Halloween isn’t just about costumes and candy—it’s a chance to make learning exciting. With the right activities, kids can explore science, math, reading, and art in fun, spooky ways. Whether you’re a parent or teacher, this guide offers creative ideas to keep kids engaged and learning during the Halloween season. Dive in and discover how to turn spooky fun into meaningful learning

2. Halloween STEM Activities for Curious Minds

Halloween offers a perfect opportunity to blend spooky themes with science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). These hands-on activities not only keep kids engaged but also sharpen their problem-solving and critical thinking skills.

 

Bubbling Witch’s Brew (Science)

Let kids experiment with safe chemical reactions using baking soda, vinegar, food coloring, and a cauldron. Watching the fizz bubble over is both exciting and educational. Teach them about acids and bases while they play.

 Pumpkin Volcanoes

Hollow out a small pumpkin, add baking soda and dish soap inside, then pour in vinegar to create a foaming eruption. It’s a Halloween twist on the classic volcano experiment.

Haunted House Engineering Challenge

Provide materials like popsicle sticks, tape, and paper to let kids build their own haunted house models. Challenge them to make their structure earthquake-proof or able to hold a certain amount of weight.

Spider Web Coding (Technology)

Use simple coding games or unplugged coding activities where students use directional commands to “escape a spider web” maze. This promotes logical thinking and basic programming concepts.

Candy Corn Catapults (Engineering + Math)

Use rubber bands, plastic spoons, and craft sticks to create mini catapults that launch candy corn. Let kids measure distances, calculate averages, and adjust designs for better performance.

 Glow-in-the-Dark Slime (Science + Sensory)

Create slime using glue, borax (or liquid starch), and glow-in-the-dark paint or tonic water under black light. Discuss polymers and how molecules change when mixed.

Estimation Jar with Halloween Candy (Math)

Fill a jar with candy corn or mini pumpkins and have kids estimate the number. Then sort, count, and graph results. It’s simple yet reinforces number sense and data collection.

3. Halloween-Themed Reading and Literacy Activities

Halloween is a great time to spark a love of reading and language in young learners. With spooky stories and creative writing prompts, children can improve their literacy skills while enjoying the season’s thrills.

 

Spooky Story Starters

Give students Halloween-themed sentence prompts like “One dark and stormy Halloween night…” or “I opened my front door and saw a floating pumpkin…” and have them finish the story. This builds imagination and narrative skills.

Halloween Word Hunts

Create word search or scavenger hunt games using Halloween vocabulary such as “cauldron,” “vampire,” “costume,” and “haunted.” These boost vocabulary and spelling recognition.

Read-Alouds with a Twist

Choose fun and age-appropriate Halloween books like Room on the Broom or Creepy Carrots. Use voices, props, or sound effects to make the experience more interactive and memorable.

Rhyming Potion Game

Give kids a list of Halloween words and have them find or create rhyming matches (e.g., bat – hat, ghost – toast). Then they can mix their “rhyming potions” in pretend cauldrons.

Create a Halloween Book

Students can write and illustrate their own Halloween stories, complete with a beginning, middle, and end. They can bind the pages together into a class “Haunted Library.”

Costume Character Descriptions

Have kids write detailed descriptions of their Halloween costumes or invent characters. This helps develop descriptive writing and use of adjectives.

Halloween “Mad Libs”

Fill-in-the-blank word games using Halloween stories are a fun way to teach parts of speech like nouns, verbs, and adjectives. The results are usually silly and spark lots of laughter.

Sight Word Ghost Game

Cut out paper ghosts and write common sight words on them. Hang them around the room and have kids “ghost hunt” by reading each word aloud.

4. Halloween-Themed STEM Activities

Integrating science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) into Halloween fun helps students learn critical thinking and problem-solving in an engaging way. These hands-on activities are perfect for classrooms or at home, offering both educational value and seasonal excitement.

 

Pumpkin Volcanoes

Turn a small pumpkin into a mini volcano using baking soda and vinegar. Kids can measure ingredients, make predictions, and observe chemical reactions in action.

Skills: Observation, measurement, basic chemistry.

 

Build a Bone Bridge

Challenge students to construct a “bone bridge” using cotton swabs, craft sticks, or paper straws. The goal is to design a structure that can hold the most weight.

Skills: Engineering design, balance, testing hypotheses.

 

Spider Web Geometry

Using string and tape, have students create spider webs on paper or between chair legs. They can explore patterns, shapes, and symmetry.

Skills: Geometry, spatial reasoning, fine motor skills.

 

Candy Corn Catapults

Students build mini catapults using craft sticks, rubber bands, and spoons. They can launch candy corn and record how far each launch goes.

Skills: Engineering, measurement, data collection.

 

Glow-in-the-Dark Slime

Mix simple ingredients like glue, baking soda, and glow-in-the-dark paint to create slime. Explore texture, color mixing, and chemical changes.

Skills: Scientific method, chemistry, sensory exploration.

 

 Haunted House Circuits

Using simple circuit kits or copper tape, batteries, and LED lights, kids can light up a haunted house drawing or model.

Skills: Electrical circuits, creativity, problem-solving.

 

Estimation Station: Pumpkin Edition

Set up a math center where students estimate a pumpkin’s weight, circumference, number of seeds, or how many scoops of pulp it contains. Then compare with actual measurements.

Skills: Estimation, measurement, data analysis.

 

Ghost Balloon Rockets

Thread a string through a straw, tie it across the room, and attach a balloon decorated like a ghost. Let the balloon fly and time its speed. Repeat with different variables.

Skills: Physics (forces and motion), experimentation.

5. Halloween-Themed Reading and Literacy Activities

Halloween is the perfect time to spark a child’s imagination through spooky stories, playful vocabulary, and engaging literacy games. Whether you’re a teacher aiming to boost reading comprehension or a parent encouraging a love of books, Halloween-themed literacy activities make learning fun and festive. Below are several ideas to bring reading and writing alive during the spooky season.

 

Spooky Story Starters

Provide students with Halloween-themed story prompts to help jumpstart their creative writing. For example:

• “As I walked into the haunted library, the books started to whisper…”
• “I found an old map inside a pumpkin. It led me to…”

Encourage children to write their own spooky tales using the prompt. Younger learners can dictate their stories while older ones can write paragraphs or full narratives.

Skills Developed: Creative writing, sequencing, vocabulary expansion, sentence structure.

 

Halloween Read-Aloud and Discussion

Choose age-appropriate Halloween books to read aloud in class or at home. Some popular choices include:

• “Room on the Broom” by Julia Donaldson
• “Creepy Carrots!” by Aaron Reynolds
• “The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything” by Linda Williams

After reading, ask questions like:

• What was your favorite part?
• How did the character solve their problem?
• Can you predict what might happen next?

Skills Developed: Listening comprehension, critical thinking, inferencing, predicting.

 

Word Witch Spelling Game

Create a spelling or sight word game by writing Halloween-themed words on cauldron cutouts or paper bats. Use words like “pumpkin,” “ghost,” “witch,” “skeleton,” and “cauldron.”

Children pick a word, spell it out loud, and use it in a sentence. Make it interactive by having them “stir” a pot with a magic wand or broomstick each time they get a word right.

Skills Developed: Vocabulary, spelling, sentence construction, fluency.

 

“Brew a Stew” Vocabulary Activity

Create a large paper cauldron and fill it with word ingredients. Each child picks a “spooky ingredient” like a verb, noun, or adjective written on colored paper (e.g., “slimy,” “howling,” “twitching”).

Ask them to create a “Halloween stew” using at least 5–10 of the words in a silly story or poem. Share and read aloud for fun.

Skills Developed: Parts of speech, grammar, creative writing, public speaking.

 

Foldable Fortune Tellers with Halloween Vocabulary

Have students create “fortune tellers” (also called cootie catchers) using Halloween-themed vocabulary words. Inside, they can write definitions, rhyming words, or even riddles related to each term.

For example:

• Word: Ghoul
• Riddle: “I moan in the night, I’m a frightful sight — what am I?”

Skills Developed: Vocabulary acquisition, word associations, playful reading interaction.

 

Build-A-Story Bulletin Board

Set up a collaborative story wall in your classroom. Start with a spooky sentence like “A strange light flickered in the attic…” and let each student add the next part of the story, sentence by sentence, throughout the week.

You can illustrate the story as it grows, creating a visual and written classroom masterpiece.

Skills Developed: Collaborative writing, creativity, sequencing, grammar usage.

 

Halloween Bingo – Literacy Edition

Create a Halloween-themed bingo game where each square includes tasks such as:

• “Use the word ‘ghost’ in a sentence.”
• “Find a rhyming word for ‘witch.’”
• “Name three spooky adjectives.”

As kids complete each task, they cover the space with a bingo marker (candy corn works great!).

Skills Developed: Reading comprehension, grammar, word recognition, descriptive language.

 

Decorate a Reading Pumpkin

Ask each student to choose a favorite book and decorate a pumpkin to represent a character or scene from it. They can paint the pumpkin, dress it up, or even build paper accessories.

Afterward, they give a short book talk about their pumpkin’s character.

Skills Developed: Book analysis, oral communication, character study, artistic expression.

 

 Costume Character Parade

Have students dress up as a character from a Halloween-themed book. Each child introduces themselves in character and shares a short summary of the book or an important scene.

This could be recorded as a class video or presented live during a school Halloween celebration.

Skills Developed: Public speaking, comprehension, dramatic expression, summarizing.

 

Roll and Write a Halloween Story

Give students a dice and a Halloween-themed “roll-a-story” sheet. Each number corresponds to:

• Character: Witch, vampire, mummy
• Setting: Haunted house, dark forest, pumpkin patch
• Problem: Lost in a maze, ghost stole something, potion exploded

Students roll and use the results to create a fun short story.

Skills Developed: Plot development, creativity, grammar, storytelling.

 

Halloween Phonics Monster Sort

Create or print pictures of Halloween items labeled with simple CVC or sight words. Children feed them to different “monsters” based on beginning sounds, word families, or syllables.

Skills Developed: Phonics, categorization, decoding skills, sound recognition.

 

Halloween Story Sequencing Cards

Print out sequencing cards from familiar Halloween stories or have students create their own. Mix them up and have children arrange them in the correct order.

Ask them to retell the story orally or write a retelling using the cards as guides.

Skills Developed: Retelling, sequencing, comprehension, narrative structure.

These fun, engaging ideas help build essential skills while tapping into kids’ natural excitement for Halloween. From storytelling to spelling and from costume book parades to writing spooky poems, there’s no end to the imaginative possibilities. These activities not only improve literacy but also foster a lifelong love for reading.

Conclusion

Halloween is more than just costumes and candy—it’s a powerful opportunity to engage kids in meaningful learning through creativity, curiosity, and fun. By integrating educational games, hands-on crafts, spooky science, and literacy-rich activities, you can turn October into a month full of excitement and discovery. Whether at home or in the classroom, these Halloween learning activities are sure to leave lasting memories while reinforcing important skills. So gather your supplies, spark those imaginations, and let the learning (and haunting) begin!