Submitted by Sabrina LaPointe, Queensbury, New York

Idea posted October 28, 2005

I did a bulletin board called "Pumpkin Patterns" that was a hit with my students! I took some old fabric I had at home (a Snoopy fall theme with Snoopy jumping into leaves) and pinned it up on the bulletin board. Next I made some small orange pumpkins out of construction paper and used a black marker to draw different quarter/eighth/quarter rest rhythms on them. I laminated the pumpkins and stapled them onto the fabric at odd angles. I found some really cute Halloween alphabet letters with pumpkins and candy corn on them (from the Internet). I printed out the letters I needed for the title and colored them green with orange pumpkins. On the bottom I put the caption, "Can YOU read all of the pumpkin patterns?" For a finishing touch, I stapled some cheap treat bags (99 cents) around the open spaces. I stapled the bags to the bulletin board, leaving the front open and coming away from the board. I filled the bags with candy corn, Tootsie Rolls, and Dum Dum Pops. It created a cool 3-D effect, and the kids just LOVED it!