Autumn/Halloween Classroom Ideas

Who doesn't love autumn? The leaves put on the best display of beautiful colours. The children crunch through crisp, cold scenery looking for conkers, pinecones and minibeasts. There are cosy nights, fireworks, fairy lights and everything else that comes along with this time of year.

If your students are also getting excited for the change in season, then why not get creative in the classroom with some of these fantastic autumn craft ideas:

DIY Scratch Art

What you will need:

• Plain WHITE A4 paper
• Oil pastels or crayons
• Black tempura or acrylic paint
• Washing up liquid
• Foam applicator or paintbrush
• Drawing/scratching tool e.g. toothpick, chopstick, ball point pen etc (please ensure all drawing/scratching tools are free of sharp edges)

Directions

1. Take your plain A4 paper and colour the entire sheet with your choice of oil pastel/wax crayon colours (for autumn or Halloween, you could choose yellows/oranges etc).
2. Once the entire paper is covered in oil pastel or wax crayon, squeeze a little of your chosen paint into a cup and mix it with a dash of washing up liquid (for a matte finish use tempera paint and for a shiny finish use acrylic paint).
3. Once your paint is mixed, cover the entire sheet of paper in your paint/washing up liquid mix using a foam applicator or paintbrush (you may need to paint 2x coats).
4. Leave your DIY scratch art paper to completely dry.
5. Once your scratch art paper is completely dry, you can take a drawing/scratching tool to draw your chosen picture. Here are a few examples that I’ve picked up online.

Picture credit:
1. Paper plate cobwebs – theartfulparent.com
2. Autumn leaves – kidscraftroom.com
3. Fireworks – masandpas.com

 Paper Plate Scene

You will need:

• Paper plate
• Coloured paper
• Scissors
• Glue stick
• Felt tips

Directions

1. Take your paper plate and design your scene.
2. Outline all the elements of your scene on the coloured paper before carefully cutting the shapes out and sticking them to your paper plate.
3. Once you are happy with your scene, you can add finer details with a felt tip pen.
4. You can punch a hole in the top border of your paper plate to hang it up!

Here are a couple of examples I have picked up online:

Picture Credit:
1. Halloween Scene – Baker Ross
2. Autumn Scene – craftsonsea.co.uk

Kitchen Roll Characters

You will need:

• Kitchen roll tube cut in half
• Paint (variety of colours)
• Felt tip
• Gluestick or PVA glue
• Any other materials that you may need to create your spooky design e.g. googly eyes, bandages, pipe cleaners etc

Directions: (for a halloween mummy kitchen roll character)

1. Take your kitchen roll tube and paint it black with any type of paint and let it dry completely.
2. Using a glue stick or PVA glue, place glue around the kitchen roll tube ready for the bandage to be stuck on.
3. Role the bandage around the kitchen roll tube leaving a small gap at the top for eyes.
4. Stick two googly eyes in the gap you’ve left.

There are so many variations you could make:

• Witches
• Pumpkins
• Ghost
• Cats
• Bats
• Zombies

The list is endless. The most important thing is getting creative!

Picture credit:
1. Kitchen Roll Characters - gluesticksandgumdrops.com