Creative Family Fun

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Halloween

Halloween Bats

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After reading the book Bats by Gail Gibbons, we just couldn’t get enough of bats.

So, we decided to make our own version of the cardboard tube bat.

I had originally planned to hang these for a Halloween decoration, but the girls decided to use them as toys instead. They were tons of fun to play with!

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Supplies Needed:

Cardboard tube, cut in half
Black paint
Black construction paper
Glue
Googly eyes
White crayon
Hole punch
Yarn or string

To prep the project, I drew simple bats wings on our black construction paper.

I made the wings all one piece because you will attach your body to the middle. If you use white crayon, it is both easy to see and cut.

I also drew two small triangles for our ears.

The girls each took half of a cardboard tube and painted it black.

While they were waiting for the paint to dry, they cut out their wings and ears.

Once the paint was (almost) dry, we glued our cardboard tube to the middle of our wings.

Next we glued our ears to the top of our tubes.

The girls added googly eyes and drew a mouth and nose with the white crayon.

Once our bats were complete, we punched two holes on the top of each side of our wings.

To finish our bats, we ran a piece of yarn through both holes and tied it at the top.

It’s perfect for hanging… or trailing along behind as you run through the house.

We had tons of fun making and learning about bats.

We learned some fun facts. Did you know that bats have thumbs? Me neither!

We have a new favorite animal.

And, we now have new toys that we made ourselves.

10 Halloween Activities for Kids

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Over the past couple of years, we’ve had lots of fun doing Halloween projects. I’ve rounded up 10 of my favorites from the archives and put them all in one place for you.

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Make some easy finger puppets to go along with the book Five Little Pumpkins

Make collages from magazine pages, and then turn them into these fun owls.

Make some black Halloween cats. They’re easy and fun to make!

These wiggly-armed monsters are another fun project to make from recycled paper tubes.

Turn into spooky spiders with these fun googly-eyed spider masks.

This Halloween word search is great for a bit of quiet time. Pop over for the free printable!

Get the whole family involved and tell spooky stories with shadow puppets.

It takes only one paper plate to make these cool candy corn wreaths.

Make the cutest paper-roll mummies! The googly eyes turn the cute factor up a few notches.

Set up a mini card-making factory and use a simple printmaking technique to make your cards.

What project are you going to add to your must-do list?

Halloween Printmaking

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Disclosure: CraftProjectIdeas.com provided some the supplies for this project. All ideas are our own. There are Amazon Affiliate and other affiliate links in this article which means, at no additional cost to you, we could receive compensation for our recommendations. You can read our full disclosure policy on our Disclosure Page for more details.

We love to send homemade cards.

We send them at birthdays, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.

This year we decided to make our own homemade Halloween cards.

To do so, we set up our own mini card-making factory by making our own stamps.

Supplies Needed:

Heavy cardboard (from a shipping box)
Craft foam
Glue
Orange paint
Glitter
Card stock cut to size

Before we could make our cards, we had to make our stamps.

We drew simple pumpkins on our craft foam and cut them out.

We then cut the pumpkins into thirds.

We glued our foam down onto our cardboard leaving a small space in between each section of pumpkin.

While the glue dried, we mixed our glitter into the paint.

Use as much or as little glitter as you like.

By mixing the glitter into the paint, you can considerably reduce the glitter messiness.

If you don’t want to use glitter, you can do this project without it.

Once our paint was mixed, we were ready to start printing.

Paint each section of foam with your orange paint.

Give it an even coating, but not too thin. Try to avoid clumps if you can.

Turn your stamp over and press it onto the front of your card.

Hold it down firmly for 10 seconds and try not to wiggle it. Then, pull it straight up.

It’s a simple and satisfying process that my 6- and 4-year old were able to achieve without any difficulty.

Once the paint was dry, the girls took black markers and wrote Happy Halloween on the front of each.

They’re so excited to send these out in the mail! Do you ever make your own cards?

For more printing making fun, please see Cityscape Printmaking. We used a similar method with fun results.

Halloween Word Search

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Lizzie has recently discovered word searches.

Maybe she’s seen me work so many of them, that she wanted to try them out herself. I don’t know, but once she tried them, she was hooked.

The only problem I’ve found is a lack of word searches suitable for the Kindergarten/1st grade crowd.

So, I did what I always do and created my own.

Disclosure: There are Amazon Affiliate and other affiliate links in this article which means, at no additional cost to you, we could receive compensation for our recommendations. You can read our full disclosure policy on our Disclosure Page for more details.

This word search is simple and she had no problem working it.

The words are easy to recognize and are only located horizontal and vertical.

I created it based on a Halloween theme, since we’re so obsessed with Halloween lately.

Would you like a Halloween word search for your kids? You’re in luck! Just click on the link below and print out your own copy!

Do you like to play word games? If so, what are your favorites?

Please feel free to print and share as many as you would like. If you would like to share online, please link to my blog post and not the document. Thank you!

*Note: The word search is on Google Docs. If you have a problem downloading and printing, please let me know. If you would like me to email you the PDF, please let me know your email address (either via comments or email) and I will send it to you. Have fun!

Get Crafty: Candy Corn Wreath

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Candy corn is a favorite around our house.

We love how it looks and we love how it tastes, which is why Lizzie challenged me to come up with a candy corn craft she could do. (Yes, my 5-year-old does give me craft challenges!)

After a lot of thought and a bit of trial and error, I can up with this candy corn wreath made from paper plates.

Disclosure: There are Amazon Affiliate and other affiliate links in this article which means, at no additional cost to you, we could receive compensation for our recommendations. You can read our full disclosure policy on our Disclosure Page for more details.

Supplies Needed:

Paper plate
Yellow paint
Orange paint
Ruler
Scissors
Tape

The first step is to paint. We painted on the bottom of our paper plate. We left the center white, painted a thick orange circle around it, and then painted the edges yellow. Your plate will look like a candy-corn-colored bulls-eye.

After the paint is dry, turn the plate over and make your cutting lines.

I drew lines across the plate, dividing it up as I would cut a pizza. You’ll want it divided into 8 wedges.

Once you have all your wedges cut out, your bulls-eye will become 8 pieces of candy corn.

Turn your candy corn pieces to the backside and arrange them in a circle, pointed sides out. Overlap the edges and use your tape to connect them together.

When you’re done taping, turn it over and you’ve got a fun candy corn wreath.

Voila, candy corn wreath challenged completed! I wonder what Lizzie will come up with next?