OTT 263: Pumpkin Projects with Purpose: Turning Halloween Chaos into Meaningful Learning

Send us a text

Ever found yourself torn between Halloween excitement and curriculum demands? You're not alone. That tension between creativity and standards alignment represents a false choice we don't need to make.

Remember that administrator who once told me schools shouldn't have crayons and children should practice sight words during recess? That mindset risks creating environments where children learn to hate learning. The truth is, creativity isn't expendable—it's essential. Crafts develop crucial fine motor skills (especially important for today's digital natives), provide visual learners opportunities to shine, inspire meaningful writing, and build classroom community.

The transformation happens when we add a STEM lens to traditional crafts. Instead of prescribing exactly what to create, we present open-ended challenges that encourage critical thinking: "Your ghost needs to hide at a crowded party without being recognized. How might you solve this problem?" This shift from directed crafting to problem-solving allows for diverse solutions and authentic engineering processes.

What's fascinating—and troubling—is how children's problem-solving abilities often diminish after third grade as test preparation increasingly dominates the curriculum. By continuing to provide design thinking opportunities, we can counteract this trend and nurture innovation.

Halloween offers perfect opportunities for meaningful creative learning. From ghost disguises to "Spookly the Square Pumpkin" STEM challenges, October activities can develop critical thinking while honoring creativity. These aren't just seasonal distractions—they're powerful learning experiences developing tomorrow's innovative thinkers.

Ready to transform your October classroom? Grab my "Disguise a Ghost" and "Spookly the Square Pumpkin" resources in my shop for complete, ready-to-implement activities that balance joy with learning. How will you say yes to creativity this Halloween season?

Disguise a Ghost Template Halloween Door Decor Opinion & Narrative Writing Paper

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Disguise-a-Ghost-Template-Halloween-Door-Decor-Opinion-Narrative-Writing-Paper-14382857

Spookley/Spookly Graphing & Activities | Pumpkin Patterns, Bookmarks, Retelling & Sequencing

Support the show

Subscribe and Review:

Are you subscribed to my podcast? If you’re not, I want to encourage you to do that today. I don’t want you to miss an episode. I’m adding a bunch of bonus episodes to the mix, and if you’re not subscribed, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out on those. Click here for iTunes.

Now, if you’re feeling extra loving, I would be really grateful if you left me a review over on iTunes, too. Those reviews help other people find my podcast, and they’re also fun for me to go in and read. Click here to leave a review, select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review,” and let me know what your favorite part of the podcast is. Thank you!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to One Tired Teacher.
Episode 263, pumpkin Projectswith Purpose Turning Halloween
Chaos into a Meaningful Learning.
So today we're heading into theHalloween zone, but don't worry
, this isn't a sugar rushepisode.
We're going to talk about howto turn fun Halloween activities

(00:22):
into meaningful creativemoments with STEM and crafts
Things that kids love and adminrespects.
Hope you stick around.
Welcome to One Tired Teacher.
And even though she may need anap, this teacher is ready to

(00:44):
wake up and speak her truthabout the trials and treasures
of teaching here.
She is wide awake.
Wait, she's not asleep rightnow, is she?
She is awake, right?
Okay, from Trina DeveryTeaching and Learning.
Your host, trina Devery.
Hey, so today we're talkingabout something that often gets

(01:06):
pushed aside in the rush to meetstandards and stick to
curriculum deadlines ortimelines, and that is
creativity, and we're alsofeeling like we're not allowed
to do anything creative.
I remember being in a school ohgosh, this made me so mad and
they were doing some blue ribbonschool.

(01:27):
They wanted to be a blue ribbonschool, which was so annoying,
and the woman came in and toldus that, like, kids should be
practicing sight words on theplayground and that we should
not have crayons in our schooland I wanted to puke.
I was so irritated.
I'm like, are you kidding me?
Like, what kind of children arewe trying to raise if we are

(01:55):
teaching them that it's 100%work all the time and that even
during our play, joyful playtimeor our choice time, we're going
to be practicing sight words,like it?
Just, ah, talk about gettingkids to hate learning, like
that's a surefire way.
I'm like, are we going for blueribbon?
Or like worst environment ever,that's that's oh, that makes me

(02:15):
so mad.
Anyway, all right, so I I'mlike we've got to do things.
Yes, we want to be standardsaligned, and STEM often does
that, but there are some reasonsfor doing crafts as well, and I
want to talk about that today.
So, first of all, let me tellyou a little story, one besides
that one I just told, becausethat one really gets me riled up

(02:36):
.
One October I was doing adisguise, a ghost craft, with my
class.
You know the simple kind wherestudents they color, they cut,
they glue outfits onto a paperghost to hide them in plain
sight.
It was so adorable, it was lowstress, it was a little slice of
fun and a chaotic season.

(02:56):
It got them calm.
They were quietly little like abuzz of conversation, but also
got to put on their creativityhats.
But as I watched my kids go allin on glittery capes and camo
suits and crown like princesscrowns and all the things, I had

(03:18):
a thought what if this was morethan just a craft?
What if it was a challenge?
Okay, so here that's when thedesign, a ghost disguise
challenge was born.
I asked my students how could aghost sneak through a crowded

(03:38):
hallway without being noticed?
What if the ghost needed tohide in plain sight at a costume
party?
What disguise would be the mosteffective?
And suddenly this wasn't justcoloring, it was design thinking
and it was problem solving, itwas collaboration, it was
testing ideas and imaginingpossibilities, and that's the

(04:02):
magic of STEM.
Now let me be really clear.
Stem isn't anti-craft.
Sometimes it feels like that,especially when we're talking to
hardcore STEM creators andhardcore STEM people.
But it's not anti-craft, it'sjust a different layer of
thinking, one that pushes kidsbeyond the surface.

(04:23):
But that doesn't mean thatcrafts don't matter.
In fact, I want to take amoment to say this really
clearly Crafts are meaningful.
Cutting, gluing and creatingaren't filler.
They're foundational.
They're foundational forchildren, they're important for
children's lives, they'reimportant for all of our lives.

(04:44):
I know that I love even doing agood craft.
It has so many benefits for myemotional well-being which we
have to care about with our kids.
Another thing that crafts dothey support fine motor
development and, let's be real,our kids need more than that now
than they ever have before,because they don't get it, they

(05:05):
never cut, they don't know howto cut.
I mean we're raising ageneration of kids that can't
cut.
I'm not even a great cutter andI was raised in the 70s and the
80s, so we have to care aboutthem being able to cut and glue
and do things with their finemotor skills.
It also helps kids with theirartistic side and visual

(05:30):
learners shine in a world thatis often only valuing reading
and test taking.
Crafts also help inspirewriting, especially when a child
loves what they made.
I created a resource and it's onon my shop on TPT Trina Devery.
Teaching and Learning it was adisguise, a ghost and in the

(05:53):
disguise of growth.
Teaching and Learning it was adisguise of ghost and in the
disguise of ghost.
Yes, it is a craft, but it alsoincludes an optional writing
extension.
For this very reason, it hastwo different writing extensions
.
One of them is more of like anarrative, where they're talking
about, you know, a story thatthey go on with their ghost, or
what their ghost does with theircostume and how the story plays

(06:14):
out Creative writing that wehave let go of for I don't know
what reason.
It's really adorable anddefinitely affordable on my shop
and I'll link to it in the shownotes, but it also has an
opinion writing as well, so thatthey can express their opinion
of why they think their disguiseis the better.

(06:36):
Disguise.
Crafts also create community.
We hang them on the door or thehallway and you've built a
sense of belonging.
So that's another thing that'sactually included in that
resource.
Disguise a Ghost are lettersfor, like a door, like a
decorating your door, becauseguess who?

(06:56):
It's very fun.
I actually did the door in myown house because I wanted to
see what it looked like and Iwas like, oh, it's so cute.
It was so cute, it was so fun.
I took pictures and then I wasdownstairs with Kobe and all of
a sudden I hear this like noiseupstairs and I'm like my gosh,
is somebody in the house?
Like it was.
Ooh, you know, I just hadworked on a ghost product.

(07:19):
So I was like what's going on?
And it ended up that I hadtaped this to my door, because
this is my, you know, this is mydoor to my office.
I'm not going to hot glue,because it's not the same kind
of material as a door that youfind at school.
Anyway, it had all fallen ontothe ground.
So and you know, some of usknow what that's like anyway

(07:41):
when our schools are kept up toohigh of a temperature and we
come back, everything's peeledoff the wall.
I can't stand that All right.
So my point is, yes, there'svalue in both.
There's value in crafts andthere's value in STEM.
But when you add a STEM lens toa craft, you're elevating it
into something deeper, and thisis what really attracts

(08:04):
administrators, or they can atleast begin to see how skills
are intertwined and how kids areproblem solving and thinking.
And so, you know, maybe we getto do the craft on the side and
then we get to develop it into aSTEM challenge.
So, instead of asking kids, I'mgoing to give you some examples

(08:25):
.
I actually didn't do a STEMactivity inside my disguise a
ghost but I am thinking thatmaybe I want to add that because
I have had some brainstormingwhile I was thinking about this
episode, so let me give you someexamples so that you have them,
instead of asking kids to build.

(08:45):
This is the difference.
I want to share the difference.
Okay, so with a craft, we'reasking kids to do the same thing
and like, let's say, we want tomake it a challenge and we're
asking kids to build a ghosttrap.
You see what I just did.
I told you what to make.
I didn't allow you to thinkabout how you would solve a

(09:07):
problem.
A craft is.
The outcome is basically thesame.
It's just you know yourcreative version of a ghost trap
in this case.
But what if I told kids theproblem?
Or I told them the scenario andallowed them to kind of figure
out what the problem is and thenstart to develop from there?

(09:31):
So what if I told kids thathere's the situation you are a
ghostbuster and you need to trapa ghost?
You're going to use simplematerials to create a solution
to trapping a ghost.
Yes, that can mean making atrap, but it can also mean that
they build something that luresthe ghost to a specific place,

(09:54):
or they create a trick to getthe ghost to come to a location.
We're going to let them problemsolve or to figure it out.
It doesn't have to look thesame.
Their answer, their solution,may be totally different than
the team's solution that sitsnext to them.
So do you see the difference?
Instead of it being like, thisis the answer.

(10:15):
We're all going to do the samething and when we think about
design thinking, we think aboutallowing them to solve the
problem.
It's going to be open-ended,it's going to mean it's going to
look completely different.
And let me tell you, kids comeup with the best solutions.
They come up with the bestsolutions until around third

(10:37):
grade.
I know, isn't that insane?
Like third grade, because westart getting into this like
test prep grade.
And then fourth grade is evenworse.
They can't.
They're like their problemsolving ability has been shut
down and then they can't thinkof solutions.

(10:57):
But this is what we want.
We want them to think throughsolutions.
We want them to be able toproblem solve and think
critically through solutions.
We want them to be able toproblem solve and think
critically.
It really matters, and it'sreally upsetting to see that
this gets worse.
The younger they are, thebetter they are at it.

(11:18):
The older they are, the worse,they are at it.
It's like we've shut this downfor kids, and that's
heartbreaking.
Okay, let me give you anotherexample.
Instead of designing acamouflage cloak, we can give
them a scenario where the ghostneeds to get through a crowded
party without being recognized.
We can let them come up with acamouflage cloak as the answer,

(11:40):
or whatever their imaginationprovides.
Yes, they're going to get stuck.
Yes, they may get frustrated,but this is the point.
We can't give them the answersto everything.
We want to encourage them todeal with productive struggle.
This not only helps them buildperseverance muscles.
This will help them sociallyand emotionally.

(12:03):
It helps them deal withstruggle and failure in a safe
place.
Do you see the difference?
When you allow kids to solveproblems and think critically,
you will watch them come alive.
Speaking of coming alive andvaluing different thinking.

(12:30):
Another activity, another funthing to do in October that kind
of puts us into going fromchaos into meaningful learning
is it has to do with another, abook that I love called Spookly
the Square Pumpkin, and this isanother October favorite.
It's cute, it's kind, it'spacked with a message, but it's
also right for a STEM connection.
I created a resource forSpookly as well, but in this

(12:51):
case I, like, gave youeverything.
I gave you reading responses, Igave you lessons, I gave you
writing, I gave you a craft, Igave you bookmarks, I gave you
math and I gave you two STEMoptions.
I gave you a simple STEM or abigger build.

(13:11):
So if you don't want, you don'twant my resource or directions
or my list of materials or mychallenge cards or my design,
thinking, graphic organizers orany of the reading, writing,
math and craft things, that'sokay.
You can simply ask kids tothink about these questions.
Can you design a fence thatwill keep pumpkins safe in a

(13:33):
storm?
How can we help Spookly feelincluded and safe?
What structure would helpprotect square pumpkins from
tipping over?
Now we're not just talkingabout kindness and inclusion,
we're building it.
So if you're looking for alow-pressure, high-engagement

(13:54):
way to add creativity to yourclassroom this month, then I've
got a few things that might help.
You can grab that Spookly miniunit with STEM included, and you
can grab my Disguise a Ghostcraft and writing resources.
They're simple to prep, they'remeaningful to implement and
they give your class a reason tolight up during October.
Remember you are doingincredible work, even on the

(14:18):
days that it doesn't feel likeit.
Let this October be one whereyou say yes to creativity.
Let this October be one whereyou say yes to creativity, honor
all types of learners and findthe joy in watching kids imagine
, build and dream.
I'll be back next week withmore encouragement, ideas and
probably a little candy corn.

(14:38):
Hang in there, tired teacher,and sweet dreams and sleep tight
.