Halloween Craftivities

For the last two weeks I’ve done some cute, simple Halloween crafts with my Preschoolers and Intellectual Disabilities rooms.

The first was a fun candy corn activity where we used a rather unconventional paint brush.  I saw this idea first here.  I used cotton balls held by clothes pins; I wrapped a rubber band around the bottom of the clothes pins so that the cotton balls wouldn’t fall out easily, especially for some of my fine motor challenged friends.

I knew this activity wouldn’t take too long, so I started by having the kids sort pictures of candy vs/ toys.  I just grabbed some from my set of Language Builder Picture Cards.  Yes, they’re pricey but I LOVE these things and use them all the time!

I started with a template and printed it on dark gray construction paper.

We talked about top/middle/bottom and worked on requesting tools and materials.

 

I let the teachers cut out the finished product and here’s how they looked!

Pretty cute and simple, huh???

 

My other Halloween craft (because this theme is lasting two weeks in Preschool) was a monster.  When I saw this pin, I knew I just had to try it!

I raided my Home Depot and got a bunch of wide, green paint samples.

 

I started my lesson by showing the students these adorable boxes that I got last year at the dollar store.  We talked about how one was big and one was little.

I had pre-cut strips of black construction paper using a pair of zigzag scissors.  Each strip was about an inch wide.

 

If you notice, the particular paint samples I chose have a picture of a bear in the top corner.  I asked student to make sure their bear was on top, then put the glue on the bear and slide across.  This is where we put the black hair.

Next, I dumped all of my googly eyes into my candy corn box and let the students pick whatever kind they wanted.  There’s a variety of colors and sizes, so tons of great language opportunities came of this!  I let them choose how many eyes their monster had: 1, 2, or 3.

The last feature that we gave our Frankensteins was a mouth.  I found these mouths in a free download here.  You have to sign up to get access to the download, but they’re super cute so it’s worth it!

I had the students request which mouth they wanted.  This worked on concepts of color, size, and shape (triangle teeth vs. rectangle teeth).

Last, I pointed out the “stitches” on my Frankenstein’s face (the box prop) and asked students if they wanted me to draw one for them.  Most said yes, so then I asked where they wanted it.  We modeled prepositions of locations during this part.

For older students, you could turn this into a describing or writing activity.  Ex: “My monster has 2 big, blue eyes, a big, blue mouth, and stitches.” Didn’t they turn out adorable?!  Each is so different and cute.  One student told the paraprofessional in the room, who was hanging these up as we finished, “But wait, I want to take her home!”  🙂

 

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