Halloween activities are ideal for keeping students engaged and learning while creating a celebratory atmosphere. I polled some of my favorite teachers about their favorite Halloween activities, and I’m sharing them with you today.
1. One of the most popular Halloween activities for the classroom from my audience was using a Halloween Escape Room (here’s one that’s done for you!). There are many ways to create an escape room. Think of what you already have in your stockpile of activities and select 4-6 activities. Some possibilities include task cards (see images below), color by number pages, word games like word ladders and word searches, constructing an object like building a 3-story haunted house, build a pumpkin catapult, and so many more. Choose what works best for you.
Once a task has been solved, the group earns a letter or a number to a secret code that you’ve created. They then move on to the next task. Just make sure that clean up isn’t a huge endeavor and have a quiet activity ready because groups will finish at different times.
2. Designing a haunted house. It must be 3-stories and use only construction paper, popsicle sticks, or toothpicks, glue, or tape.
3. Build a pumpkin catapult to catapult candy pumpkins or better yet, orange fluff balls that can’t damage anything!
4. Candy corn arrays to practice multiplication. Here’s a fun Halloween activity bundle that includes multiplication practice & more for younger kids.
5. Haunted house descriptive writing
6. Task cards of any kind…bonus for a Halloween or October theme like you can find here.
7. Create a spooky map where students use symbols to represent different places on their map. I could see using coordinates to add math or geography work.
8. Spooky similes or metaphors-come up with as many as possible. Learn even more great October ideas for the classroom in this blog post.
9. Shades of meaning words related to October. Project lists of words like “Spooky” and “Haunted” then share a variety of synonyms for each (or have students use a thesaurus to find synonyms.). Students work in partners or small groups to order the synonyms from most extreme to least. Compare with other groups. Bonus: Now have students use some of these words to write their spooky stories.
10. Roll-A-Story-a fun game where students either roll numbered dice and each number relates to a different setting. They then roll for a character, and then finally a plot. So if they roll a 1 in the character roll, it may be a witch. For the setting roll, they roll a 2 and it’s a swamp. In the plot roll, they roll a 6 which is all magic is lost and so is the character.
11. Writing scary stories is one of the most popular Halloween activities for the classroom. Students then share them with small groups of students.
12. Google eye arrays for multiplication practice
13. Witches Brew Fractions: Use fractions to measure out different food ingredients.
14. Search & find hidden objects in the classroom. Send 1 student outside. Hide a small object in the room (witch, ghost, etc.) in plain sight. Make sure the rest of the students know where it is. When the 1 student comes back in, ask them to move around the room looking for the object. The remaining students make a hissing sound that gets louder or softer as the searcher moves closer or farther away from the object. Time this to add more fun!
15. Halloween Centers. Like escape rooms, but less prep. Select 5-7 activities for students to either rotate through or grab and take to their desk 1 at a time. Perfect activities include task cards, color by number, short writing activities, grammar games/coloring pages, etc.
16. Conjunction sentence spider grammar craft where the legs connect the clauses. This could also be done with nouns and adjectives and verbs and adverbs!
17. Read about monsters & bats. Dive into actual facts and practice important skills with fun nonfiction reading Halloween activities for the classroom.
18. Scare Alouds: Read several short stories aloud to the class. Then challenge students to create their own short scary story using the literary elements.
19. Mummy Making: Hand out mummy tracing pattern for students to trace on cardstock. They cut it out, add google eyes, and wrap with string to make the mummy. Students estimate how much string they will need. When all students are finished wrapping their mummies, they unwrap and measure their string. They find the difference in their estimation and the actual amount used.
20. Monster Design: Kids draw and describe a monster using descriptive words. Someone else uses their writing to draw the same monster and then they compare.
21. Every student draws/colors a monster that must have a head, body and feet. Students cut the monster into three pieces. All the heads are placed face side down, then the middle and finally the feet. Students randomly pick three pieces to form a new monster. They name it and give it a planet name. The end requirement is to write a fictional story about this new monster. The three pieces are glued onto black paper and the story is attached to the bottom. Students have the opportunity to read and share to the class.
22. Use battery-operated candles to set the scene for your Halloween activities for the classroom. Then play the board game Clue or set the stage for students to solve a mystery.
23. Use this time to work on informational text. Read about the wild history of Egyptian mummies like the one you find here.
24. Read Aloud Books/Short Stories: The Graves Family, Creepy Carrots, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Gustavo the Shy Ghost, Monsters Are Due on Maple Street, etc.
25. Sometimes you just need a calming, no prep activity because everyone needs a break. Color by number pages are the perfect activity because kids love to color and they’re actually working! Find no prep color by number pages here for math and ELA.
Find a variety of engaging activities to use in your classroom around Halloween.
I’m teaming up with some friends to provide even more teaching ideas to help reduce stress and offer support.
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