Halloween is a special holiday for many people, kids and adults alike. It involves more than just dressing up and trick-or-treating around the neighborhood. Many people enjoy preparing for it weeks ahead of time by decorating their yards and by making crafts and carving pumpkins. The following are some fun activities in which families can participate during the fall seasons having to do with pumpkins!

BEADED PUMPKIN NAPKIN RING

Making Friends Fall Crafts: provides a functional craft as well as a fun, easy craft for the fall that can be used for Halloween and Thanksgiving and throughout the entire autumn season.

Materials Needed:

• 2 Green Pipe Cleaners

• 41 Orange Beads

• 3 Brown Beads

• Skinny rod to wrap pipe cleaner around

1) Put two pipe cleaners together and push them through a single orange bead.

2) Center the bead and create a “plus” sign with the bead at the center.

3) Add 10 orange beads to each end of the “plus” sign. The total orange beads will then equal 41.

4) Bend the pipe cleaners so that the orange beads resemble two pumpkins, one on each side of the pipe cleaner.

5) Twist the ends around each other.

6) Put three brown beads on the end of the pipe cleaner and wrap them around each other to secure the beads.

7) Wrap the other three ends around the thin rod to create vine-line tendrils for the pumpkins.

8) Roll a napkin and place inside the napkin rings for use at the table during mealtime or for decoration.

SODA BOTTLE JACK –O’-LANTERN CRAFT

DLTK's Holidays: gives an easy craft that can be either prepared ahead by an adult or done by an older child that allows an everyday item become a jack-o-lantern.

Materials Needed:

• 2 liter bottle

• orange paint

• yellow felt

• green felt

• twine or small rope

1) Remove the label from the soda bottle.

2) Pour the orange paint inside the soda bottle with a small amount of water. Place the lid back on the bottle and swish the paint all around the inside of the bottle until it is completely orange and opaque.

3) Pour out the orange paint; discard or keep for another bottle.

4) Use the yellow felt for eyes, nose, and mouth for the jack-o-lantern. These shapes can either be pre-cut by an adult if working with younger children, or they can be cut by older children as the paint dries in the bottle. Self-stick felt is especially useful, however, glue can be used to apply the features to the face.

5) Add the green felt to the lid after it is placed on the bottle and use the twine to tie the felt in place.

JACK-O-LANTERN CARVING

Carving pumpkins into Jack-O-Lanterns has been a Halloween favorite for hundreds of years. However, usually the child is resigned to drawing the fact on the pumpkin and pulling out the seeds. The parent or another adult has been the one to use the big knife to carve out the eyes, nose, and mouth. Within the last few years, however, pumpkin carving kits have been developed, and in them are specially cut knives that will not cut skin. Not only are they safe to use, but also they cut pumpkin much easier than a traditional knife. It is even more fun to use stencils to carve a pumpkin. There are thousands of designs to choose from, some scary, some funny, some traditional, and some elaborate.

Materials Needed:

• Pumpkin adequately sized for carving

• A pumpkin-carving kit purchased at a store

• Newspapers for underneath the pumpkin

• A large spoon or scoop

• A light or candle

1) Use the blade that is provided in the pumpkin-carving kit to cut a hole in the top of the pumpkin. One should be careful to cut the hole with jagged edges. This prevents the lid from falling into the pumpkin when it is empty.

2) Remove the top carefully. There will be pumpkin “guts” still attached to the top, and this makes it more difficult to remove the lid. Pull it off slowly so that the stem does not break.

3) Cut the lid so that there is about 2 inches of pumpkin left remaining on the lid.

4) Use the spoon to scoop all the insides and seeds out of the pumpkin. Make sure the newspaper is under the pumpkin. This gets messy!

5) Pick a stencil out of the kit and attach it directly onto the pumpkin.

6) There will be a small poker inside the kit. Use this to poke tiny holes all along the outline of the stencil. Be sure to get tiny spaces as well. Keep the holes very close together so that they are easy to follow when the stencil is removed.

7) Remove the stencil. The outline should still be visible due to the holes.

8) Use another blade contained in the kit to follow the line of dots, thereby carving the pumpkin. As the stencil is followed, pieces will begin to fall out and in. Remove these and set them aside or discard.

9) When the pumpkin is carved, put a light or a candle inside the pumpkin and replace the lid.

PASTA SKELETON

Enchanted Learning: Halloween isn’t always about pumpkins, and this site gives kids a fantastic idea for constructing a skeleton with something nearly everyone has around the house…pasta!

Materials Needed:

• Pasta and dried beans. The pasta should be of different varieties such as elbow macaroni, wagon wheels, spiral, and long spaghetti.

• Black construction paper

• Glue

1) Arrange the pasta on the black construction paper to create a skeleton.

2) A wagon wheel or bean works best for the head, but that and any other part is limited only by the imagination.

3) After the parts are arranged, pick up each piece of pasta and dab a bit of white glue on the construction paper.

4) Press the pasta or bean back in its place.

5) Allow to dry.

SPIDER CANDY HOLDER

Spider Candy Holder Craft - Kaboose.com: One cannot always be home when treat-or-treaters come calling on Halloween. Kaboose offers an icky little creature who will be willing to pass out candy to those who stop by on Halloween.

Materials Needed:

• A paper plate

• 4 black pipe cleaners

• 3 pieces of long green yarn

• acrylic paint in black, white, and light green

• orange construction paper

• a black magic marker

• glue

• scissors

1) Fold the paper in half and then cut at the crease.

2) Turn the paper plate so that both pieces have the rounded side out, and paint that side black.

3) When the pieces are dry, glue them together by placing glue along the outside of the rim of each plate. The insides will be facing each other, and it will form an envelope with an opening.

4) Cut each of the pipe cleaners in half.

5) Take six of the pipe cleaners and bend them an inch from the ends. Three will bend to the right; three will bend to the left.

6) Take the remaining two pipe cleaners. Bend one of them one inch and the other two inches.

7) With the opening at the top, glue the pipe cleaners onto the plate; three on the left, three on the right. Be sure to glue them on the underside of the plate so the ends cannot be seen.

8) Take the other two and attach them about 1/3 of the way down on each side.

9) Make eyes out of white construction paper. Use the black marker to draw a pupil. Glue these to the front of the plate.

10) Paint a smile on the front using green paint.

11) Write “Happy Halloween” on the orange construction paper and glue this to the spider’s lower hands so it looks as if the spider is holding the sign.

12) Fill the plate with candy and hang with yarn outside the door.

Written by Michael S. Atwood