More Halloween Crafts

Tissue Ghosts

(The boys enjoyed this one.  It was easy and fun.  They especially enjoyed decorating the ghosts.)

Things you need:

• 2 sheets of white tissue paper
• ribbon or string
• markers

Wad one sheet of tissue paper into a ball.  (Evan loved that.)  Place the tissue ball into the middle of the other sheet.  Pull the ends together, and tie the ribbon just over the ball, creating sort of a bag.  Flip it over, and decorate the head with a face.  If you want, decorate the rest of the ghost like Evan did.

Paper Pumpkins

(While I was looking for a template to make a pumpkin, I came across this site.  I was planning on cutting out the pumpkin in orange and cutting out eyes, nose, and mouth out of black or yellow.  I liked this idea better.  I let the boys color them however they wanted, and because my boys are young, I cut out the shapes and allowed them to glue them on.  The boys had a lot of fun with this.)

http://www.dltk-holidays.com/Halloween/mpumpkinfaces.htm

Halloween Crafts

As Evan is salivating over the idea of Halloween, we have started to make some Halloween crafts to get in the mood.  The boys enjoyed doing all three crafts, and they spend lots of time playing with their ghosts and bats.

 

Glue Ghost

 

(Keep on eye on the kids when they make this project, so they don’t end up making lots of little ghosts.  I got this craft from: (http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/Glueghost.shtml)

 

Things you need:

·      Glue (I used Elmer’s and plan to try some others

·      Wax paper

·      paper clip

·      googly eyes or small black paper circles (like from a whole punch)

·      string

 

Put a sheet of wax paper down.  Let the child squeeze the glue into a shape of a ghost.  (I made a classic Pacman ghost, and Evan got creative.)  Unfold the paper clip into a V and place at the top of the glue to make a hanger.  (I ended up cutting my paper clip with wire clippers and made three hangers.)  Place the googly eyes or black dots in the glue for eyes.  It takes about two days to have the ghost dry.  String the ghost of a necklace or a window decoration.

 

Flying Bats

Things you need:

·      Black construction paper

·      bat cookie cutter (optional)

·      scissors

·      string

·      hole punch

·      a stick

·      crayons, markers, stickers, googly eyes (anything you want to decorate the bat with)

 

Using the cookie cutter, draw the bat on black construction paper.  You can also just draw a bat or find a picture to trace on line.  Have the child decorate the bat.  Punch a hole in the bat’s wing.  Tie the string on the bat and on the stick.  Tada

Variation: Flying Ghost

Everything is the same except cut out a ghost instead of a bat.  The boys loved this!

 

Halloween Countdown Calendar

So Evan is dying for Halloween.  It doesn’t help that everywhere we go there’s a Halloween store.  He just can’t wait to be a witch, or a ghost, or a bat, or whatever it is that comes to him mind that day.  So I was reading dooce.com (a great blog, which I highly recommend if you haven’t seen it), and Heather posted about a Halloween countdown calender someone had toddler her about.  Well, no time like the present.  I will post this in crafts, but I figured parents out there might want to see this.  This will be a great activity for elementary school kids, but for toddlers, you will have to do most the work yourself.  I made the boys paper bracelets to keep them entertained. 

Materials you need:

• several pieces of construction paper (black and orange look nice)
• staples
• scissors
• Halloween picture (like a coloring Halloween sheet that you can have the kids color as you cut)

So allow the child color the Halloween picture and even the construction paper if you are inclined.  Fold the construction paper in thirds and then in half.  Using the folds as guides, cut the paper into strips.  Use the strips to make a chain, stapling the ends of each circle together.  Make as many links as there are days intil Halloween.  Staple the chain to the Halloween picture.  Now from the day you made the chain until Halloween, let the child tear off a link as a visual reminder to how far Halloween is away.

And yes, like Heather’s daughter, my son wanted to tear off all the links at once to have Halloween come sooner.  But every time, Evan asks for Halloween to be tomorrow, I point to the calender and tell him that when the links are gone, then it’ll be Halloween.