Too busy to create new bulletin boards for Halloween?
Instead of creating a bulletin board with 20 identical pumpkins or skeletons lined up across the board, use three or four different pumpkin or Halloween related activities to slowly build your display.
Be sure to include one item from each student in the class.
If you’ve been studying a topic, such as pumpkins or autumn, incorporate a variety of student work into your bulletin board display, including booklets, charts, recording sheets and/or graphs you’ve made together in the last week or two.
The Halloween bulletin board above has recording sheets from a “Do pumpkins float or sink?” experiment, a class graph, booklets on “Parts of the Pumpkin Plant” and booklets of recording sheets for math and science activities.
Make the bulletin board with your students
Start by stapling on the basic background papers. Instead of staying late after school to put up the whole bulletin board display by yourself, include your students throughout the day. They can help add to the bulletin board during center times, as their investigations progress.
After a week or two the bulletin board will be complete. The children benefit by being part of the process and are enthusiastic to make more items to put on it.
Download the free crow tracer , then have some students make a few and hide them on your Halloween bulletin board. The kids love to find and count them with a pointer.
Use the free pumpkin leaf tracer if you would like to make more leaves to decorate the bulletin board.
Floating pumpkin activity
Materials:
-
- A variety of small pumpkins or gourds to test
- Other objects to test
- Towel
- Water play center or two plastic bowls of water
- Chart paper set up to record results
Will it float or sink?
1. Set up a “Sink or float” experiment on a table during center time each day for a week and let all the children take turns experimenting with the tiny pumpkins and other objects.
2. At a different table set out paper and felt markers. Ask students to record their results on a recording sheet. Some will draw a simple shape, others more detailed pictures, others will try to print letters, a word or sentences.
3. Post some results on your bulletin board.
Pumpkin Graph
Link to the pumpkin graph in the bulletin board image above and all the other activities is here.
Replacing worksheets with more open-ended recording sheets
If you’re new to replacing worksheets with more hands on activities and/or using recording sheets seems overwhelming and you feel less than confident about the process, you may find the sample lesson using feathers, helps you understand the process.
