October Fun

So this is my October bulletin board from 2007. I change it little by little throughout the month, until it eventually looks something like this.
I hand cut and laminated the pieces of the scarecrow from butcher paper a couple of years ago using Margaret Wise Brown's The Littlest Scarecrow as a model. The leaves are fingerpainted by the students (using a similar technique as the apples, below). They paint a piece of fingerpaint paper using 2-3 fall colors, then I have an adult or Jr. High helper trace the leaf template and cut them out. I write their names on them with a big permanent marker.
The pumpkins are fingerpainted using red and yellow paint mixed together. I just cut these out any old pumpkin-y shape after they dry. The vine is brown butcher paper twisted up and stapled to the board.
Since we go to the pumpkin patch each year for our first field trip, and they have sunflowers there, we add sunflowers as well. For each sunflower I give the students a brown square which they round into a circle by cutting the corners off (TLC style... if you are not familiar with this company you can google it, they are great!) Then they have several yellow rectangles which they cut into petal shapes. We add a stem and leaves, also cut from rectangles. The best part is when we glue the REAL sunflower seeds to the center. They can outline the brown circle or fill it in or make a design.
The last piece of art is the crows. I created this pattern from an old toll painted crow from the 90's. I really loved toll painting back then! It has a large black heart for the body, 2 smaller black hearts for the wings, a circular head with a "top notch" of feathers, a triangle beak and 2 yellow heart feet. We add big googly eyes to give it a little more character.
The writing I add to the October wall is a chart about pumpkin growth. I hand wrote it on chart paper then laminated it so I can reuse it each year. It says: How a pumpkin grows... First, it is a ___________. (seed) Then, it is a _________. (sprout) Next, it is a ___________. (flower) Finally, it is a _______. (pumpkin) On Halloween it will be a __________! (jack o lantern) Love, Mrs. Bergenske's Class Before each blank is a picture of the item that goes on the line. Five lucky students get to come up and be the "recorders" while we sound out the items that go on the line. We so this as a class and use phonetic spelling to help them practice segmenting and recording the sounds they hear.

So what do you do for your October bulletin boards? I'd love to get some comments with photos or links!! Happy teaching!