Make This Milk Jug Jack-o'-Lantern Halloween Craft to Teach Kids About Emotions

From the delight of candy and costumes to the intimidation of scary decorations, the spooky season can spur mixed emotions in young children.

As the National Education for the Education of Young Children reminds us, children often turn to their caring, trusted adults to help navigate conflicting emotions. Reading, singing, or talking together can help children build emotional awareness. When they identify a spectrum of emotions, they can handle them more effectively when big feelings appear.

Another fun way to help build emotional awareness is through a milk jug jack-o’-lantern that supports early math and is a family treat without the tricks. Using a repurposed milk jug, cut and tape four faces with different expressions on the sides of the container; one face on each side. Add a light on the bottom for glowing fun and ignite creativity together by coming up with silly stories that describe different emotions.

Learning Goals

• Practice early math skills like shape recognition
• Use math talk in everyday activities
• Build on social-emotional awareness by identifying and discussing emotions

Materials

• Milk jug, emptied and cleaned
• Black construction paper
• Blunt-tipped, kid-friendly scissors
• Tape
• Pencil

Step-By-Step Instructions

1. Start a discussion about shapes. They are all around us! Point out some shapes you might see around your house, noticing circles, rectangles and triangles.

2. Using a pencil, draw shapes on black construction paper. You may have your child practice tracing shapes independently or with a little help!

3. Cut the shapes out with kid-friendly scissors.

4. Explain how jack-o’-lanterns can show many different facial expressions. Use the construction paper shapes to come up with four different emotions, such as silly, happy, scary, sad or surprised. You might consider prompting your child by saying, “My jack-o’-lantern is feeling surprised. Can you use the shapes to make a surprised face?”

5. Tape the four facial expressions to the sides of the milk jug. Add even more math by using location and position words like above, over, under, on top of and next to.

6. Ignite creativity by coming up with silly stories about your jack-o’-lantern together! Highlight the order of a story using math terms: first, next, last.

7. Cut out the bottom of the jug and place it on top of a small fake candle or flashlight so your jack-o’-lantern glows. Place it around the house or outside for the spooky season.