Halloween season is upon us and that means all kinds of fun, creepy and creative, Halloween-themed activities! When I was recently at the grocery store, I picked up some dried beans in the soup aisle. Dried beans are a wonderful and inexpensive way to create lots of sensory, educational activities at home or school. For this activity, we are going to get out creative juices flowing and use the beans to make Halloween Bean Monsters!
Halloween Bean Monsters Video Tutorial
Before reading ahead, check out the below video of my son, Nate, making some fun monsters:
Materials Needed
- Large Lima Beans (white)
- Bag of red lentil beans (orange)
- Bag of black beans (black)
- Candy eyeballs (or non-candy googly eyes work too)
- Shallow white tray
How to make Halloween Bean Monsters
- Start by pouring a small amount of red lentil beans in the center of the tray. The red lentils are the smallest beans and will be the base color of your monsters.
- Pour some large white lima beans in the corner. These work great for limbs, mouths, arms and lots of other features to add to the monsters.
- Pour some black beans into another corner. The black beans are great for making eyes, outlines, arms and legs.
- Finally add some googly eyes to another corner and the setup is complete.
- Now challenge yourself or someone else to use all the different beans to make all kinds of Halloween monsters!
- Once you’ve completed a creation, take a photo to remember it and then remove all the larger beans and googly eyes from the red lentils and start over!
This activity is so great for building creativity, fine motor skills and it’s just plain fun! My boys loves seeing all the fun monsters they could come up with! My son Nate, even made a spooky Jack O’Lantern!
Variations
- Try using the materials to make animals you know or other things like houses, cars, insects or dinosaurs….the possibilities are endless.
- Try making letters or shapes with the lentils and outlining them with the other beans for a more educational experience.
More Halloween Activities
Looking for more Halloween ideas? Check out all our Fall/Halloween activities here or some of our favorites below:
