Halloween will be here very soon! One of our favorite parts of Halloween is the fun art projects. Although kids love art, sometimes the activities can be a little overwhelming with a lot of steps, a lot of materials or just super complicated. Here is a fun and easy art project that you can do at home with friends, with family or alone to help get you and your little one in the Halloween mood!

Materials
-White paper
-Halloween cookie cutters
-Paper plate
-Tempera paint: white, yellow and/or orange
-Visuals

Visuals
When using the visuals, try to focus on the specific visuals that help your child:
-Understand
-Attend to the activity
-Create joint attention
-Participate within the activity
-Use their social communication language (i.e., requesting: “I want pumpkin”; making choices: “pumpkin or witch”; taking turns: “My turn”; commenting: “Look,” “Wow,” “Cool”, etc.).
-Follow directions

And remember to point to the pictures as you talk.

Steps
First, pour the paint on paper plates. If you are working on quantities, this is a great time to work on “too little” and “more”.

Second, place the cookie cutter in the paint and then on the paper.

**Make sure to have an extra paper plate(s) to place the dirty cookie cutters on when you are done.

When you are finished you will have a fun Halloween scene!

Here are a few additional things you can do with this activity:

1. If you are working on storytelling: Have your child use the cookie cutters as their visual cues to tell a spooky story.

2. If you are working on sharing/turn taking with other kids: Try using a big piece of butcher paper and doing the activity together.

3. If you are working on matching: Make two pages of just ghosts, two pages of just pumpkins, etc. Once the pages have dried, cut out the shapes and play a fun memory game. To make this even harder, make two pages of several shapes each and cut out a variety of shapes to match.

Enjoy preparing for Halloween through art! Your child will be having so much fun, they won’t even realize they are working on vocabulary, social skills, cognitive skills, fine motor skills and more!

Here are some links to our past Halloween video and blogs that you may find helpful with preparing your child for the upcoming special day:

Video: Halloween Tips, Tricks and Treats: http://www.autismspot.com/videos/Halloween-Tips-Tricks-and-Treats

Blogs:

Preparing for Halloween Week 1: (books and activities) http://www.autismspot.com/blog/Preparing-Halloween-Week-1

Preparing for Halloween Week 2: (costumes and activities) http://www.autismspot.com/blog/Preparing-Halloween-Week-2

Preparing for Halloween Week 3: (activities) http://www.autismspot.com/blog/Preparing-Halloween-Week-3

Preparing for Halloween Week 4: (activities) http://www.autismspot.com/blog/Preparing-Halloween-Week-4

Spooktacular Craft!: http://www.autismspot.com/blog/Spooktacular-Craft

Tricks without Treats?: http://www.autismspot.com/blog/Tricks-without-Treats

Meet the Halloween Fairy: http://www.autismspot.com/blog/Meet-Halloween-Fairy

What did you do for Halloween?: http://www.autismspot.com/blog/What-did-you-do-Halloween

~KidSpeak, LLC
www.kidspeakdallas.com

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