10.02.2012

DIY Halloween Classroom Decor

It's October now which means I can officially start feeling in the Halloween/Fall mood!

Halloween in Korea was so fun! The school was completely into Halloween and I had lots of resources (i.e. unlimited construction paper and a printer, not really unlimited to American standards) at my finger tips! Our school even held a classroom decoration contest and I won! I love decorating and found it so relaxing sitting in front of a chick flick cutting out spiders at night. :) 

I love Halloween. I don't really get into the "scary" stuff but love the holiday for all the fun stuff! Like googly eyed crafts, carving pumpkins, dressing up and of course, trick or treating. 

Hope you can take some 'DIY with paper' ideas from my old classroom for you classroom, home or to do with your kids. 
 The back wall was a giant bulletin board, perfect for creating a panoramic Halloween scene. 
 At the front of the classroom, I made giant spiders with the kids' faces as the spiders' heads. The kids loved them and couldn't wait to take them home after Halloween. For the body and legs, I just drew an outline and traced and cut each section of the spider. 
For the color on the spiders' back, I made a zigzag with a glue stick and then applied glitter. 
I would love to do this with our family pics one day, climbing up the wall or the stairs or something. 

Obviously, I had a spider-theme going on through out the classroom, so I made sure to incorporate that on the front door, to set the mood.
These looked so cool on windows. I hope to cover our windows with spiders for Halloween. 
Spiders crawling up the wall. For one of our school art activities the kids' made these spider webs. They were super easy and most of the 5-6 year olds were able to do it on their own. All you need is a hole punch, paper cut into a circle and yarn. Hole punch holes around the circle and let the kids weave the yarn back and forth through the holes. Add a spider. 
You could do this with any color. You could even make the circle bigger and create make shift place mats. 
 "Our Pumpkin Patch" I had the kids all color their own small pumpkins during play time and I added the bigger pumpkins. 
The kids made the spiders hanging from the ceiling with black pipe cleaners, 2 small styrofoam balls and googly eyes. The kids colored the styrofoam palls, pushed the pipe cleaners into the balls to make the legs and I hot glued their eyes and body together.
These spiders looked awesome and were so easy. If I had the supplies, I would make tons and put them all over the house to create a Halloween feel.
To make the spiders on the wall we used black pipe cleaners and beads. The kids took 4 long pipe cleaners and folded them in half. We took one leg and twisted it around the other pip cleaners, making it look like an octopus. Once secure, they strung on beads and bent the legs to create the spider look.We  then hot glued googly eyes on the head. To make the giant spider web, I used yarn and stapled it into place.
These spiders were also super easy, and looked cool! I would make tons of these to hang from our ceilings and to put in the fun cobweb stuff from Party City.
"The Forbidden Forest" from Harry Potter.
For our Haunted Hill, I printed coloring sheets of haunted looking mansions and let the kids pick out their house and color it. They then cut out their houses and we put them on the hill and added signs saying who's place it was. "Emily's Place"
Hope you enjoyed the DIY Halloween Classroom decorations! 

3 comments :

Carolyn said...

Very nice! Now, I think I'll get my one ceramic pumpkin out and decorate! lol Actually, we want to take Sophie to the Pumpkin Patch this week. Then she will also go with your mom and Jeff. I see many photo ops in the Pumpkin Patch. :)

You did a great job on your classroom, Heather. Loved it and I am sure the students did as well! It's nice that you have that artsy-craftsy touch. A true teacher!

Love and miss you very much. G'ma C.

Catherine said...

Cute man!!! :)
You're so creative!

I think you will like the "fall" blog post that I do later this week because I have never done most of the things on there!!!! hahahaha... My first Halloween AND Thanks Giving IN AMERICA!!!

AWESOME! :)

xo

Catherine said...

Oh, and we don't call it "FALL" where I'm from, we call it Autumn! Lol, did you know that?! Do you guys call it Fall so that you can say... "Hey, it's Fall Ya'll". That's a good one, I'm going to use that in a blog post!!!!

I crack myself up!

I'm an alien I tell you, a complete alien!
Learning the local lingo here! ;)

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