- Kick off the month of October by creating a Halloween bulletin board with the help of the students. Cover the bulletin board itself with a black background and a heading that says "Happy Halloween." Give each child a copy of a pumpkin outline printed onto orange paper and direct the students to cut out their pumpkins and decorate them with markers to make jack-o-lantern faces. Each child should write his name on a green stem and glue it to the top of the pumpkin. Then staple all of the pumpkins to the bulletin board.
- Although your classroom might not have much wall or floor space available for Halloween decorations, it should have plenty of ceiling space. Fill it with a herd of eerie ghosts. Make each ghost from a white balloon decorated with pieces of white crepe paper streamer taped to its bottom. Draw faces on the "ghosts" with permanent markers and tape a string to the top of each to hang the ghosts from the ceiling.
- Kids can create their own life-sized mummies out of supplies available at most schools. Working in pairs, direct one child to lie down on a large piece of paper in the desired pose and the other to trace her outline with a pencil. Have the children switch places and repeat. Kids can then cut out their mummies, and draw faces on and glue toilet paper "wrappings" to them. Before the children arrive at school on the day of Halloween, place each child's mummy in her chair so that the students are greeted by a classroom of mummies.
- Turn a corner of the classroom into a spooky graveyard with tombstones and cobwebs. Students can help with the tombstones by cutting out rectangular shapes with rounded tops from pieces of cardboard and painting them gray. For the names and epitaphs on the tombstones, use the names of historical figures the class has been learning about or fictional characters from books the class is reading. Prop the tombstones up in a corner of the room and drape fake cobwebs over them.
Bulletin Board
Hanging Ghosts
Mummies
Graveyard
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