1-2-3 Come Make A Halloween Ghost Craft With Me

  “Spooky Spirals” is a quick, easy & super-fun little craft that’s perfect for Halloween week or Halloween party day.

This (print & go) craft can be done as is, for the fun of just making a Halloween decoration, while practicing scissor skills. 

Cutting definitely helps strengthen finger muscles & staying on a line increases dexterity. 

So you can easily diversify your lesson, there are a variety of patterns to choose from.

The patterns to the right are the easiest to cut out. This pattern  comes with & without a face, as well as a smaller, "just the right size" pattern for younger kiddos. 

The patterns to the left are a bit more challenging because they have arms with hands, which is no problem for older students. 

Pick the pattern that best suits your needs, or for a nice variety, give students a choice.

It's hard enough learning how to hold a scissors & cut when you are a leftie, without being given a right-handed spiral pattern to frustrate you further! With that in mind, I designed patterns specifically for the left-handed kiddos in your class.

Variety is indeed "the spice of life"...

You can add additional variety to your display, by running off the pattern to the right, which comes in a small, medium & large size. 

Using different lengths of yarn to suspend the ghosts will enhance your display as well. 

Note in the photo, that I have not only punched the hole at the top of the ghost's head, but in the left & right "hands" as well, which will cause the ghosts to hang differently as well.

If you aren't allowed to simply do a craft, I've made it easy for you to turn this into a writing extension, by having students write on the spiral before they cut it out.

Students can jot down one thing that frightens them, or something they think is spooky, or whatever else you deem appropriate.

Besides writing on the spiral, I've also included several options of cool paper to jot down final drafts on.

There's a ghostly haunted house pattern, which also has a  writing page to glue to the back.

A separate spiral is cut out & attached to the bottom.

Another worksheet features a cute ghost topping the page, with the word "Spooky" running down the side. 

These patterns come in black & white for students, as well as full color, so that teachers can quickly & easily make examples to share.

As an additional time saver, I've included my completed samples.

Besides the “spooky spiral” craftivity, the packet also includes:

* A poster, to introduce this term & the activity; and…

* Since completed projects look awesome suspended from the ceiling, I’ve also included 2 additional posters to enhance your display.

I've put this at a 1st-4th grade level, but I have done the easier spiral pattern with my young fives & kindergartners, and have friends who have done this activity with their 5th graders as well. 

Again, the variety of options make it easy to up or down scale the activities to suit your grade level. 

Today's featured FREEBIE is another fun activity for October.

These Pumpkin Alphabet cards are great for a center activity; or print, laminate & trim several sets to use for partner games.

Click on the LINK for a nice list of all the ways you can use the cards.

Well that's it for now.  Thanks for stopping by. 

It's super chilly out today, but the sun is shining & the lovely colored leaves are valiently clinging to their branches despite a nippy wind.  Perfect day for making some more fall activities.

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"A mask tells us more than a face." -Oscar Wilde

ABC: Come Teach With Me!

I’ve been taking one-on-one computer classes at the Apple store and loving it!

I’ve been focusing on learning lots of new things with Pages a software program for MAC’s, that my husband bought me to help make my documents “cooler” than what I can manage in Word.

Since a big part of learning to read and write revolves around the knowledge of the alphabet and since I themed everything I did in Young Five’s, I wanted to make alphabet cards for each month, that teachers can use in a variety of ways, to keep students interested in letter study.

This is especially important since all but a few states have now adopted  Common Core Standards. 

These cards will help you pass that all important English Language Arts Reading Standard: Concepts of Print: Foundational Skills: 1d: "Students will recognize all of the upper and lowercase letters of the alphabet."

For some students that takes an entire year; you need to make that interesting, fun and different.  These cards will help add the necessary variety.

Let’s face it, things can get rather boring if you haul out the same graphics each day, but switch the pictures to match the month or theme you’re studying and the children seem to perk right up, simply because it’s “different”.

I’ve also included a tip list of a variety of things you can do with the cards, including games you can play.

One of the things I did was have a seasonal bulletin board with two huge bears. One was a girl, the other a boy. I dressed them in appropriate clothing that I changed for the 4 seasons.

I sprinkled my alphabet cards around the bears in order at first, so it wasn’t that difficult to figure out what letter was missing.  Later, when my kiddo’s knew the alphabet, I’d mix up the letters so the game was a bit more difficult.

It was their job each morning to figure out what letter the bears had hidden. They LOVED this game, it only took a few minutes, and it really got them to examine the letters. Afterwards, run through the alphabet, or sing the ABC song as a quick way to review.

I’ve included a blank set of cards in case you also want to make number cards or even program your spelling list or student names.

The other thing you can do in the hallway, is put up a large oak tree with just branches.

This is easy enough to paint on bulletin board paper with brown paint.  I’ve also seen them made by twisting brown tissue paper, or brown bags from the grocery story.

You can also buy a big tree, as a large fold out poste at most teacher stores for around $10.

Hang the apples up for September and then decorate the tree with the other alphabet shapes for the other months.

While students are waiting in the hall to go out to recess, lunch, or standing in line for bathroom/drink breaks etc. you can use it for “teachable moments” for all sorts of letter-question games.

I’ve made 11 sets of alphabet letters.  There is a set for each month (September through May, + a set of leaves and a set of dinosaurs.)

I've included separate sets for uppercase letters as well as lowercase letters, so you can make Memory Match Concentration games, play "I Have; Who Has?" with them, or have students put them in sequential order, spell their names, spell words and do all kinds of other activities that you'll find on a a list that I've included in the packets.

Click on the link to go to my ABC Section (page 2) of the shopping cart.

Scroll down ‘til you see the first set: Alphabet Acorns and then click on which ever set you’d like to download. You'll have to click on page 3 to get the last set for spring Tulips.

If there’s another themed set you’d like to have, simply shoot me an e-mail and I’ll see what I can do. diane@teachwithme.com

Thanks for visiting today.  Feel free to PIN anything from my site you think others will find useful.

“We all need someone who inspires us to do better than we know how.” -Anonymous