Raising Maine

By SUSAN HYDE, Raising Maine Contributor

Halloween is a great holiday for decorating. Although store bought decorations abound, homemade decorations are a little less expensive and a lot more fun. This year, help your kids develop fine motor skills and build creativity while creating whimsical, silly or downright scary Halloween lanterns.

Materials:
* Various colors of construction paper, lightweight poster board or card stock
* Scraps of construction paper and other craft material (buttons, feathers, tissue paper, glitter, etc.)
* Scissors
* Glue
* Stapler
* Hole puncher
* Yarn

Instructions:
Fold a piece of rectangular construction paper in half (8 1/2 inches by 11 inches works well). Folding the paper into a longer, skinnier rectangle will result in a fatter lantern. Folding the paper into a broader rectangle will ultimately create a thinner lantern.

Beginning at the folded side, cut straight half-inch parallel strips across the paper. Do not cut all the way across the paper! Be sure to leave about an inch of uncut construction paper on the ends. If you are working with younger children, you might want to draw the lines on the paper so they will know where to cut.

Unfold the paper and make a tube out of the paper so that the strips will be vertical and the fold will be horizontal. Staple the edges together to maintain the tube shape.

Now the fun begins. Use scissors, glue, construction paper and other odds-and-ends to create monsters, ghouls, owls, witches, jack-o-lanterns, scarecrows, dragons spiders or other Halloween characters.

Younger children will be delighted with the simple success of cutting triangles for a jack-o-lantern face, but the only limitation is your child’s imagination. Thin strips of paper can be curled or folded fan-style to create hair, arms, legs, whiskers and other whimsical features. Show younger kids how many different expressions can be made with eyebrows, eye shape and mouth shape. Does the witch need a hat? What shape are a bat’s wings? Does the scarecrow need ears? What would make the Halloween cat more sinister?

Allow the glue to dry before moving the finished product.

These festive lanterns look great sitting on a table or windowsill, but they can also be hung in a window or from the ceiling. To hang, punch two holes at the top of each lantern. Then tie a loop of yarn through each hole-punch so that your Halloween ghouls can be hung in the windows or from the ceiling.

A single lantern can be constructed in only 10 or 20 minutes, but this activity is so much fun your kids won’t want to stop until the whole house is decorated.