Frankenstein's Monster Craft

I got this next idea from A Cupcake for the Teacher. First I showed the kids some pictures of Dr. Frankenstein and his monster and told them briefly about it. Then they did the craft. I cut out some green rectangles with rounded corners and the kids drew faces on them. I reminded them to leave room at the top for hair.

I also cut green strips and folded them accordion-style. Those were the legs. The kids glued them to the bottom of the rectangle and then attached black shoes to the ends.

I even cut out little black rectangles for the eyebrows!

For the hair, the kids just used black paint. Some of them drew in the hair first, others didn't.

I didn't have any gray construction paper for the bolts, so I used silver glitter. It was all I could think of, but I like the way it turned out. And the kids also used a red marker to make stitches. (I wanted to use red puffy paint, but I couldn't find any at my center.)

The expressions on these monsters are awesome!

They are hanging from our ceiling with our paper plate ghosts!

Now are you ready for a super old photo? I made a huge Frankenstein monster with my very first Pre-K class. I hung it up so it looked like it was walking out of our wall, stepping over the gravestone of Dr. Frankenstein. Here is my scanned-in photo. Yes, scanned.

I had the kids pose with a frightened face. It was so cute! I never planned on it getting this big. It all started with just the monster's head, made from newspaper, stuffed, and painted green. (I got the idea from some website, but it was many, many years ago and I can't find it now.) The kids all helped with the face.

(Oh, how I wish I had a digital camera all those years ago!) After we made the head I thought we just had to give him a body. So using the same technique as the head, I stapled more newspapers together into the shape of a jacket and pant leg, stuffed them with more newspaper, and let the kids paint them. They even splattered red paint on the jacket so it looked like blood! I only made one leg because the other would be covered up by the gravestone. The shoe is made out of a box. And everything is held up with string hanging from the ceiling! Man, what a lot of work that was!

But it gave me some great memories!



HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Another Witch Craft

Last week I shared with you our adorable witch legs. Today, we made witch faces! I copied this idea from I {Heart} Crafty Things. Please go there for the tutorial. But I did do a few things differently. Things I wish I hadn't. I should have just copied Rachel's craft completely. Oh well, live and learn. I thought it would be fun if the kids painted the witch faces instead of using colored construction paper. So last week they painted a white piece of paper. They could either use yellow and blue paint to make green, or blue and red paint to make purple.

Well, the green turned out so gross. No matter how much yellow we added. So then I decided to let them mix green paint with yellow paint. Much better.

They spread it out as much as they could and we let them dry. I also flattened them for a few days. Then I cut off one section to make the nose for them. I put the noses aside for later. With the remaining piece of paper, they drew a circle on the back and cut it out.

Then they glued on the hair, of which I had about 20 times too much.

See Rachel's blog to find out the genius way to make the hair! After the kids finished, I added the noses, the same way Rachel did. If the kids cut small faces, I just made their noses a bit smaller. These turned out really cute. I love all the expressions on the faces! (My camera's settings were all messed up for this and I didn't have time to figure it out. I did the best I could, but please excuse the poor photo quality!)

Next time I will just use construction paper, because the mixing of the paint didn't really work. The purple ended up drying as reds and blues and it made the witches look downright frightening!

But the kids enjoyed making them and love to see them on the wall, so I guess it's not so bad.

Yummy Mummies

I thought I had posted about this craft last year, but I can't find it so I guess I didn't. I only have a few pictures, but it should be easy enough to figure out. First I taped Tootsie Pops to plastic spoons.

Then the kids wrapped toilet paper around the spoon and sucker. (I taped the paper to the spoon to help them get started.)

I also taped the end of the last piece so it wouldn't come undone. Then the kids used a marker to make eyes on the front where the sucker is. And that's how we made yummy mummies!

And speaking of mummies, we went to a pumpkin patch on Friday and not only did each kid get to take a pumpkin home, but we also picked one for our classroom. We decorated it as a mummy, by wrapping it in toilet paper and using Mr. Potato Head arms. I also used glue dots to attach eyeball ping pong balls that I had. We named her Mumma-Mia, or Mia for short.

She now sits in a chair by our classroom door and greets visitors!

I've done a mummy pumpkin like this in the past, along with an M&M guy and an owl. See those here.

YAH: Mummy Door and Pumpkin Display

I've seen a few mummy doors around blogland (the first one I saw was at Honey and Fitz) and wanted to try my own. See, this summer we got a new front door and I painted it Buttercup yellow. It's perfect for spring and summer, but it doesn't exactly scream Halloween. I thought turning the door into a mummy was a good way to cover up the yellow. So a few weeks ago I bought a couple rolls of white crepe paper streamers. They sat in the bag until this past week. Finally I decided to get to work on it. And it took a long time. I quit after 45 minutes and thought I'd finish up the next day. Well, the next morning I opened the door to a bunch of sagging streamers.

I read about this happening to Sarah's mummy door on Thrifty Decor Chick, but I was hoping because I had a storm door, it wouldn't happen to mine. I was ready to pull it all off, but my husband said it looked kind of cool so I left it. When I came home from work that evening, I finished wrapping the door. Because I knew it would sag, I didn't bother covering up every inch of the yellow door.

I waited to put the eyes on till the next day, so I would know what parts drooped. To change it up from the other mummy doors out there, I made my eyes from neon green paper. They really stand out and can be seen from the street.

I only wish they could glow in the dark!

So that's my mummy door. I like it, but will probably never do it again. I tried to get a picture from outside, but the storm door doesn't allow me to take great pictures of it.

I put a black light in my front porch light, hoping it would make the mummy glow at night, but it doesn't. Boo.
I also finished up my pumpkin porch display. I usually use a big hay bale (seen in this post), but for Christmas I received a cedar planter that my brother made and I used it on my porch this summer.

So I decided to work with that. My husband cut a board (two, actually) that could sit across the top.

I bought a small bag of hay from a craft store to cover the top. Then I shined up my pumpkins using a clear spray and arranged them how I wanted them. I also turned one into a ghost using white spray paint and black acrylic paint.

When Halloween is over, I just remove the ghost and keep the pumpkins there until Thanksgiving!

Witch Legs Craft

I saw this SUPER CUTE craft on flickr by artsy_T. I think I ended up there from a google search awhile ago. Please check them out. They will make you smile! Her 5th grade class made them, but I knew I'd be able to do it with my 4-year-olds. I think her kids cut everything themselves, so to simplify it I cut out the legs, shoes and skirts. I gave the kids the option of cutting their own skirts and many wanted to, but when it came time to make the craft, they just used my pre-cut skirts. The skirts I cut free-hand, making a few different ones. And the shoes I drew myself. I was planning on making a few, but ended up just using one kind. For the tights, I used a paper cutter and made 2-inch strips from neon paper. And then I took a few of those strips and cut them into 1/2-inch strips for the stripes. The kids first glued the stripes onto the tights.

Then they glued them to a big piece of construction paper, after drawing a black line across the page to separate the wall from the floor. And then they glued on the shoes.

Finally they glued on the skirt.

If it stuck up over the top of the page, which most did, I just trimmed it off. To finish the project, they could draw a mouse hole and a spider coming down from a thread of silk. I wasn't planning on having them do this, but artsy_T's had them and it was so darn cute. Her kids also used lace to trim their skirts and shoes, but I didn't have any. I think they still look completely adorable and couldn't resist taking a picture of each and every one for you! Don't worry, I had a very small class today.

 (See the "invisible spider" above?)

Here they are displayed outside our classroom door.

Don't you just love them?

Bats

I was visiting a wonderful blog, Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas, and I was inspired by some bat art she did with her class. I immediately knew I wanted to try something similar with mine. I found a big bat sponge among our art supplies at my center.

Because I only had one, only one child at a time could do the art project. But that's okay. I had plenty of other activities out to keep the kids busy. The bat sponge was placed on a black piece of construction paper. I put some white tempera paint in a spray bottle and added water. The kids sprayed the paint onto their paper, covering the bat as well.

It was a very thick sponge, so we made sure to spray from all sides. Then I took the sponge off and the kids used a Q-tip to paint eyes on the bat.

We used glow-in-the-dark paint.

These turned out SO COOL! I love them! The white dried to almost a light gray, but that's OK. It was like a bat swooping through the air on a foggy night!

And check out this 4-eyed bat:

When they were dry, we went into the bathroom, "charged" our bats, turned the lights off and saw them glow! It was fun!