Hand Print Calendar: October

{Looking for a fun way to review the days of the week and months of the year? Try this hand print calendar! Students are sure to love the “hands on” artwork as well as the special poem for each month. If completed before the holidays, this makes a spectacular (and functional!) Christmas gift for mom and dad!}

October

With its Halloween festivities, October brings goblins, and witches, and ghosts, oh my! So what better way to decorate your October calendar page than with a spooky holiday character - a hand print bat, spider, or Jack-o'-lantern!

Hand Print Bat

Supplies You'll Need

• Black and white washable paint
• White construction paper
• Markers

Bat Instructions

Help your students cover their palm with black tempera paint.

Invite them to gently press their palm (fingers pointed toward the top of the page) to one side of the white craft paper.

When dry, use white tempera paint and round foam kids paint brushes to create two "eyes" on the body. Have your students use washable markers to draw and color in both wings and ears for the bat and finish the eye detailing (when the white paint has dried).

The Poem

Five Black Bats

• Five black bats ready to soar
• One stayed behind, now there are four.
• Four black bats hanging from a tree;
• One fell down, now there are three.
• Three black bats wondering what to do,
• One flew away and now there are two.
• Two black bats sitting in the sun,
• One fell asleep leaving only one.
• One lonesome bat, with no place to go,
• Went hiding in a cave,
• Now there are zero.

~Shel Silverstein

Hand Print Spider

Supplies You'll Need

• White and black tempera paint
• White construction paper
• Markers

Spider Instructions

Help your students cover their palm with black kids paint.

Invite them to gently press their palm (fingers pointed toward the right edge of the page) to one side of the white craft paper.

When dry, use white craft paint and a round foam brush to create two "eyes" on the body. Have your students use markers to draw eight legs, the "web" detail, and finish the eye detailing (when the white paint has dried).

The Poem

Spider, Spider

• Spider hurrying,
• Spider scurrying,
• See her silken thread.
• Spider hurrying,
• Spider scurrying,
• See her little web.

Hand Print Jack-O-Lantern

Supplies You'll Need

• Orange kids paint
• White construction paper
• Black Sharpie marker

Jack-O-Lantern Instructions

Help your students cover their palm with orange paint.

Invite them to gently press their palm (fingers pointed toward the top of the page) to one side of the paper.

When dry, use a black marker to draw a stem and face for the jack-o-lantern.

The Poem

Jack-o-Lantern

• Jack-o-lantern, Jack-o-lantern,
• You are such a funny sight.
• As you sit there by the window,
• Looking out into the night.
• You were once a sturdy pumpkin,
• Growing on a curly vine.
• Now you are a Jack-o-lantern,
• In the night you shine.

Whichever character you choose, your students are sure to have fun adding to their calendar art!