Halloween Display

Today I want to share with you one of my most favorite halloween displays of my class. I am so proud of myself for putting this together. I did this many years ago when I had a really small class. It's based on the book Inside a House That is Haunted by Alyssa Satin Capucilli.

I had each child dress up as a different character from the book and then took pictures of them. Then I used those pictures and made a huge story. I'll show you the display and then I'll explain it in more detail.

You can click on that picture to see a larger version and hopefully be able to read it, but in case you can't here is what it says:

Here is the [witch] that knocked on the door that startled the [spider] that dropped to the floor that frightened the [ghost] who awoke and cried "BOO!" surprising the [cat] that jumped and screeched, "MEW!" that shook up the [bats] that swooped through the air and jolted the [owl] that called, "Who-Who's there?" that spooked the [mummy] who ran with a shriek rattling the [skeleton] who moved with a creak that woke the monster who stomped on huge feet, threw open the door and heard, "TRICK OR TREAT!" inside a house that is haunted.

Now the book itself has pictures of the mummy, spider, skeleton, and so forth, instead of the words.

So I kept that same idea. The only thing I changed was that there was no witch. It starts with "Here is the hand that knocked on the door" but because I wanted all of my kids' faces in the display, I changed hand to witch. Now for the costumes.
For the witch I brought in a witch hat (from Party City) and a big black shirt (worn by many of the kids) and she held onto a broom stick.

The ghost wore a white sheet, but I kept his face visible.

The mummy was wrapped in toilet paper and the monster was wearing a paper grocery bag over his head. It was painted green and black with some scars on it, and a hole was cut out for the child's face.

The cat was wearing the big black shirt and a cat mask that had whiskers (also from Party City). All of these things that I got from Party City were very cheap and I still find uses for them to this day, so it wasn't a waste of money.

The spider was wearing the big black shirt and a big spider on his head. It was a decoration from Party City.

The bats were wearing big black shirts, of course, and vampire fangs, and ears which I made out of a girl's headband and construction paper. The wings were made out of black butcher paper. I actually took their pictures separately (so I only needed to make one pair of wings and ears) and then overlapped them when I glued them on.

The owl was also wearing a paper grocery bag with a hole cut out for the face. I used torn pieces of construction paper (a couple different shades of brown) and glued them on one by one. And then of course I made the feather tufts (not ears!) on top of the head. I wish I didn't have to blur this little boy's face because his expression was so cute! It really looked like he was saying, "Hoot!" And the skeleton was wearing my nephew's skeleton costume. Simple!

As you can see, I cut out the pictures and put them on orange paper, and cut them out again. The words I printed on my computer and cut up into strips. I glued everything to two black foam boards that were taped together to make it look like a huge storybook.

Oooh, I just love it!