Make October Exciting with The Chocolate Chip Ghost

This Chocolate Chip Ghost unit will have your students engaged and excited for Halloween! My students love the friendly, non-spooky, and predictable nature of this adorable story.

The Chocolate Chip Ghost

We’ve been gearing up for Halloween with one of my favorite units about the 5 Little Pumpkins. I can’t wait to share how this next unit went over with my students!

Have you ever heard of The Chocolate Chip Ghost? It is the sweetest story passed down by preschool teachers using flannel boards. Basically the mommy ghost heads to the store for more vanilla ice cream and white milk. She warns the ghosts not to eat anything while she is gone. The first little ghost eats grapes causing her to turn purple. I bet you can guess what happens to the 5th little ghost!

Books have been created based on this story but you don’t need one for this unit. I’ve included my own retelling that you will be able to read aloud.

My children love predicting what will happen to the second, third, fourth, and fifth ghosts after hearing what happens to the first one!

Reading The Chocolate Chip Ghost

You can read the story using this unique paper towel retell craft. I always include one in color for you to use as a sample and one in black and white in case your students would like to make one.

You begin with all of the ghosts pulled to the white side. As you retell the story, you twist the pieces to the food picture before turning it to the color side. It works out perfectly!

Recently I asked my students to lay on their bellies while I used the house retell craft to tell the story.

This unconventional way of telling the story was so fun!

As you can see, the back of the house has a pocket to store all of your pieces. I begin with the white ghosts and flip them over to their color side when they eat the corresponding food.

My students always love creating their own house craft.

Lots of parents have told me how much they enjoyed hearing their children retell the story at home!

I even hear students going over the sequence of events during recess!

Making Masks

Because it’s such a simple story, it’s perfect for working on identifying the characters, setting, and events.

Do you use masks to retell stories? We love to color these, cut them out, and attach them to popsicle sticks. Quick hack for your teacher sample: Make a pocket on the back of the mask to slide the craft stick or ruler into. Then you can slide it out and pack it away easily for the next year!

Creating Headbands

The kids also look so cute wearing these headbands down the hall. So simple, especially if you just staple them to sentence strips.

Word Wall Cards

I think these word wall cards are so helpful when my students are learning to write! Do you use word wall cards in your classroom? I’d love to know!

Color Words

This story is ideal for working on color word recognition and spelling. There are many sheets included so students can practice sight words, such as “is” or “see” while also practicing color words and writing sentences.

You can see some examples of the sheets we used in the thumbnail below.

I love the sheet in the middle. Students practice writing “see” and a color word. Then they color the ghost accordingly. This is such a nice way to build confidence in writing sentences. The kids love that all of their papers look different depending on what color they chose.

Hallway Display

If you look at the last image, you will see the simple page I use to display a painting and writing craft in the hallway. Students choose a food that their ghost might eat, write it on the line, and write what color it would change their ghost into.

Then they paint their ghosts the correct color using water paints. It’s such a simple way to get painting practice in!

After they dry, the kids cut out their ghosts and add them to a piece of black paper. Aren’t these adorable?

I love the BROCCOLI one!

When they are assembled they look PERFECT in the hallway. This is EXACTLY what kindergarten students should be working on at this time of year. If you have first or second grade students, a different writing page included in the packet would work for you.

I think this would be great for preschool too with a little more guidance!

Chocolate Chip Ghost STEM

Have you been waiting to read about the STEM project? It’s probably my students’ favorite part of the week.

The planning and reflection sheets are so important and included in the product. I speak at a lot of conferences about STEM and this is something I repeatedly hear from people who have struggled to implement STEM in their classrooms.

Give your students time to think first and THEN plan before you even start to pass out materials.

The set-up for this one is super simple and it is seriously one of the most popular projects of the year. You can find more info in the resource!

I love this photo that caught their tower in the middle of tumbling down!

This one was really tall!

With parent permission, I’ll share this photo of these two. After I took these photos I went back and laughed so hard about all of the facial expressions this little boy had when they were trying to build their tower!

What do you think about this unit? Would your kids love it as much as mine do? The image below shows the class and individual books and math worksheets that I didn’t even get to tell you about!