Elementary School Classroom Halloween Wall

Blended learning during a pandemic makes Halloween a challenge. Our 5th-grade advisory decided to try and celebrate in a socially distanced and safe way with pumpkins! We worked together to create a classroom installation with limited materials and no contact between students. Two of us even participated from home while doing online learning. We're proud of the way it turned out, and think it could be a great thing for other classes to do for next year's Halloween or other celebrations.

Supplies

Mini Pumpkin (one per student), Sharpies, tattoos (optional), cardboard (optional), Makedo Kit (optional), rubber duck (optional), fluff (optional)

Step 1: Get Your Pumpkin

General: Each student in class gets one mini-pumpkin. We can decorate them however we want with the materials that are at our desks.

This Pumpkin: I decided to add a Halloween tattoo to my pumpkin.

Step 2: Plan Your Steps

Whole Class: We each sketched out what our pumpkins would look like when they were finished.

This Pumpkin: I decided to tattoo my pumpkin. I got a tattoo and took off the plastic.

Step 3: Begin Work

Whole Class: This step was different for everyone. Some of us drew everything on our pumpkins with Sharpies. Others used a lot of hot glue for cardboard additions or polyfil fluff.

This Pumpkin: I added the tattoo to my pumpkin. I did this by getting a wet paper towel and pushing it onto the tattoo for 15-30 seconds.

Step 4: Complete Pumpkin

Whole Class: Each student finished their pumpkin within two days of each other.

This Pumpkin: I removed the paper and had a tattoo on my pumpkin. I did one more.

Step 5: Combining All the Pumpkins

Whole Class: We designed a Halloween wall in the corner of our classroom. Each of us put our pumpkins on a table, and decorated the table and walls around them. We have papers and markers at our desk, and went up one at a time to add to the wall.