Celebrating a popular festival like Halloween can become a good opportunity for interest – led learning in the homeschool classroom. Teach them about what they are celebrating and why. Here are some tips on turning the week into a fun filled adventure for your homeschool students.
Make Some Halloween Decorations for the Classroom
Use ice cream sticks and some black thread to make fake spider webs. Craft them in different sizes and hang them up around the classroom with different length strings. Some glue may be required to keep the string in place on the ice cream sticks.
Have a Jack-o-Lantern carving class. Watch some video tutorials on how to do basic shapes and let the homeschool students decide the design they want on their pumpkin. Elder ones can be allowed to carve on their own. Emphasis on safety.
Make some fog with dry ice. You will have an impromptu science theory class on the chemistry of how this smoke is caused. Procuring the dry ice is easy from local restaurant freezers.
Make the homeschool classroom it’s own Mummy. Use bandages on a small doll or soft toy for younger children. The wrapping can be held in place with a bit of velcro stuck on to the ends of the bandage.
Study About Halloween
Help them understand the beliefs behind the festival by teaching them about the history of Halloween. Explain about the pagan superstitions, and how people dressed up as ghosts and ghouls to blend in with the souls they thought were roaming the streets that night.
Teach them about Bats. The little furry mammal can make an interesting topic for learning on the eve of Halloween. Find out about it’s environmental impact and where it lives as well as what it eats. See if you can spot some bats in the local parks or zoo.
Give them a quick overview of the human anatomy. Basic organ systems can be spoken about as well as illustrated. Now have them make snacks that resemble the organs. There are a number of ideas available on making particularly ghoulish looking snacks which resemble the body organs.
