I was so excited this year to do a Hocus Pocus theme day in the classroom. I’ve always had a soft spot for Hocus Pocus, and with the release of the 2nd movie this year, I knew I wanted to add some Hocus Pocus fun into the classroom. And once I started sharing a peek into some of the activities we did, lots of educators were asking how I did it, what I used and if I can send them the resources too. So, I thought I would put together a blog post and upload them all for you!
Lesson Plan for the Day
Whenever I am doing a theme day, I like to set up a lesson plan for the day so that I can make sure I have the right amount of activities.. staff.. students etc. And that I’m covering as many areas of learning as possible by providing some fun and engaging themed activities.
I did this by splitting up the day into different blocks and then writing down a list of different activities I thought would be fun. Then, I just slotted them into the day. It ended up looking like the following;
(Note: I’ve gone more in depth in the activities further down in the blog post and provided freebies for you to download!)
9:00 – 9:30: Usual arrival, breakfast and morning greeting.
9:30 – 10:00: We watched some clips of Hocus Pocus on Youtube. Then we used these fun witchy themed conversation starter cards.
10:00 – 10:25: Students flitted between free play (I had witch themed sensory bins set up as an option) and sitting down to complete a craft with students. We made these footprint witches – and they turned out so good!
10:25 – 11:00: Snack and outdoor break.
11:00 – 11:30: Cooking. We made Hocus Pocus Book brownies!
11:30 – 12:00: Making Witch Slime!
12:00 – 1:00: Lunch and outdoor play.
1:00 – 1:30: Afternoon greeting. ‘That’s Not My Witch’ reading and sensory story.
1:30 – 3:00: Center rotations and free play. Centers included; witch writing prompt, sensory bins, making witch slime, witch cauldron sun-catcher craft and witch’s spells.
3:00: Home time routine.
We also had photo opportunities through the day and there were coloring pages etc. made available to students as well if they wanted to do them. Overall, it was such a fun day. My students loved rotating through all the different activities.. And of course we let all parents and staff know in advance so that everyone could dress up if they wanted to.. And so many did!
(I purchased my Hocus Pocus costume and wig off Amazon. Affiliate links.)
So now that I’ve shared the overview of the day, let’s talk more about the activities and get you some free downloads..
Hocus Pocus YouTube Links
Here are some of the links that I rotated through;
Witchy Conversation Starter Cards
I was trying to think of a fun way to introduce Hocus Pocus into our morning meetings. And conversation cards always go down so well with my students.. That I figured some witch themed ones might be fun! And they went down a treat.. You can download them here for free. We took it in turns asking students and staff different questions. It was an activity that lasted even longer than I expected to! (If you want to go up a level, we would select a student or member of staff to sit on the ‘witch’s chair’ and wear the witch’s hat and ask the question on the card to others.
Witch Themed Sensory Bins
I wanted to have some witch themed sensory bins on offer for my students through the day. Especially when free play was going on, as I know my students love to explore new sensory bins. I didn’t add any resources as such to them, but I’ve attached pictures below of what I put in them for you to get an idea. I like to move it to a darker area of the class when I’m doing Halloween themed sensory bins and adding some light up objects to make it a little creepier!
Footprint Witches
We like to do crafts in our classroom.. And we will often do handprint painting. But it’s not very often that we paint out feet.. That all changed today though! When we had our students stamp their feet to make the 3 witches. They looked so good when finished! You can either paint on the hairstyles or print out the hairstyles, cut and stick them on top of the footprints.
Hocus Pocus Book Brownies
Brownies are always a hit with my students.. And if you don’t have an oven, it’s actually really easy to be able to buy some ready made brownies to decorate! I’ve included a picture below of our finished brownies with the way that we decorated them along with a walkthrough for you to download and use with your students so they can visually follow instructions of how to make their own Book brownies! Download the visual recipes free here.
Making Witch Slime!
I am not the best at making slime, but thankfully I know that Zimpli Kids always come up trumps.. So we made some witch slime using their purple glitter slime baff (affiliate link) and then put it in mini cauldrons for our students to play with and use.
That’s Not My Witch!
There weren’t really many options for choosing picture books that went well with this theme.. But we hadn’t long got the ‘That’s Not My Witch…’ book and I thought it was perfect to use as part of our afternoon greeting and to explore different senses and use as part of a sensory story.. We do love our sensory stories! You can find the script here to download for free. (I include sensory story scripts every month a part of my VIP membership too! Grab a 3 day free trial here.)
Download ‘Room on the Broom’ sensory story script here for free. And download the ‘That’s Not My Witch’ sensory story script here for free.
Center Rotation
For the afternoon we did a lot of center rotations and I’m going to discuss each of them a little more in-depth below with some freebies for you to download and use too.
Witch Writing Prompt
My students loved pretending to be witches and writing down what spell they would cast! We printed out ‘clue’ cards as well so that students had ideas of what types of spells they could use and the ingredients they could put inside as well. Download for free here.
Sensory Bins
I had the sensory bins set up as an official center this time in the afternoon for students to rotate between and have turns playing in. See photos above.
Making Witch Slime
We had done this earlier on in the day but I knew that students wouldn’t have all been able to do it in such a short amount of time so I set up the slime as a separate station again. Students were able to make slime – or play with the already made slime – if they wanted.
Witch Cauldron Sun-Catcher
We love to make sun catcher crafts all year long to have on display in our windows. So it only felt right to have them make some witch themed ones as part of our Hocus Pocus theme day! I’ve included a template below for you and a photo of what they looked like finished.
All we do it cut out the middle of the cauldron and stick down on a laminating sheet. Have students cut up crepe paper and stick it inside. Pop through the laminator, cut out and put up on display on the window! We did add in some glitter for some witch magic too.
Download the template for free here.
Witch Spells
This was probably our most popular center. We provided students with a cauldron and some cards for items to put into the cauldron to make spells. We had witch cloaks and hats set up for students to wear as well to really give them that witchy feel! We also put down blank spell cards for students to make up their own spells. When it was finished, we laminated the spell cards, stapled them with the front cover and kept them to look back on! Download it for free here.
Other Activities
I ran out of time to do any more activities but if you’re looking to extend it over a few days or a week, some of the other ideas that I had brainstormed were;
- Broomstick Shop Dramatic Play Area
- Make Witch Hat Cupcakes
- Make Your Own Witch Hat
- Wand Making Craft
- Witch’s Tea Party
- Fizzing Cauldron’s Science Experiment
- Make a Class Book of ‘That’s Not My Witch’ – which I may get around to doing this another day and making a new blog post about it!
So that was how our Hocus Pocus theme day in the classroom looked. Don’t forget to click the links throughout this blog post to download your freebies. And be sure to tag me on social media @teachingautism or leave a comment below if you did a Hocus Pocus theme day too!
Helpful Links
P.S. Have you signed up for a 3 day free trial of our VIP membership yet? If not, click here to do it now and go and get access to a huge range of resources, templates, crafts and more for free.
Nikki
