There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat Book Companion October PreK-2nd

About this resource

One theme, one week. Read the same silly, cumulative Halloween story every day at circle time — an old

lady swallows a bat, then a few other spooky-but-not-scary things, just for fun — then pull one simple

activity after the read-aloud each day: sort spooky Halloween things from everything else, count pieces of

candy, find the letter, put the swallowed-thing pictures in order, then build a craft of the silly old lady

and the bat she swallowed. Every student page has one short instruction with a picture, so a

paraprofessional can run the room from it too.

This week pairs with **There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat by Lucille Colandro** (or any silly

Halloween story you already have). Not affiliated with the author or publisher. You need your own copy of

the book; nothing from it is reproduced here — every picture in the file is our own drawing or a licensed

picture set, not the book's artwork, and this unit invents its own swallowed-item order rather than copying

the book's.

EVERYTHING INSIDE (57 pages)

• 1 Start Here week plan: what to do after the read-aloud each day, plus what else it practices
• 1 book-and-words page naming the read-aloud, an original circle-time chant ("One Spooky Snack," written

for this unit — no song or story text is reprinted), and the 9 circle-time vocabulary words

• 9 smartboard slides for whole-group circle time on a projector or interactive board: the cover art,

name the pictures, sort, count (3 slides), the letter hunt, the sequencing life skill, and the core word

• 9 circle-time vocabulary cards to cut out and use at the carpet (bat, cat, ghost, pumpkin, spider, owl,

bone, moon, candy)

• Day 1, Sort (spooky Halloween thing or not?), at 3 levels: Level 1 errorless matching, Level 2 the

standard two-group sort, Level 3 a third group added (spooky Halloween thing, something sweet, or a toy)

— 10 cut-and-glue pieces on every level

• Day 2, Count the candy, at 3 levels: Levels 1 and 2 count sets of 1 to 5 with a 5-piece numeral strip to

cut and glue; Level 3 counts sets of 6 to 10 and writes the number, no cutting

• Day 3, Letter B, at 3 levels: Level 1 glues 5 matching B's, Level 2 finds B among 10 look-alike letters,

Level 3 says 10 pictures aloud and glues the 5 that start with the /b/ sound

• Writing, at 3 levels: Level 1 traces the big letters, Level 2 traces letters and the word "bat," Level 3

writes the letters and the word independently on primary lines

• Day 4, a life-skill sequencing page ("What did she swallow first?"): 5 picture pieces (4 in order —

bat, ghost, spider, pumpkin — first/next/then/last, plus 1 that does not belong)

• Day 5, a book craft: color and cut a 6-piece scene (a big silly old lady with a round "tummy window," a

bat, a ghost, a pumpkin, a spider and a moon — every piece named in the page's own glue instruction, every

cut a straight dashed rectangle) and glue it into a night-porch scene, the bat glued right into her tummy

window

• 2 fine motor pages: a tracing-paths page (help the bat find the moon) and a cutting-practice page (4

strips, easiest first)

• 4 core-word pages for the word of the week, "silly": a big word card for the talker or core board, a

12-word find-and-circle grid (6 of the 12 are the target word), a bat to color, and 10 pumpkin/moon/candy

pieces to cut out and glue around it

• 1 "Who Did What This Week" data page (one row per student, a prompt-level code for each day — handy

for IEP notes and progress reports)

• 1 family letter to send home on Day 1
• 1 credits page (art and font licenses)
• Ink-saver twins of 19 picture-based student pages (the craft and pure-coloring pages are color-only)

in outline art for a photocopier, so the color pages above are optional, not required

Three Levels On Every Academic Task

Sort, count, letters and writing each come in three levels, marked with a small shape instead of a

number so children don't compare theirs to a neighbor's: a circle for starting (errorless matching), a

square for building (the standard task), a triangle for ready for more (a real step up — a third sort

group, counting 6 to 10 with writing, or beginning sounds).

Cutting Built For Small Hands

Every cutting page carries 5 or more pieces, lined up edge to edge so each cut is one straight line.

Pre-cut them yourself for students who are not cutting independently yet.

Color Or Ink-Saver

Print the color pages, or use the ink-saver twins at the back on a photocopier — most picture-based

student pages have both (the craft and pure-coloring pages are color-only by design).

Who This Is For

Any teacher starting a self-contained preschool or early childhood special education classroom who

wants a whole week of circle time, ready to pull and go: one silly Halloween theme, a different simple

activity every day.

What This Is, And What It Is Not

A print-and-go weekly theme unit built around a silly, made-up Halloween story — never a claim about any

real student's eating habits, and never a scary one: the bat, ghost and pumpkin are all drawn friendly, not

frightening. It is not a claim about any student's rate of progress, and it does not reproduce any book, its

text, or its artwork — only our own old lady, bat and Halloween-prop pieces are drawn here.