6 Spooktacular Ways to Celebrate Halloween in the Classroom

Once Halloween rolls around, students and teachers alike are probably beginning to feel a bit like zombies and are craving something new. Use these six ideas to bring your classroom back to life to celebrate the holiday.

1. Read scary stories

Literature that gives you goosebumps is the perfect way to commemorate this haunting holiday. Choose books, poems, or plays appropriate for students’ grade level and have them vote on what they want to read as a class. Discuss what characteristics make a story scary and why we enjoy this type of literature.

2. Scare each other with your own stories

Now that they’ve been inspired by reading scary stories, ask your students to get creative and write their own spooky tales. Give them guidelines for what’s appropriate and what’s not, but let them use their imaginations to the scariest extent allowed. If possible, have students share their work with their classmates to see who’s come up with the most terrifying (or terrifyingly funny) story.

3. Exchange “compliment treats”

To celebrate the sweeter side of Halloween, students can give each other “treats” in the form of compliments. Have students write something nice about each classmate on pieces of paper shaped like candy and hand them out. Alternatively, you could provide students with a variety of pre-printed compliments to give to each other.

4. Decorate the classroom

Get in the Halloween spirit as a class by decorating your shared space together. Besides the typical décor like bats and pumpkins, think outside the box to turn regular class items or supplies into something spooky. For example, you might write a very scary math problem on the bulletin board you challenge students to solve.

5. Host an historical costume party

Parading around in costumes is a favorite activity for kids during Halloween. Take advantage of this opportunity to bring history to life by hosting a class costume party where students dress up as a famous historical figure. Students can present their person to the class, or you could invite other classes to your room to guess which famous people from history your students are supposed to be.

6. Paint pumpkins

Plan a class activity painting pumpkins for a fun and easy way to celebrate the holiday. Present students with different examples of art styles, such as cubism, impressionism, or pointillism. Then allow students to choose one of the styles to inspire their pumpkin decorations.

By Kelli Drummer-Avendano

Also read: Halloween Celebrations Around the World