With Halloween approaching, there is a buzz in the air. Maybe it is the excitement over Halloween costumes. Maybe it is the anticipation of Halloween candy. Whatever it is, it makes it hard to be a teacher in October.
I've got some Halloween learning activities that you can use in your classroom to channel the excitement of Halloween into constructive learning opportunities.
Halloween Picture Books
I love a good read aloud and Halloween themed books are a great way to embrace the excitement of the holiday while still learning and listening to stories.
10 Not Spooky Halloween Picture Books for Kids features ten Halloween picture books that are more fun and funny than scary and spooky. Some are recent titles and some are oldies but goodies that your students might never have heard.
Halloween Games
Halloween Bingo is one of my favorite games to play at Halloween. It is perfect for building vocabulary and I often get feedback that teachers use my bingo games with ELL students who are just learning English.
This is also a great game to pull out for Halloween parties. I will never forget the year in the classroom when my room parents were like "well we are done with everything we planned" and packed up and walked out of the classroom leaving me with a classroom full of sugared up kids and 45 minutes to kill until the end of the day. Bingo was a lifesaver and sanity saver that day!
30 different boards are included in both color and black and white so you can quickly print these and be ready to play. There are also teacher calling cards included.
These game boards practice addition facts by number. Just print off the numbers your students need practice with. Color versions and black and white versions of these board games are included. Very little prep and the instructions are printed on each game board making this a game students can play independently.
Halloween Multiplication Bump is similar to the addition version above but practices multiplication facts. This is a great way to build math fact fluency while letting students play games with a partner.
To play BUMP, students spin a number and multiply it by the number at the bottom of the page. They find the product and put on their pieces on it (mini erasers are perfect for game pieces.) Then if their partner gets the same answer, they can BUMP their piece off. If you get two of your game pieces on a number it is locked and can't be bumped. The first player to use all 10 of their pieces wins.
Halloween Freebies
Check out some of these free printables that you can use in your classroom to build on excitement but keep everyone's attention and focus on something educational.
Halloween Vocabulary Activities includes activities like read/write the room, ABC order and write your own story. All the activities use vocabulary cards that have a Halloween picture and word. This can work for centers the week of Halloween or can even be used during a Halloween party.
On the blank outline they would draw themselves in their costume. On the outline with the box, they would have to write in complete and detailed sentences all about their costume. They could NOT say what they were dressing up as, but simply give detailed clues to help their classmates guess. Once both pages were complete, they cut them out and stapled them together at the very top.
Then I would have them hang them up on the outside of their lockers (or their desk could work too.) When we had time throughout the day, they would read each other's descriptions and then try to guess before flipping up to look at the picture. They had fun with it and I felt like it was a little more educational because they had to work on writing skills such as punctuation, capitalization, adjectives and details.
Halloween Counting Candy Puzzles is a freebie designed to practice counting. Students count the jellybeans in the jar and find the matching number to complete the puzzle. These are a little tricky because the candy isn't in straight lines. They are in piles in the jar so it can be a challenge to correctly count the candy.
Halloween Task Cards
Task cards are the ultimate worksheet replacer. Instead of an overwhelming sheet of problems to solve, student focus on one card/problem at a time. At Halloween I would do this kind of like read/write the room.
Cut the Halloween task cards apart and tape them up around the room. Print off the recording sheets and have students grab a clipboard. They then wander the room looking for task cards. When they find them, they solve the Halloween related problem and write the answer on their sheet.
When everyone is done they turn these in for a grade or you could check them with the whole class.
The two sets that I have below were created with second grade standards in mind.
Halloween Math Task Cards works on telling time, elapsed time, base ten blocks, expanded form, comparing & ordering numbers, addition and subtraction story problems and even & odd numbers. The task cards include Halloween themed pictures and problems to solve.
Halloween ELA Task Cards work on contractions, parts of speech (noun, verb, adjectives), misspellings of common words, punctuation (. ? !), finding mistakes in sentences and grammar mistakes. The 32 task cards come in color or black and white. To save ink, print the black and white set on colored paper to make it pop.
Sensory Play
Halloween Pasta Sensory Bin is an idea for kids of all ages. Youngers kids can use it simply as a sensory bin where they explore different textures and practice filling and dumping.
You can also bring the fun of sensory bins to older kids. Put the vocabulary cards from the freebie above or the task cards in the bin. Students need to sort through the bin to find the cards and record their answer.
I hope that helps give you some ideas for Halloween Learning Activities you can use in your classroom to help keep your students focused and learning throughout the excitement of the Halloween Season.