Class Pumpkin Display

You've heard of Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater, right? Well, I put my own spin on it. First I cut out a big pumpkin from orange poster board and then cut out a jack o' lantern face.

Then I taped yellow construction paper to the back of it.

I used yellow because black would have been too dark for what I was planning on doing. Besides, when you put a candle in a jack o' lantern, it glows yellowish, right? Anyway, I had taken a bunch of pictures of the kids in my class in different poses. Then I cut them out, carefully outlining them completely so there was no background, and I glued them inside the mouth, nose and eyes.

Some kids I asked to pretend like they were jumping out of a big pumpkin and others I had lie down on top of chairs with their heads hanging down.

And still others I had peeking out from behind something, like the bookshelf, and after cutting them out it looked like they were peeking out from inside the pumpkin.

Some kids posed in cute positions.

And some didn't want to do anything other than smile, which was fine. Then I added a green stem to the top of the pumpkin and hung it up in the hall with this poem:

In case you can't read it, it says:
Teacher, teacher, Preschool teacher,
Had a class of little creatures.
She put 'em in a pumpkin shell
And there she kept 'em very well.

Sorry about the bad angle. We have skinny hallways. I've done this pumpkin display a couple times in the past, and I also made a haunted house one year using this same technique. Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of it until after it had been stored in my basement for years and it got pretty destroyed. But here's a couple pictures of it. I just made a big haunted house on black paper, added windows and shutters and a door. Then I printed the kids' pictures in black and white so they'd be like ghosts. I glued the pictures in the windows.

See? I told you it got destroyed.

I also added some ghosts and pumpkins and cotton balls stretched out to look like cobwebs. And I had a sign in front of the house that said, "Beware of Children!" At the top of the house I wrote, "Trick or Treat?" It was very fun to make, so I think I will have to do this next year.

And the kids loved looking like ghosts!