Halloween can be an especially exciting time for kids because it gives them the opportunity to dress up as their favorite characters, have some sweet treats, and they have the opportunity to go trick-or-treating!
If you are a teacher and you want to get into the Halloween spirit with your students this year, then you have come to the right place!
We have put together a list of 11 of the best and most fun Halloween activities that are perfect for Halloween, and your kids are guaranteed to have a good time.
A great way to get you and the kids into the Halloween spirit is to decorate the classroom! You can make lots of DIY decorations and you can get the kids to make some too!
You can make Halloween walls or corners if you don’t want to decorate the full classroom, but if you do want to go all out, you can hang up Halloween bunting and put fake cobwebs all over the walls.
This is a great way to get into the spirit of Halloween, and by including your students in the decoration process, it will break up the usual lesson structure and it gives them a chance to get creative.
Word searches are always great to implement in the classroom. They are the perfect balance of fun and educational!
Halloween is one of the easiest holidays to incorporate into a word search as well because there are so many words that work for it!
When it comes to finding the right Halloween word search, you can find plenty of different kinds online, but if you have a bit more time on your hands, why not make some yourself?
Making word searches are really easy, and you can print off enough so your whole class can enjoy them.
You can take it a step further and put the word search up on the board so your class can enjoy it as a group activity too!
It’s not Halloween without carving and decorating pumpkins!
Carving pumpkins might be a bit harder to do in school, especially if you have younger kids to look after, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t just decorate them!
This is a great way to get crafty with your students while still keeping the activity Halloween friendly!
You can use all sorts of materials to decorate your pumpkins, from buttons to string to cardboard… the only limit is your imagination.
You can even let your students take their pumpkins home at the end of the day, or you can set up a pumpkin area in the classroom for the Halloween season.
This activity is super cute, super on-brand for Halloween, and extremely cost-effective! All you really need is a pack of plastic cups, a marker, and a little ball to get this activity going.
Bowling for ghosts is pretty much exactly what it sounds and looks like as well, and it’s a great way to get your students involved in an activity instead of just sitting down!
You can even get your students to decorate the cups instead of yourself, and then you can all take it in turns to try and knock them down with the ball.
Sometimes, the simple ideas are usually the best ones, so if you’re looking for a full Halloween classroom activity that is quite low maintenance, this is the perfect one to try.
Here’s another cute and crafty idea that fits the Halloween spirit perfectly! These paper plate bats are super easy to make and it gives your students the chance to get super creative.
You don’t really need too many materials to bring these paper plate bats to life either!
All you really need is some black paper plates, black construction paper, and some googly eyes!
You can add in some more materials like glitter or other colors if you want to, and while you can show your students how to make this design, you can also encourage them to add a bit of a personal touch too.
If you want to do something with your students that is a bit more active rather than just crafty, why not have them do a Halloween scavenger hunt?
This is a great way to get them moving around the whole classroom, following Halloween-themed clues that will lead them to fun prizes and treats!
You can be as creative as you want with your Halloween scavenger hunt and there are plenty of them that you can find online, but you can also make up your own if you have some ideas already.
Your students will have loads of fun trying to solve the clues, just make sure that they are age appropriate and not too difficult for younger students.
Remember, you want your kids to have fun and you want to keep them as engaged as possible!
Pumpkin ring tossing is another fun, active game for your students to play on Halloween! All you need is a couple of pumpkins and some glow-in-the-dark party bracelets and you will be good to go.
You can split your students up into teams or they can all just have a go at tossing the rings onto the pumpkins as one big group.
However you choose to set it up, your students are sure to have loads of fun and a good laugh!
This is one of the easiest activities to set up and it’s really cost-effective too, so you don’t have to worry about breaking the bank with this one.
Halloween is the one time of year when it’s totally fine to dress up as your favorite character, so why not capitalize on this and have your students dress up for a class costume contest?
This activity will involve a lot of preparation outside of the classroom, so if you do choose to incorporate this into your classroom festivities, make sure you give the kids’ parents enough warning!
As for the contest itself, you can make it a lot more fun by adding in lots of different categories and prizes! Some ideas for categories include “Most Scary”, “Most Original”, and “Most Cute”.
Charades are great to play during the Halloween season because there are so many different phrases and words you can use!
This is a great classroom activity as well because it gets your students up and moving and it also gets them thinking creatively to solve problems.
It’s also a great game because it can be played by kids of any age.
You can divide your students into groups to play this or you can just play all as one big group. As the teacher, you can also join in and it’s a fantastic way to bond with your students.
You also don’t need to bring in any extra materials for this activity, which means it’s incredibly cost-effective!
Everyone knows the game “Pin The Tail on the Donkey” but this version makes it way more Halloween-appropriate!
You can find lots of skeleton designs to print off online, but if you are a bit more artistic, you can even have a go at drawing it for yourself!
If you want to take it a step further, you can get your students to draw the skeleton depending on how old they are.
This is another activity that is a bit more interesting than just sitting around and doing something passive, and your students are sure to have a good laugh as they watch their blindfolded classmates pin the bow on the wrong part of the skeleton!
Here’s another crafty idea that is perfect for Halloween! It’s fun, and the “monsters” can be as cute or as scary as your students desire!
You don’t have to break the bank with this idea as well, because most of the craft items needed can be acquired from the art department or from cheap sources.
This is a great Halloween activity to get your students into the spirit of the holiday, and it’s a nice break from the normal lesson plan.
Conclusion
So there you have it! 11 fun Halloween classroom activities to get your students into the spirit of the season!
Your students will have so much fun taking part in these Halloween-themed activities and they are a great way to break up the day.
Your students will feel really involved in these activities and as the teacher, you can get involved too!
When Halloween rolls around, try implementing some of these activities into your lesson plan and see which ones your students love the most!
Hi, my name is Helena Waters and I was a teacher for 40 years before retiring last year.
During my time as a teacher I dedicated the majority of it to making classrooms as fun as possible, with educational parties, fun activities, and low cost entertainment that made the children excited about learning.
I taught children of all ages, from preschoolers to high school students. Now, with the pandemic having uprooted everything that children once knew about school and learning, I think that the need for my ideas is bigger than ever.
That is why I created School Sparks, a place in which I can write down and share all of my ideas on how to get students excited about going to school again. I hope that you’ll find some useful within a school setting, even at home too!
