15 spooktacular Halloween activities for schools

A pumpkin sits on top of a pile of books, surrounded by autumn leaves.

All Hallow’s Eve is fast approaching and it’s time for some spooktacular Halloween activities in the classroom! Halloween is a great chance to mix things up and get festive with some fun and exciting, spooky lessons.

From Halloween arts and crafts ideas to ways to incorporate Halloween into your maths, English, and science lessons, we’ve gathered some of the best Halloween activity ideas for you and your pupils.

 

1. Weigh and measure pumpkins

Bring in a selection of pumpkins of all different sizes and shapes, or better yet, get each child to bring in their own pumpkin. You can weigh the pumpkins and measure their circumference as part of a Halloween-themed maths lesson. Once the measuring has been done, who’s for a spot of pumpkin carving?

 

2. Create Halloween cards

Some cotton swabs, white paper, and some black card is all you need to create these fantastic skeleton Halloween cards.

You could even incorporate these cards into your English lessons and get the pupils to write spooky poems to go inside the cards, too.

 

 
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Weigh-and-measure-pumpkins3. Embroider Day of the Dead skulls

These Day of the Dead embroidery skulls just look so fantastic! Cassie Stevens is full of fun, exciting and simple-to-do art project ideas and her Simple Embroidery for Day of the Dead is the perfect round-the-world Halloween activity for your classroom. You could also take the same opportunity to teach your children about the history and origins of el Dia de los Muertos!

 

4. Make an egg box witch

Crafting is one of the best ways to celebrate Halloween. We love these Egg box witches. You’ll need some crafting supplies, including:

  • Egg boxes
  • Scissors
  • A hot glue gun
  • Tissue paper
  • Green paint
  • Black card and paper
  • Dowel sticks

 

 
 
   
 
 
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5. Do the mummy dress up challenge

This is great for team building skills. Whether it’s in a pair or as a group, select one child to be the mummy and the others must dress the child as a mummy, using rolls of toilet paper.

You could make it more difficult by rationing the amount of toilet paper, or by limiting the time children have. The mummy must be able to walk across the classroom. Prizes for the best dressed mummy!

 

6. Teach all about spiders

Spiders are interesting fellows to say the least. Did you know that farming their silk has been attempted many times, but with very little success?

Autumn is a great opportunity to teach children all about spiders. Give your science lesson a Halloween shake up and go on a hunt for spider webs – an especially great activity on a frosty morning.

 

7. Make blood

This isn’t quite as messy as you might think and also helps children understand the makeup of our blood – double bonus. Let’s Go Live (with Maddie & Greg) is a fantastic YouTube series, that includes a simple way to demonstrate to children what human blood would look like under a microscope.

You’ll need:

  • A clear plastic jug
  • Water
  • Cheerios
  • Red food colouring
  • Yoghurt covered fruit
  • Rice crispies
  • Yellow food colouring
  • A spoon

If you play episode 9 and skip to 18 minutes 11 seconds, you’ll come to the right bit, although children are likely to enjoy the whole thing! Perfect for wet play entertainment.

 

 

8. Use Shakespeare’s Macbeth to make spells

The witches from Macbeth are a great inspiration for spooky Halloween activities. You could spend some time teaching children about how witches were seen during Shakespeare’s time to provide context.

Get children to act out the spell in groups of three – after all, plays are written to be performed!

 

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and caldron bubble.
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the caldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg and howlet’s wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and caldron bubble.
Cool it with a baboon’s blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.

 

Once they’ve got to grips with the rhythm and content of the poem, they can have a go at creating their own spell with horrid ingredients!

 

9. Use ear-cleaner ‘bones’ in maths

Ear cleaners look just like bones! You can easily incorporate these ‘bones’ into your maths lessons as a manipulative. Children can use cotton ear buds to count or make 3D shapes. Let their imagination run wild!

 

10. Do some creepy rock painting and start a school geo-cache

Gather together some rocks from the school grounds or buy in some smooth ones – perfect for painting. Paint the rocks using Instagram to inspire pupils.

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
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Once the rocks are dry, exercise children’s coordinate knowledge. Place a grid of squares over the top of a printed copy of the school and get children to plan their coordinates of the rocks. They can then go and place their rocks in the correct coordinates and give the neighbouring class their map to find them! Tip: avoid burying the rocks – you don’t want the school grounds all dug up!

 

11. Dress your door

Brighten up your pupils’ (and colleagues’!) day by dressing up your classroom door! There is so much inspiration on Instagram and Pinterest for you to browse and ‘borrow’ ideas from. You could even employ the help of your pupils – perhaps the school’s art club could get involved. There’s also the opportunity for friendly competition between classes.

 

12. Make some ghost tealights

This is a really simple yet effective Halloween craft idea. Using air-dry clay, these tealight ghosts can help to exercise the fine motor skills of your pupils and teach them the basics of clay work.

You will need:

 

13. Write scary tales with these Halloween story starters

Nothing gets a classroom of pens moving more than story starters. Set the mood with spooky music or a night-time soundscape and give children a selection of spooky story starters. They could have a go at these:

 

The air around me deadened.

The eyes appeared to follow her around the room.

The figure in the middle of the photograph had been scratched out.

The fog smothered the gravestones.

The school was empty. Empty of children. Empty of chairs and tables. Empty of voices.

As it came toward me, it blocked the light of the moon.

The windows peered back at me like eyes.

He had died. But there he stood.

14. Share Halloween traditions from around the world

With the exception of Dia de los Muertos in Mexico, Halloween is generally celebrated in similar ways the world over. However, there are some particular Halloween traditions from around the world that might interest pupils.

Share some of the more interesting Halloween traditions from around the world with your pupils as part of a geography lesson, or get children writing non-chronological reports as part of their writing portfolio.

 

15. Write instructional labels for potions

Instructional writing can be a little dry. But add potions into the mix and you have got yourself an engaged class of pupils ready to write! Ask around for different sized jars – enough for one per desk/group of pupils. Mix up what you fill the jars with – try putting a couple in a freezer. You could change the consistency with a little PVA glue, glitter, food colouring, or anything you can get your mitts on!

Children can mind map ideas:

  • What can the potion do?
  • What are the ingredients of the jar?
  • How was it made? In a cauldron? Heated up, frozen?

They can then write instructions on how to make the potion.

 

Let us know if you try out any of our spooktacular Halloween ideas and share some pictures with us on our social media channels. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

<a href="https://blog.hope-education.co.uk/author/amber-vaccianna/" target="_self">Amber Vaccianna</a>

Amber Vaccianna

Hope blog writer

6 October 2020

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