This is a great lesson to do with your class as you review the concept of even and odd numbers. Students loved getting to make spooky houses and were excited to add as many even or odd characteristics as they could think of!
Begin by reading the book Even Steven and Odd Todd to your class. Review what makes a number even and what makes a number odd.
Use a flipchart filled with a variety of haunted house images from Google. Have students sort houses into categories based on even and odd characteristics. If a student wants to sort a house into a specific category they could add (or subtract) characteristics to the house.
(Example for the orange house on the bottom left of the flipchart: A student wanted to sort that house into "Even Steven" so they added another pumpkin, another fence, and made the door into two doors.)
*This sort was mainly to get students noticing characteristics of a haunted house, while checking to see if students understood how to incorporate even and odd quantities of the characteristics.
Next pass out a house template for the students to build off of. I told my students that they needed to decorate their regular, boring house for Halloween. I also encouraged them to use our flipchart examples as inspiration. I pointed out the spooky eyes, the colors, and the many other spooky characteristics present in the images. (Click the template for a printable version on Pinterest!)
Students were given half a sheet of construction paper and scrap paper to create this project. I told students that they needed to have one moving part and they needed to use their classroom number as the house number. House Numbers dictated whether the house would have even or odd characteristics!
Creating this spooky neighborhood was a fun way to prepare for fall AND it will be up for decoration until Halloween! Win-Win :)