Super Simple and Fun Jack-o-Lantern Halloween Activity

(Enjoy this super simple and fun jack-o-lantern Halloween activity in your homeschool this October! It’s the perfect simple Halloween activity!)

“Mom, why don’t we ever do crafts?”

Ouch. Why don’t we ever do crafts? When I’m planning my week I can think of a thousand reasons not to do activities.

We’re too busy.
Activities are too messy.
I can’t think of anything to do.

But really, none of those are great excuses. Chris and I are both home full-time now, and we switched to a unit-study based homeschool this year so that we could incorporate more fun into our homeschool. What I really needed was to come up with some super simple and fun activities, and this Jack-o-Lantern Halloween activity was a perfect start!

Super Simple & Fun Jack-o-Lantern Halloween Activity

When I’m coming up with an activity it needs to meet a few requirements.

It needs to be super simple. Like, so simple that the kids can do at least parts of it independently.
It needs to be fast, including fast clean up. If I have to spend an hour preparing and cleaning up, I’ll never actually do it.
It needs to be FUN. What’s the point of doing crafts and activities if the kids hate them?
It needs to have some sort of benefit. Whether it’s learning, working on a developmental skill, or connecting as a family, we need to know why we’re doing it.

Why Do this Jack-o-Lantern Halloween Activity?

We had an absolute blast doing this Jack-o-Lantern Halloween activity. It was super simple for me to put together, and it didn’t take very long at all.

I loved that it was one simple activity that we could all do together, and each of the boys got to enjoy making something fun while working on their fine motor skills.

When the kids are painting, they’re working on their fine motor strength and control with their paint brush. You could also finger paint instead to add in some sensory fun!

We also worked on cutting skills, which is a big struggle for a few of our kids. We are working on adding more cutting activities to our homeschool week and giving our kids scissors more often. Practicing scissor skills is one of my favorite ways to improve handwriting without writing!

What You Need for the Jack-o-Lantern Halloween Activity

Paper Plate
Orange Paint
Black Construction Paper
Kid-Safe Scissors
Glue

How to Do the Jack-o-Lantern Halloween Activity

First, you and the kids are going to paint your paper plate orange. Make sure you fully cover the plate to get the cutest Jack-o-Lantern!

While that’s drying, you’re going to cut out your Jack-o-Lantern’s face from the black construction paper! To make this easier, we drew out where we needed to cut with a white crayon, but you can also just eyeball it.

Have your kiddos use their kid-safe scissors (our favorite are these Fundanoodle scissors because they don’t cut ANYTHING besides paper and playdoh, not even hair!) to cut two triangles and a smile out of their paper.

I like to add a tooth cut out into my smile to make it a bit more Jack-o-Lantern-y!

Check to make sure that your paper plate is completely dry, and have your kiddos glue their Jack-o-Lantern face onto their pumpkin!

Make sure that if you used a white crayon to trace out your cut lines you glue the face pieces white-crayon-side down!

And just like that, you’ve got an adorable jack-o-lantern! We had such a blast making this Halloween craft that the kids immediately asked to do more just like it. What is your favorite Halloween activity for kids?

If you loved this post, you should check out:

About Kaylene

Kaylene George is an autistic self-advocate, author, and mother of five, including one autistic child. She realized her own autism as an adult shortly after her son received his initial diagnosis. Suddenly the parts of her that seemed so “weird” to society had an answer. Since then, Kaylene has passionately shared about her experiences with autism from both sides of the great divide between parents and autistic self-advocates on AutisticMama.com.