Halloween Party Games!

What, what.. two blog posts in a week?! I must have the week off of school! ;) Don't worry, I'll be taking a class about Music Appreciation next week so let's just enjoy my little bit of spare time while we can!

Anyway, tomorrow I will be hosting my first classroom Halloween party! I am so excited and can't wait to have a fun afternoon with my kiddos. This week I worked on throwing together some fun games for them to enjoy.

First, I made some ghost bowling pins. (inspired by many ideas I saw on Pinterest!)

I started with five (clean) recycled water bottles. I used some river stones that I happened to have around the house to fill the bottoms of the bottles to give them some weight. Then, I hot glued the lids onto the bottles.

I planned to use bandannas to make ghosts, but Wal-Mart was all out, and I was working on this project at 8:30 when no where else was open, so I searched the store and settled on some cheap white pillowcases. These were $4.97 for two, which was cheaper than bandannas would have been anyway!

So, I cut one pillowcase into four equal pieces, and I used the little fabric bag to make the fifth ghost.

I laid out each piece of fabric, and used a wadded up Wal-Mart bag as the stuffing for the head. I just placed it in the middle of the fabric....

And then closed the fabric around it to make a head! (Do you remember the old kleenex ghosts we used to make in grade school? Yep, same thing.

I placed the ghost on top of the water bottle and used a rubber band to hold the heads in place.

Then, I used a sharpie to draw eyes on each ghost. Aren't they spooky?! We will be using a foam pumpkin to roll down the aisle and knock them down!

Next, another Pinterest inspiration... Pin the Eye On The Monster!

I drew this monster free hand on a piece of poster board (Don't laugh at my non-drawing skills!). Then, I cut out eyeballs so the kids can take turns pinning eyeballs on his face! And since it's a monster there is no wrong answer!

Here are the eyeballs! I just traced a glass to make the circles. The black circles were the bottom of the glass, the white circles were the rim. I used a glue stick to put them together.

Lastly, I made a Jack-O-Lantern toss (Another Pinterest win!)! Justin helped me angle an old cardboard box so it has a slight angle, but this would work with the box sitting normally on the ground too! We cut a smile out of the box with box cutters and then I used construction paper to make the face, stem, leaves and sign. I have bean bags in my room, so it will be fun to put those to use!

Lastly, I put together some goody bags for the kids. Each holds one small tub of play dough and a spider ring. Not much, but with as much candy as I'm sure they will get, I bet it will be enough! 

I will be dressed up as Anna from Frozen tomorrow, and after work we are going out trick or treating. It is bound to be a busy but really fun day! I'll check back in again soon, if I survive. :)

Birthday Box

Three of my kiddos are having birthdays this weekend, and I have spent a lot of time lately trying to decide what to get for them. I settled on putting together a birthday box so the birthday girl or birthday boy can choose their own gift. 

I got everything I needed on a trip to Dollar Tree today. Here's what you need:

A small packing box (I used 10 x 6 x 8)
Wrappping paper
Tape
Die cut letters
Small gifts

I started by putting the box together and tucking the top flaps inside the box. I used the wrapping paper to decorate the box, letting it overlap inside the box so it would look seamless. 

I used the die cut letters to put the words "Birthday Box" on the outside of the box. 

I filled the box with some wooden toy cars, bracelets, and bubbles. I can't wait to let the kids choose their gifts! 

If you teach, what do you do for birthday gifts?

Spider and Halloween lesson planning!

Last week, my early preschool class and I did a lesson plan on spiders! It was fun to ask the kids what they think spiders eat. I got a lot of different answers ranging from bugs, grass, pizza and snakes!

In preparation for the unit I added some new sensory bottles to our science center.

Fish and I made these using recycled soda bottles, glitter, water, corn syrup, plastic spiders and buttons. The purple glitter dyed the water pink, which the girls in my class loved!

The hubby used masking tape to make a giant spiderweb on the floor.. My kids were able to take turns balancing on the spiderweb and trying not to fall off. It was a lot of fun, so I'm leaving it up for one more week for our Halloween unit.

This week, for Halloween, I am adding in some sensory bags filled with hair gel and googly eyes. 

I used about a cup of hair gel per bag. Two of the bags have six eyes googly eyes as well. Then, I used packing tape to seal all of the sides shut. 

I had added one of these bags to my science center last week and the kids loved it, so I had to add some more. The kids asked me to make 10 more, I settled for 4. (The ones with the eyes will be removed when I move on to my Thanksgiving lesson plans.)

I am looking forward to my first Halloween as a teacher this week! I'm sure it will be a lot of fun! I hope everyone has a great week!