Halloween activity ideas for your classroom.
Want to hear something really creepy? Next Thursday is Halloween and so now is the perfect time to think of Halloween activity ideas for your maths and literacy groups. Introducing some engaging resources can transform the day from stressful to spooktacular!
Australia has never celebrated Halloween, it has been a rather commercialised adoption of (yet another) American tradition. However as a parent and a teacher I love any chance to have fun with the kids and dress up.
Even if you do not celebrate or dress up for Halloween I can almost guarantee that students in your class will. It can be a great chance to explore what kids are interested in, what scares them, what excites them and builds on the relationship you already have with your students. My philosophy is simple. We can fight them or we can join them in their excitement and introduce some fun and novelty into a rather crowded curriculum.
So for this reason I created some fun and not too creepy but quality Halloween learning resources that offer more than simply another colouring in activity or messy craft Halloween activity.
These Halloween activity ideas are a fun way to make Halloween, and student enthusiasm, work for your classroom and school community.
Classroom Routine Halloween Activity Ideas
Want to introduce Halloween Activities into your classroom but don’t have time for a complicated classroom set up? I hear you, it is busy enough with report writing in Term 4. Which is why I always loved using themed Powerpoint Slides. These slides are editable so you simply click and enter the information your students need. No need to even do this before class, you can do this with your students as you run through the schedule of the day.
Literacy Halloween Activity Ideas
Our students in Foundation to Year 2 need frequent repetition of their sight words to memorise them so why not incorporate Halloween activities into a literacy group rotation. This resource has 300 sight words so there are plenty of cards to keep students busy the entire Halloween period.
Halloween also encourages students to use their creativity with their writing and it a perfect match up to analysis of gothic texts and fantasy genre for Upper Primary Students.
Really hate the idea of Austalia embracing an American holiday – well it’s the perfect time for a persuasive piece of writing or an entertaining classroom debate on the topic.
Numeracy Halloween Activity Ideas
Fractions a bit freaky for your students? No problem this fun resource will keep them engaged. Students can practise reading, making and writing fractions as part of a group.
Do your students need to work on their times tables? These Multiplication Mazes will motivate students to use their times table knowledge.
Whole Number skills translate well into engaging Halloween Activity ideas. For example this counting off the decade resource is fun for students while helping students consolidate a skill they often find tricky.
Skip counting is another skill which students need help with. This Halloween Resource is great as it goes up to 5000 and lets your students practise skip counting by 2s, 4s, 5s,10s and 100s.
Perhaps you have younger students in your early years classroom. Halloween is perfect for sensory play with squishy, slimy snakes and spiders. Mixing potions and eyeball soups with different colours and textures.
However you may be looking for something less sensory and mess free. For instance pattern cards, Halloween clip it card resources and Halloween worksheets are always fun.
I hope this has given you some suggestions for easy ways to capture your student’s enthusiasm for Halloween and make it work for you in the classroom this year. Plenty of Halloween fun – without the candy!
