How to Hold a Classroom Fall Festival
In today's politically correct educational world, Halloween parties are a thing of the past. But you can have a fall festival in October or November and celebrate the wonderful season of fall in your classroom. There are several activities you can do in your classroom throughout the whole season, or you can have one special day to celebrate. Either way, a fall festival will be a hit with your students. Read on to see how to put a classroom fall festival together.
- Difficulty:
- Moderately Easy
Instructions
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Plan your fall festival for a day, a week, or a month. Decide on which method fits your classroom schedule the best and begin planning.
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Decide on which activities you would like to do with your students. You can do activities with apples such as an Apple Tasting Contest. For this activity, you would get several different kinds of apples, have students taste and rate them, and then pick the class favorite. You can do many extensions from this activity, such as graphing, class presentations, and persuasive writing. You can also do activities with pumpkins such as Estimate How Much the Pumpkin Weighs. Have students guess how much a pumpkin weighs based on how much other objects weigh. Then weigh the pumpkin, and see who is the closest. These are just two examples of the many activities you can do at a fall festival celebration.
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Create fall decorations with your students. If you teach a younger grade, students can make decorations throughout the season during art time. They can dip cut apples in paint and make apple prints. They can paint big, orange pumpkins. They can cut out different color leaves, and make a classroom fall tree for the wall. With older students, they can combine writing projects with decorations. Maybe they can write and illustrate a fall story for the classroom walls. They can also make a fall collage, cutting out different shapes or fall pictures from magazines, or drawing their own. You can get very creative with your classroom when you are decorating for a fall festival.
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Make treats for your students, or cook as a class activity. You can make pumpkin seeds or apple cookies. You can drink apple cider. You can bake sugar cookies shaped as leaves or pumpkins, and the students can decorate them with icing and different toppings such as sprinkles or other small candies.
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Collect leaves as a class project, and make a leaf album. You can use a regular photo album where you can insert the leaves, instead of photos. Each class member can make a label for a leaf in the album. The label can tell where the leaf was found, the date, and what type of tree it is from. This is a good activity to share with any parent volunteers who help on the day of the fall festival celebration.
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Tips & Warnings
Ask parents to volunteer during fall festival activities. If you are doing one or two activities a week, schedule different parents to come in and help for each activity. If you plan to have one fall festival day, you may want several parent volunteers to run two or three classroom activities at the same time. You may also ask parents to donate materials and supplies to help cut your costs.
