The best free Halloween lessons and activities can help educators overcome the scariest sight of all: an unengaged student. So bring life (or just undeath) back to your classroom with the resources you’ll find here. From science experiments to history exercises to fun opportunities for active learning and spooky play-making, these Halloween lessons and activities will have your students doing the educational version of “Monster Mash” in no time.
You could also begin a lesson by discussing how Halloween emerged from ancient Celtic traditions around Samhain and was brought to the U.S. by immigrants from Ireland and Scotland. The holiday also coincides with All Saints’ Day on November 1 and was originally called All Hallows’ Eve.
Complete a Halloween-Themed Worksheet
Education.com Halloween Resources Includes a variety of worksheets for students of different levels. Some highlights include a pumpkin-themed maze designed for preschool and kindergarten students and a Halloween-themed sentence-ending exercise. Ironically, these fun worksheets can help teach students that homework doesn’t have to be scary.
Do Halloween Math
Your students will already be eager to count their candy this season, but you can add to the Halloween cheer with these Halloween Math Exercises. Examine the mathematics of a spider web or make predictions about the size of a pumpkin and how many seeds it has, and much more.
Create a scary Halloween story
With Minecraft: Educational Edition, students can create a horror story set in the world’s construction site, populating their story with ghosts and spooky Halloween-themed creatures. The exercise helps develop students’ writing and storytelling skills.
Play Halloween Themed Games
You’ll find quizzes, worksheets, riddles, and other fun Halloween-themed games and exercises at BogglesWorld. These games and activities are suitable for younger students and will get them excited about studying vocabulary as they develop problem-solving skills.
Survive the zombie apocalypse
He Zombie Apocalypse I: STEM of the Living Dead – TI-Nspire is a free activity that teaches students the math and science that epidemiologists use to track and prevent the spread of real-world diseases. Students will learn to graph geometric progression, interpret data, and understand various parts of the human brain. Plus, there will be bloody zombie footage to look at.
Learn about the history of Halloween words
You and your students can look up the history of words associated with Halloween, such as witches, boos, and vampires. A team in Get ready The online language learning platform used data from Merriam Webster to determine when these and other words first gained prominence. Halloween, for example, came to the English language in the early 18th century. See below for more details:
Read a scary story
Reading a scary but not too scary story in class or having older students read a spooky story aloud can get Halloween fanatic students excited about literature. Here are some favorites for younger students; and recommendations for older students.
Research haunted houses and stories in your area
Have your students learn to distinguish fact from fiction and myth from reality by researching the origins of haunted stories in your area. You can use the free newspaper site. Chronicle of America to track when these stories first emerged and how each one changed over the years.
do something scary
Give your students some hands-on learning fun by asking them to come up with some spooky recipes. Here is a recipe for false blood (for decoration). For macabre-themed party favors, check this out resource with instructions for making potions, slime, smoking drinks and more.
Create a floating ghost
Create a floating ghost with tissue paper, a balloon, and the power of electricity by following these instructions. Shouting: “He is alive, he is alive!” Afterwards it is optional.
Conduct a Halloween-themed science experiment
The world of the undead may be beyond the understanding of science, but experiments can be the perfect way to get your students in the Halloween spirit. Small Handy Containers offers instructions for a variety of free Halloween science experiments including a bubbling cauldron and a fun-yet-gross puking pumpkin.
Learn the history of Halloween and the similarities to other holidays
Have your students research the history of Halloween on their own or share this history from History.com. Then examine the differences between this American holiday and The day of the Deadwhich is celebrated right after Halloween but is a different and more joyful celebration.
