Fun Art Project for Day of the Dead

One of my favorite art lessons that was always a hit was my Day of the Dead skull design. Students loved it since it incorporated Hispanic heritage of some students and others loved it because drawing skulls was encouraged! I have had a lot of success with this lesson with a wide variety of age groups as well from late elementary to early high school with minor modifications.

This lesson incorporates history since students learn about the Day of the Dead from information packets included in the lesson and math since their skull is symmetrically balanced.

The lesson includes written and illustrated directions and gives alternatives for different materials so it can have a wide degree of difficulty. I've also found that students who have a lot of experience with art spend time making complicated skull designs while students that are just starting still have success with basic skull shapes.

Check it out in my shop if you're interested!

Fabulous Freebies: Fall Writing Prompts!

Here are some places to get fun and free fall themed writing prompts!

• The Holiday Zone - This site has a list of about 18 fall themed writing prompts with many creative suggestions. I loved that the prompts reflect a variety of writing skills and include things such as compare/contrast, persuasive writing and more.

• The Kid Zone - If you are looking for early elementary writing prompts, look no further than the Kid Zone. There are printable prompt worksheets with a variety of types of writing to use and I love that you don't have to register or anything to print them! Just click and print.

• Writing Forward - Writing forward has some unique fall themed poetry prompts on their site which would work for older students. Definitely a unique twist to the writing prompt idea!

• The Humble Pen - This site has a list of 20 fall writing prompts. There were some unique prompts there that I haven't seen elsewhere.

• In Season - I loved this take on autumn writing prompts with a scientific twist. Instead of regular prompts they are more themed towards a nature journal and have some prompts that are perfect for combining language arts and science. I think you could find something for almost all age groups here!

Fun Fall Articles

I compiled all of our fall articles so they are all in one place! Hope you find some great resources for the fall holiday season.

• Fall Educational Freebies!

• Dressing in Costume in Your Classroom 

• What to do with Halloween candy besides eating it

• Fabulous Halloween Freebies

• Day of the Dead Freebies

• Fabulous Halloween Freebies Part II

• Fabulous Halloween Freebies Part III

Fabulous Freebies: Fun Fall Freebies!

 I have been seeing leaves here starting to fall from trees so I thought it would be a great time to put up a list of fun fall freebies! Enjoy these fall themed freebies with your students.

There are a slew of cute fall writing and math worksheets available here for younger elementary students. The worksheets are easy to download and all have cute fall graphics!

Have fun with these autumn Sudoku pages! There is an easy version and regular version of 4x4 Sudoku available to print in color or black and white.

 

Deceptively Educational has a fun fall leaf bingo game which work great for science or during a walk outside. I love all the types of leaves this game includes!

 

 

 

 

 

Creativity Portal has a list of thirteen autumn themed writing prompts, most that would work well for middle or high school students.

 

 

If you have a fall freebie, share it with us below!

 

 

 

 



Five Fun Ideas for Open House

Since school has been in session for several weeks now, it is the time of open house. Here are five fun ideas for open house!

1. Why I Love Art has a great idea of doing a grid enlargement of "The Scream" which would make a perfect photo op for any students who come with their parents to open house. This could easily be tied into a math lesson as well by enlarging it with a set ratio. I love this idea!

2. Now I'm sure most of us have seen the images of life size child self portraits at each desk. However, I saw this image and thought that this would be an extra fun twist on that by having each child draw themselves as super heroes! I could see many students getting very excited by this idea. This could easily tie into a writing project as well or even just work on adjectives or onomatopoeia.

3. Get to know the parents of your students better with this parent survey from The Teachers' Cauldron. It's great to keep get all of this information that will be so useful the rest of the year! Scroll down towards the middle of the page and click on the link right above the image to download it.

 4. Have a scavenger hunt! I love this idea of doing an open house scavenger hunt so parents and their children will be able to find everything important in the school and/or classroom. The Cornerstone for Teachers has a great editable scavenger hunt here you can use.

5. Make a classroom brochure. MS Word has an easy brochure template you can use to create something customized for your classroom quickly and easily. Teaching Blog Addict has some tips here as well on how to create your own open house brochure!


If you have a great idea for open house please share it with us below! I would love to hear about it.

Fun Fall Art Activities for Fast Finishers!

If you have creative fast finishers in your classroom, this Fall Fast Finishers Art Activity pack might fit the bill! The pages in this drawing pack are intended to help your students think creatively and problem solve. There are a variety of pages that draw a variety of artistic skills from your students.

I have used these in my classroom regularly for my fast finishers and they worked well! Check out more reviews of these pages here.

What To Do with Halloween Candy Besides Eat It

Happy Halloween!  I hope you all are having fun despite the crazy buzz of excitement and sugar rushes that come with this holiday.  Today I'm posting a fun way to use up some of your students candy besides consume it.  CandyExperiments has simple science experiments you can do with some of the excessive treats that kids collect.  Here are five of my favorite experiments...

1) Chocolate Bloom--students expose their chocolate bars to different temperatures and see what happens when the ingredients start to separate.

2) Life Saver Sparks--students eat life savers in the dark in front of a mirror and watch what happens.

3) Candy Bar Bath--students test candy bars to see which sink and which float.  Then they predict why.

4) Harvesting S's and M's--students pull the letters off of Skittles and M&M's.

5) Hidden Sugars--students learn to read labels and, hopefully, rethink some of their food choices.

This could be done in class or sent home as an experiment.  I doubt many parents would mind seeing the candy being used for the sake of education instead of tooth decay!

Have fun.  Be safe.  Let us know if you try it and how it goes.  We'd love to hear your feedback.

Fabulous Friday Freebies: Educational Halloween Freebies!

 

Halloween will be in a few short weeks! Do you have a costume picked out? If not, check out our suggestions of Halloween costumes for teachers. 

To help you celebrate Halloween in your classroom, here are some fabulous Halloween freebies you can use to make your teaching a little scarier than usual this year!

Just as described, here is monster sized list of Halloween projects. There are enormous amount of ideas of things you and your students can make for some hands on fun this fall.

Want to do something that involves pumpkins this year but you're not sure what? KinderArt has a list of 100 ideas of things that you can do with a pumpkin. Each idea is unique so there is a little something for everyone there!

Cybraryman has a huge compilation of Halloween related resources. For younger kids there are math worksheets, Spelloween links, experiments, crafts and more. For older kids there are also fun links such as a Salem With Trials Jeopardy game, trivia games and more. There is something for just about every school subject so I'm sure that you will find something useful here!

If you are interested in cultures from around the world, check out how they celebrate Halloween by looking at Jack O'Lanterns.net. There are links to help you find more about Halloween around the world including celebrations in Mexico, Spain, China and more. 

Shelly Terrell has a list of 18 educational Halloween apps. Not every app suggested is free but most are. Do you use apps in your classroom?

Enjoy this list! If you have a Halloween freebie please share it with us in the comments and I will feature it in a future Halloween freebie post!

New Fall Art Packet for Early Finishers Available!

I recently added a new fall packet to my store, a Fall Fast/Early Finishers Art Activities Pack! This pack contains 25 printable fall drawing activities for the fast or early finishers in your classroom.

If you have students that enjoy drawing in your classroom, this might be the ideal fit. Each page can be printed in black and white or color and contain a fall related drawing activity. Information about artists and art terms is also included as well as all information such as fall holidays from around the world.

This packet is based off of my best seller, my pack of 50 year round Fast Finishers Art Activities.

 

To see more of this pack, please download my preview. All of the pages are easy to print and only require a pencil and something to add color with, such as colored pencils or markers.

I gave all Facebook fans a special deal on this product when it was first published. To get more special deals like my page!