Everyday Teaching Autism Resources

Halloween is around the corner! Happy Fall & October!

When we approach the month of October, I am super excited to share read-aloud books with my students- we can read them all day and every day.

Halloween is fun for all ages and abilities. It got a lot of themes, words, books, games, and arts and crafts activities that we can share in a social skills group or therapy group, and one on one setting. I love to implement holiday-themed activities into our therapy sessions or circle time activities.

As you can imagine, special holiday-themed activities easily attract kids’ attention and help them to stay engaged. One way you can do this is to work on basic fine motor skills using Halloween-themed fine motor skills worksheets. Often our students with autism struggle with manipulating different learning tools, coloring, or writing. Start with simple worksheets to work on cutting, drawing lines/shapes, and cutting and paste activities will help increase their fine motor skills tremendously in the most fun and engaging ways.

Also, incorporating fun and exciting arts and crafts in the social skills group would be a great way to build expressive vocabulary and have fun together. Some fun Halloween activities for children with autism are:

1. Carve a pumpkin and sensory exploration inside the pumpkin
   
2. Create a skeleton with q-tips or paper
   
3. Color, decorate the pumpkin with vibrant colors
   
4. Make a pumpkin with ripped construction paper and a paper plate
   
5. Melt the crayons and decorate the pumpkin with a blow dryer (you will need a noise-canceling headphone for children who are sensitive to noise)
   
6. Cut out ghosts and let them hang in the room