Teaching Ideas for Halloween

Explore this enormous list of ideas, activities, links and resources to help your children learn about and celebrate Halloween!

If you have any ideas of your own, let us know in the comments at the bottom of the page.

English:

• Download our Halloween Pack for a comprehensive topic guide and many more useful resources.

• Use our Halloween paper templates for your writing activities.
• Our Halloween Inspiration Posters are perfect prompts for Halloween writing activities.
• Use our Halloween Display Signs, Pictures and Banners on your display boards.
• Write a Halloween-themed poem. This fun poem by Kenn Nesbit is a good example.
• Create a Halloween-themed word search or crossword puzzle, or download our crossword.
• Design a poster or flyer for a Halloween party or event.
• Give the children some information about the history of Halloween, like this report, and ask them to present the information in a different format.
• Create a collaborative Halloween class story, taking turns to add to the narrative.
• Write a script for a Halloween-themed puppet show or play. These Halloween puppets are really quick and easy to make.
• Write a review of your favourite spooky book, or design a new cover for it.
• Write a persuasive text arguing for or against trick-or-treating, or organise a class debate on the topic.
• Design a Halloween-themed newspaper or magazine.
• Try some of our ideas for books like Room on the Broom, Funnybones and The Witches.
• Ask children to create a list of adjectives to describe the items on our Spooky Word Mat.

• This blog post has a good selection of Halloween tongue twisters to try.
• Make each other laugh with these Halloween jokes.
• Give younger children a selection of Halloween items and ask them to sort them by initial sound. Older children can put them into alphabetical order.
• Write a recipe for a witch’s potion.

Maths:

• Use Halloween-themed objects for counting and sorting.
• Give the children a selection of pumpkins of different sizes to measure and put in order of size or mass.
• Gather information from the class about their favourite Halloween activities or costumes. Display the data in different forms, such as bar graphs or pie charts. Which method of representing the data was the most useful? Why?
• Make a Halloween picture using geometric shapes.
• Create Halloween-themed word problems for others to solve, such as “If five children go apple bobbing, how many apples do they need to make sure they have three each?”
• Use fractions to divide a pumpkin pie or other Halloween treat. For example, if a pumpkin pie is cut into eight equal pieces and six people have a piece each, what fraction of the pie is left?
• Create a pattern using Halloween-themed shapes or colours.
• Play a Halloween-themed maths game, like Math Munchman from Primary Games.

Science:

• Create a diagram showing the life cycle of a pumpkin like this one.
• Investigate the properties of light and shadow using a torch and Halloween-themed objects. Use the torch to make shadows. Why do the shadows form? What affects the size of the shadow?
• Give the children a set of Halloween-themed objects, such as a pumpkin, an apple, a mask and so on. Ask the children to predict which items will float and which will sink. Test their ideas.
• Research and write about the life cycle of bats, spiders, or other animals linked to this spooky time of year.
• Create a sensory bin or tactile experience using Halloween-themed objects and textures. Ask the children to describe what the objects feel like.
• Carve a pumpkin lantern and look carefully at the internal structure of the pumpkin.
• Label a diagram of the human skeleton.

Computing:

• Create a Halloween-themed slideshow or presentation using digital images and text.
• Carve an online pumpkin or try an online memory game.
• Create a digital Halloween card or greeting using a graphics program
• Develop a simple game, animation or quiz on Scratch. Look at this page for lots of ideas.

Design Technology:

• Make some Halloween Lanterns.
• Design and create a Halloween-themed mask from a paper plate.
• Design and make a Halloween-themed costume or accessory, such as a hat or brooch.
• Design a Halloween-themed meal, and create a Halloween-themed decorative item for the dinner table, such as a candle holder or centrepiece.
• Make a flapping mechanism for a bat with this fantastic resource from the Institution of Engineering and Technology.
• Design a device to scare Trick or Treaters away.

Art:

• Try this idea for making your own version of Edvard Munch’s The Scream.
• Complete these printable Halloween scenes.
• Design a pumpkin using orange paper, black pens and black tissue paper.
• Create a Halloween-themed print or poster using printing.
• Create a Halloween-themed textile or fibre art piece using various materials and techniques.
• Weave your own spider’s web.

Music:

• Try these ideas for a movement activity based on Danse Macabre by Saint Saens, or enjoy this performance of the music.

• Learn a Halloween song like this one.

• Create a Halloween-themed playlist or soundtrack using various genres and artists.
• Collect spooky sounds that can be made with everyday objects or instruments.
• Create a soundtrack for a short film or a section of a film. This Disney classic is a great stimulus for this activity.

Geography:

• Use this article to find out where in the world Halloween is celebrated, and mark the countries on a world map.
• Create a map of a haunted house or other spooky location.
• Imagine you have started a holiday company specialising in spooky holidays. Design a brochure to promote your holidays.
• Use pumpkins to make a globe, painting the continents and lines of longitude and latitude on them.

History:

• Use the internet to research the history of Halloween. This Kiddle page is a good starting point.
• Design and create a Halloween-themed museum exhibit or display. This post from the young archaeologists’ club has some great ideas.
• Create a historical newspaper or news article for an event that happened on Halloween. The On This Day site is a useful resource for this.

Physical Education:

• Play a game of Witches, Goblins and Monsters.
• Create a Halloween-themed obstacle course or agility challenge. For example, participants could make a spooky sound or get under a sheet and pretend to be ghosts.

Religious Education:

• Find out about All Saint’s Day, which falls on the day after Halloween.

Languages:

• Translate Halloween-themed words and phrases into different languages. This page is a good starting point.
• Create a Halloween-themed language learning game or quiz.

PSHE:

• Have a discussion about how people might feel about Halloween and how we can respect people’s feelings.
• Talk about how it feels to be frightened, how we know if we are really in danger, and what to do if we are.