADY WHO WAS NOT AFRAID OF ANYTHING by Linda Williams.  After we are very familiar with the story, I bring in props for acting out.  My son's old clothes from when he was a toddler are a super size for this. Each child gets the correct prop and I see if they can line themselves up in the correct order...if not, we all help.,Then the fun begins.  The kids who do not have a piece of clothing help me read the book and say the parts.  The kids who have the clothes wave them and wiggle them and shake them at the appropriate times.  For the scary pumpkin head, I just use a trick or treat plastic pumpkin.  I leave all the props in my housekeeping area for additional acting at free time.(For those of you unfamiliar with the story, it is about a lady walking through the woods who gets followed by a bunch of clothes that do movements.  The clothes do not scare her, but they do end up being a scarecrow in her garden.  It is excellent for repetitive phrases.)

I use 2 great books to introduce Halloween math concepts to the kids.  One is HARRIET'S HALLOWEEN CANDY by Nancy Carlson, and the other is OUR PUMPKIN by Renee Keeler.Harriet loves her candy and is constantly counting it and sorting it.  I ask the kids to bring in 3-5 pieces of their own candy, and we put it all together on a sheet.  We group it in various ways using the ideas I get from the kids.  I do a couple at the beginning to give them ideas...we sort by chocolate-no chocolate...nuts-no nuts...hard-not hard...you get the idea.  I always bring in lots of my son's candy so we have lots to group.  We also graph our favorites, and we have also graphed YUCKY candy.  I save some of the wrappers and put them in the writing center for the kids to copy words and design their own candy bars.

OUR PUMPKIN is a good book if you plan to bring in a real pumpkin and measure it, weigh it, count the seeds, etc.  It shows photos of a class doing the same things! It is put out by Creative Teaching Press.

Some of the centers I do in October are as follows.  At the Discovery/Science Center I try to do a lot of sensory activities.  I buried Halloween shaped erasers in orange, plastic "flakes" that I bought at a Kindergarten conference.  If you do not have these "flakes", you could bury them in birdseed or cracked corn (available at feed stores.)  I have also buried them in sunflower seeds.  After the kids find them, they group the erasers and also make pattens with them.
Another favorite of is playing with pumpkin play-doh.  It smells great and has a nice texture.  I put out the play-doh with seasonal cookie cutters, rollers, and dull, plastic knives.  I also put out cookie sheets that I got at the dollar store for them to "bake" the cookies.  I have included the recipe for you.

                                                                    Pumpkin Pie Play-doh

                      5 1/2 cups flour                           1 container (1 1/2 oz. pumpkin
                         2 cups salt                                                                      pie spice)
                        8 teaspoons cream of tartar      orange food coloring
                       3/4 cup oil                                    4 cups water

Mix all of the ingredients together.  Cook and stir over medium heat until  all lumps are gone.  Knead the dough on a floured surface until smooth.  Store in an airtight container.  (This recipe came from Mailbox magazine, and it's great!)

                                               Guessing Jar  Fun

In my Discovery Center, I have a Guessing Jar that I change every week.  The jar is always plastic, but the size changes through the year.  I use peanut butter jars, plastic containers from warehouse clubs, plastic containers from a candy outlet, (another good place to get different sized containers is a concession stand.)  At the beginning of the year, I talk about the rules for the jar...ONLY I CAN OPEN IT!  That is the most important rule.  The kids can pick it up, turn it upside down, basically do anything but open it.  There is always something new in it on Monday, and during the week, each child has to go to the jar and try to figure out how many "things" are inside.  On Friday, we all get together on the rug and I open up the jar.  I dump the items into the lid of the jar or on a plate, and then we count.  I try to make the items something that the children can keep, but not always.

                                                             October Guessing Jar Items
Plastic spider rings                    popsicle sticks with small spiders glued on
candy pumpkins                          (then the kids use those as pointers)
candy corn                                     small plastic skeletons  (we read the book Dem Bones
Halloween colored m&m's         and they sing the song along with the skeletons)
plastic flies                                    orange and black unifix cubes (kids do not keep those)
Halloween shaped erasers         small plastic pumpkins bought at the dollar store

Here are some math activities that the children enjoy during October. 
I cut out fall colored strips of construction paper and laminate them.  The lenghths you want depend on the abilitiy of your students. The width is about the width of masking tape.  The children are given the strips and a variety of manipulatives to measure them.  They use candy corn, candy pumpkins, halloween erasers, fall colored m&m's, etc. 
Another activity...I make candy corn in different sizes out of construction paper.  I laminate these and give them to the kids along with a bag of real candy corn.  The kids fill up the construction paper candy with real candy to measure area.  I range the paper corn from sizes that only fit 4 pieces of candy all the way up to corn that fits 50 pieces.  Again, this depends on the ability level of your kids.  It's always nice to have really easy things and more challenging.
I have a strict rule that the kids NEVER eat the candy we use at centers.  If we use candy as a manipulative, I always have extra candy for the end of centers for kids who want it.