Silly Styrofoam Skeletons

You know how those styrofoam peanuts start taking over everything when a new package arrives. Well, one year I had a "ton" of them from our school order. I hated to throw them away. I saved them in a big gree bag(yes, I had that many) and thought I'll come up with something later. That "later" occurred at Halloween time. I thought they made great bone shapes--so we made a skeleton.

For the project I use:

styrofoam peanuts

1 12x18 piece of black construction paper

glue(I use tacky)

1 skeleton head cut out

black crayon

For the project I "draw" a skeleton shape with the tacky. Then I let the children cover the glue with the peanuts to make the skeleton bones.

After all the bones are on, I give them a skull shape and have them draw eyes, nose, and mouth with a black crayon. I know not many skeletons have happy faces, but oh well.

Finally, they glue the head on--here I let them use a glue stick--and he's done. He's really cute and looks great hanging around for Halloween.

I got our first skeleton book this year for our library from Scholastic. The book is called "Skeleton hiccups," by Margery Cuyler, illustrated by S.D. Schnidler. I find it quite amusing. I'm not sure what that says about my sense of humor. There is not a lot of text, but one has to pay attention to the illustrations. The story is about a skeleton with hiccups and his morning antics and quest to rid himself of the bothersome hiccups.