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. :)

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!

Easy DIY Zombie and Flo Halloween Costumes

I hope everyone had a great Halloween! 

I dressed up as Flo from Progessive. I recycled my costume from a couple of years ago. 

I wore a blue headband, white shirt, khakis, and a white apron. I printed out and cut out the word "Progessive" from a google image search. Then, I just taped it onto my apron. The buttons say "I heart Insurance" and "Flo". 

My mom had printed the words for I Heart Insurance, laminated it with tape, and then taped it to a circular piece of cardboard. She added a pin to the back.

For the name tag I just wrote "Flo" on a piece of paper and colored the blue and yellow stripes above the name. I laminated it with tape and taped it to a pin as well. (Can you say super cheap costume?)

And I got compliments all day long. :)

Rae was a zombie. 

We cut up a white tshirt from Dollar Tree and the Justin took it outside to decorate it with mud. We also ripped up a pair of jeans that already had holes in them. We topped it off by teasing her hair, drawing black circles around her eyes and drawing blood on her face. 

Totally gross, but it turned out good! She was super happy. 

Felicia refused to be a minion..... Even though I begged her. So she begged for a store bought costume and I caved. She was a pretty cute witch though! :)