Bat's All Folks!: Give a Spooky Touch to Your House This Halloween with House of Knowledge

Seeing as today starts Halloween weekend, what could be better than having a creative day before all the trick-a-treating, and let the kids make fun Halloween DIY crafts? We take a look back on what now 8-year-old Robbie from House of Knowledge made for the 2019 October issue of beijingkids’ Maker’s Corner section.

When it comes to Halloween, there is no spooky theme or format off-limits to decorate your house. Every year, no matter how tastefully terrifying or terrifyingly tacky your handicraft, spending time with your little ones to make decorations provides a great opportunity for family fun!

For this month’s Maker’s Corner, Robbie, a 7-year-old student from House of Knowledge, along with his teacher Marianna Wilde, made a happy Halloween grave bat flying in the moon. Robbie drew a lot of stars for the sky, including a make-a-wish shooting star. With his bat’s big smile, we believe he will greet trick-or-treaters in a cute way this Halloween.

The instructions below are only guidelines. Feel free to encourage your kids to use their creativity to decorate their bat craft however they like.

What You’ll Need

Paint
Stapler
Scissors
Double-sided tape/glue
1 black thick paper card
2 paper plates
2 colored craft sticks
2-3 paintbrushes
Printable bat and graveyard craft templates

Instructions

Print and cut out the bat and graveyard craft templates. Paint the back of one of the paper plates black.

(Graveyard) Use the double-sided tape to place the graveyard template on the inner circle of the black plate and draw around the graveyard. Cut out the middle of the plate following the drawn lines.

(Sky) Paint the front of another paper plate blue. When it’s dried, add stars to your blue night sky.

(Bat) Place the bat template on the black thick card, draw around it, and cut out the paper following the drawn lines. Add eyes and a smile or teeth to your bat. You will need to put together two-colored craft sticks and stick the bat onto one end.

(Moon) Draw a moon on the scrap plate and cut it out. Then you can glue it onto the rim of the black plate.

Lay the graveyard plate on top of the blue sky plate and place the bat with the glued sticks in between, then staple all around the two paper plates. Don’t forget to leave a section at the bottom open so you can move the bat puppet from side to side.