• The colors orange and black used at Halloween are reminders that Halloween was once a harvest festival as well as a festival of the dead. Orange represents strength and endurance, and, in most countries, black is the color for death .
  • People of all religions have special days dedicated to the dead. 
  • Bats were linked to witches from early pictures showing the witches worshiping a horned figure that sometimes had bat wings. Bat blood was also an ingredient used in one of their ointments, and bat entrails and wings went into witches' brew.
  • In Ancient Rome owls were considered harbingers of evil, while in Greece they were sacred. Europeans of the Middle Ages feared the glassy stare and eerie call of the owl, as the Romans had. The screech owl in particular made them think of witches.

from Witches, Pumpkins, and Grinning Ghosts

  • Halloween candy sales average about two billion dollars annually in the United States
  • Halloween is the second most commercially successful holiday with Christmas being first.


  • Dancing Demons--The Chinese tell stories about a kind of zombie called a hopping ghost which is basically an evil spirit occupying a dead body. Because the joints are stiff, the zombie has  to hop to get around and can't move very fast. This ghost is featured  in many Chinese films.  
  • The ancient Egyptians weren't the only ones who mummified their dead. The native peoples of Peru, the Philippines, and the Canary Islands also preserved bodies by mummification. The oldest mummies are those of the Chinchorra people of Peru.

From Everything Kids' Monsters Book           

  • Around 1.5 billion pounds of pumpkins are grown and sold every year. The majority of pumpkins are sold for Halloween in the United States, but they are also sold to local distributors and national retailers to be used as both food and decoration. Most of the pumpkins grown come out of Illinois and are harvested in early fall.


Journal Writing Ideas--Submission Form

Lizard tongues, crows feet, bat wings and eyes of newt...drink this potion and you won't be cute! 

From Kathy

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Try this: How many words can you make from the  word Halloween? Superstitious? Hobgoblin?