A Simple Hallowe'en Word Book Project

in eZediaMX and eZedia QTI

Hallowe'en is a widely known event that has become somewhat controversial in certain locales. For many children, it remains a special time of year. This project is being shared in that spirit.

I can recall from many, many years ago, our teachers using the special days on the calendar to come up with different activities. One of their favorites was to take the letters that spelled the name of the event and have us come up with words starting with each letter that might be associated with the event.  We'd carefully set up our word booklet, coloring each picture, printing neatly, etc. We still do that today in thousands of classrooms. On this page, I'm providing a slightly updated version of that same activity. This could be a good beginner project for a teacher wanting to try out eZediaMX or QTI. The resources I'm going to provide will work in both environments.

The hard part in doing this project was deciding how to spell "Hallowe'en." You'll notice that I have it both ways on this page. Of course, I was also taught to spell "today" as "to-day" and "tomorrow" as "to-morrow." Who says English isn't a living language?

October 2004 - The Bat and the Moon
The following graphic shows a bat flying across a harvest moon. The project was done in eZediaMX. It's a single frame. I have the bat flying across the face of the moon while eerie music plays. Frankly, I think it is a little scary! It certainly sends shivers down your back. You will see the bat flap its wings as it flies across in front of the moon.

How I made the project:
1. I choose black for the Frame Color.
2. I got a picture of the moon from NASA then added some layers to it, colored the layers, to transform my plain black and white moon photo into a harvest moon with some authenticity.
3. The animated bat took about 3 minutes to draw freehand. You'll notice that it's not fancy. It's just 2 frames for the animation - one frame with the wings as you see them and one with the wings drawn up. They are set to go through a loop of 6 frames.
4. I drew a path across the entire frame.
5. I then linked the bat animated gif to the path using the link object.
6. I then added the music file and set it to play on frame open and also to loop. The music you hear playing in the project was a little piece I accidently found on the piano the other night when I combined a major and minor chord. It sounded spooky! I played around a bit more and pulled together this little opening bit that I have looping in this project.



Here's the link to the Harvest Moon graphic. It's large! 141 KB.

My very short, very spooky piece of music is available here. It's an MP3 file.

The complete eZediaMX project file can be downloaded through this link. It's around 585 KB.


Now, let's return to the idea of the Hallowe'en Word Book!
Figure 1: The opening frame for the project



Figure 2: A sample frame


Figure 3: The letter "A" page from the Hallowe'en Word Book Project


Figure 4: The "L" page shows the prompts in place for the writing.


All of the following images are around 50 KB. They're saved as PNG's to preserve their transparency.

Chocolate pumpkin graphic

Orange pumpkin graphic as seen on the front cover

Yellow-orange pumpkin outline graphic

Black shadow of pumpkin

Files to create the project:

Self-extracting eZedia Well that contains all the bits and pieces to create your own project in either eZediaMX or in QTI


I've also provided a QTI version of this project. The navigation on the project works. All frames are represented so the file is a bit large. It's about 300 KB. That will be a slow load on a 56 KB modem. If you're feeling adventurous, click on this link to launch the file.  It will open a separate webpage with the QTI movie on it.

Figure 5: Here's another way we can use the bits and pieces on this page to create an entirely different Hallowee'en project. It's a type of  shape book. To keep the webpage size down, I've had to significantly reduce both the size and the resolution of this photo. When you create something like this, it is much sharper and brighter on your monitor.



Hallowe-en Links:

Meta pages that have links to a variety of Hallowe'en related projects and ideas
http://www.stemnet.nf.ca/CITE/halloween.htm

From arts and crafts to poems and books, this single webpage has a number of items that will be of interest to the elementary teacher.
http://atozteacherstuff.com/themes/Halloween.shtml

More Hallowe'en arts and crafts:
http://www.kidsdomain.com/craft/_Hallo.html

http://www.teach-nology.com/teachers/lesson_plans/holidays/halloween/

This site is a little different in that they seem to have developed most of the materials related to Hallowe'en by themselves. There are a variety of links here. Unless you go to the page that is specifically for external links, you'll remain on their website.
http://www.petzfamilyschool.com/halloween.htm


Monsters
Jim Cornish's website provides some well-organized resources to help students take a more serious look at "monsters" such as Sasquatch, Loch Ness, etc.
http://www.stemnet.nf.ca/CITE/monsters.htm


The Monster Exchange
This is a rather interesting project that is a bit hard to explain in two words or less. Here's a quote from their website about the intent of their activities:
"Monster Exchange is designed to encourage the development of reading and writing skills while integrating Internet technology into the classroom curriculum. Classrooms from a variety of schools worldwide are paired together; the students in each classroom are split into groups, each of which designs an original picture of a monster. The students must then write a description of the monster. The partnered classes then exchange their descriptions via e-mail and the Internet. These students are then challenged to use reading comprehension skills to read the descriptions and translate them into a monster picture. The true challenge involves creating a redrawn picture as close to the original picture as possible without looking at the original and using only the written description of the monster."
http://www.monsterexchange.org/


The History of Hallowe'en
For a complete lesson on the history of Hallowe'en, along with references, check out:
http://teacherlink.ed.usu.edu/tlresources/units/Byrnes-celebrations/halloween.html

For a briefer version of Hallowe'en's history:
http://www.petzfamilyschool.com/halloween.htm


Bats
Once again, check out the resources Jim Cornish has put together. He's covering bat anatomy, types, echolocation and more.
http://www.stemnet.nf.ca/CITE/bats.htm

From the Contra Costa County Board of Education, this site has a number of websites related to bats to assist with student research.
http://www.cccoe.k12.ca.us/bats/


Hallowe'en Clipart
Always check out the copyright rules at any site offering photos and clipart for educational use. At our website, we give educators and students the right to use the materials for educational purposes as long as they aren't going to sell projects or post specific materials from our site at their own site for others to download. You are always welcome to link to our site.

The following page has a wide-variety of clipart links along with a bunch of other items thrown in.
http://webclipart.about.com/library/Extra/blhallo.htm


Mathematics and Hallowe'en
For a simple data analysis and graphing activity appropriate for early elementary students, check out this page from the official Canadian statistics site:
http://www.statcan.ca/english/kits/candy.htm