New free TouchChat template: Halloween

Six linked TouchChat boards for Halloween — eighteen costumes a child can claim with I’m a…, the walk from door to door, the candy, the friendly spooky things, and a whole board for saying when it has all become too much.

Most Halloween boards are a picture list: pumpkin, witch, ghost, candy. This one has those, and then it has the board that actually matters on the night.

Halloween is the most sensory-hostile evening of the year for a lot of the children this library is for. Masks. Strangers at doors. The dark. Doorbells. Sudden noise. A costume that itches. A child who can name a witch but cannot say too loud, too dark, take it off, stay with me or I want to go home has a picture list, not a way to take part. So the Feelings board carries exactly those words — and the point of them is not to cut the evening short. It is that a child who can say when something is wrong at the third house can usually manage the fourth.

The Costumes board is built around one sentence. I’m a… sits in the first cell, and the eighteen costumes after it are pictures of a child wearing the thing, not pictures of the thing — because “I’m a witch” is a sentence about the child. The same six words appear again on Spooky Things as the creature itself, so a child can talk about a bat and about being a bat, and never has to use one button for both.

And on the Candy board: I can’t eat that. Halloween candy is the one food of the year that arrives unlabelled, in the dark, from strangers. A child with an allergy needs a button for that more than they need lollipop.

What’s on the boards

• Halloween — The main board — boo, knock knock, dress up, pumpkin, spooky, scary, funny, happy, scared, friend, love, thank you, please, more, help, look, stop, walk, eat, share, house, outside and all done, with five picture buttons opening the Costumes, Trick or Treat, Candy, Spooky Things and Feelings boards.
• Costumes — I’m a… in the first cell, then eighteen costumes as a child wearing each one: witch, ghost, skeleton, vampire, superhero, princess, pirate, dinosaur, cat, spider, bat, robot, firefighter, astronaut, unicorn, fairy, dragon and bee. Then costume, mask, cape, look at me, pretend, cute, scary, funny and happy.
• Trick or Treat — The walk itself — trick or treat, knock knock, doorbell, door, my bag, flashlight, hold my hand, night and happy Halloween, with hello, goodbye, thank you, please, more, walk, wait, neighbor, full, empty, home, tired, scared and help.
• Candy — candy, lollipop, candy corn, gummy bears, chocolate, sour, yummy, trade, too much, I can’t eat that, tummy ache and save it for later, with eat, share, more, please, thank you, full, empty, yes and no.
• Spooky Things — The creatures themselves, drawn friendly rather than frightening — jack-o-lantern, ghost, witch, skeleton, bat, spider, spider web, black cat, haunted house, gravestone, owl and full moon, with boo, it’s pretend, not scary, monster, scary, brave and hide.
• Feelings — The board this pack was built for — too scary, too loud, too dark, take it off, I want to go home, stay with me, I need a break, safe, it’s pretend and all done, with scared, nervous, brave, happy, excited, funny, love, okay, tired, help and stop.

It is built for WordPower 60 on TouchChat. That is the one thing worth checking before you download: a page laid out for one grid size will not fit another. In TouchChat you can see which vocabulary is in use under Menu → Vocab → Choose Vocab.

It is free, like everything in our library. Get the Halloween template for TouchChat — or browse the whole free library.

Need something we do not have yet? Tell us what to build. Requests from families are where most of these come from.