🎓 Skills Your Child Will Develop

• 💪 Persistence & Resilience — Working through a craft that doesn't go as planned, fixing mistakes, and persisting to completion teaches children that effort — not talent — produces results, a mindset that predicts lifelong learning.
• 🌿 Sensory Exploration — Handling varied craft materials — soft fabric, rough sandpaper, smooth clay, scratchy burlap — builds sensory discrimination and supports the processing skills that some children need additional practice with.
• 🏆 Pride & Accomplishment — Completing a craft and displaying or giving it away gives children a concrete experience of accomplishment — building the relationship between effort, completion, and pride that motivates future creative risk-taking.
• ♻️ Environmental Thinking — Using natural or recycled materials in crafts begins to develop awareness that materials have a life beyond their original use — an early foundation for environmental stewardship and sustainable thinking.

The Plastic Jar Jack-O-Lantern Preschool Halloween Craft is an easy alternative to the traditional jack-o-lantern. This preschool Halloween craft is so light and safe that your preschooler can carry it around if s/he likes. Just glue orange and black tissue paper to a clean, dry recycled plastic jar and place a light stick inside for a cheery and safe Halloween decoration.

Materials You Will Need

1 recycled plastic jar, clean and dry, large enough to hold a light stick
Orange tissue paper torn into squares
Black tissue paper
Craft glue that will stick to plastic
Scissors
Craft wire (optional)
18-inch long 1-dowel

How to Make It

Step 1:
Cut a jack-o-lantern nose, mouth, and eyes from the black tissue paper. Glue them to the jar to be the jack-o-lantern face.

Step 2:
Glue the orange tissue paper onto the rest of the jar being careful not to cover the face.

Step 3:
Activate the light stick and put it inside the jar.

Take it a Step Further

The original Jack-o-lanterns were not pumpkins. Pumpkins come from the Americas. The original Jack-o-lanterns were created in Europe long before the Americas were discovered. To light their way at night, people carved out root vegetables such as turnips and hung them from sticks by leather strips. They then put a candle in the whole and carried it to help them see at night.

With a little help from you, your preschooler can make his/her own version of this. Punch two in the jar opposite one another near the top. Your preschooler can form a handled by threading sturdy craft wire through these holes, forming an arch in the middle like a bucket handle. Twist the ends of the wire around the main body of the wire to make it secure. Twist the handle onto the end of a stick or dowel. Add the light stick and with parent supervision your preschooler can light his way.

If you choose not to do this, the jar Jack-o-lantern can also make a nice display either along on a table or porch or arranged with other jar Jack-o-lanterns. Line them up down the center of your dinner table or use them to line your walkway.

Alternative Jack-O-Lantern Patterns

Try different patterns on the jar. Cut a witch against a moon or a black cat, or other Halloween shapes. Preschool level coloring books make good patterns if you trace them with tracing paper. Look around you for possible sources of Halloween patterns. You can also cut the central design from Halloween napkins and make jar lanterns to fit your party theme.

Another Alternative to Traditional Jack-o-lanterns

Another good way to light a table or a walk way is by using the Paper Sack Luminarias Preschool Halloween Craft. Just cut Halloween designs into a paper lunch sack, weight with sand, rice, or dried beans, and drop in a light stick. Making several to light the walkway to your front door for trick-or-treaters can be a fun family craft.

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I'm Margaret Studer, the Preschool Crafts writer for PreschoolRock.com. In addition to crafts, I enjoy writing, children, cooking, and cats. I love to hear from my readers, so please share your preschool craft ideas with me. If you have any suggestions, ideas, or questions about this site, please contact me.

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