Thursday, October 31, 2013

Happy Halloween!! or Pin It For Next Year*!!

I went on a little road trip through ...

...land of cotton...

... snowy fields everywhere...

...then I crossed a beautiful bridge...

...and ended up in the land of salt marshes and pluff mud...

... and the next morning I crossed over the dunes...

... and there was the amazing beach and blue skies...


... then I wandered over to a beach of eerily beautiful, huge driftwood trees...
... but what I was truly supposed to be doing was
teaching at a conference on Jekyll Island, Georgia.
Lucky me.
Hands down the best place for a conference is the beach!!
I planned a little make and take for all the teachers 
who gave up their Saturday to come to a conference 
(even if it was at the beach!) 
and since it was the Saturday before Halloween 
I decided that we would make a variation  
of this super popular project/post, the snowman in a baggie, 
which has been viewed and pinned zillions of times.
So, gather up a baggie
 some red and yellow food coloring
 hair gel, hand sanitizer 
or mix up a batch of unflavored gelatin if you are worried about young children,
scraps of black peel and stick fun foam, plain black fun foam, white peel and stick fun foam and pumpkin seeds.
You can make this for pennies.

Using the black peel and stick fun foam, cut out eyes and a mouth. Stick on the outside of the baggie. Add teeth, if you want, cut from white peel and stick foam.
 ( They look like Chicklets gum to me!!)

Then squeeze some hair gel into the baggie and a drop or two of  red and yellow food coloring. Drop in a nose shape cut from foam that isn't sticky back.
This can be a lesson on color mixing and shapes!!!
Then just squish the baggie around until the hair gel is completely orange.
The object of this fun activity is to squish the nose shape that is inside the baggie into it's proper place in the pumpkin face. They can squish it around over and over again!! Great motor skill activity and it's relaxing as well.  
If you teach really young children you can put the activity together and then tape the baggie down to the play table and they can manipulate it on the flat surface - easier for little ones or in a special needs class.  Everyone loves this squishy project!!
And for added authenticity you can drop a few pumpkin seeds in the baggie and your pumpkin has seeds in the goopey inside just like the real deal!!
 
 


He'ssquishy, gooey fun!!
* I tried to post this sooner but I had some technical difficulties so you can pin it for next year and be ahead on Halloween activity planning !!!

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