Halloween classroom tips for teachers

Something wicked this way comes... Halloween provides the perfect opportunity to dress up the classroom and engage students in new games and activities.

This October 31st, take the opportunity to celebrate all things spooky with our top Halloween classroom tips.

Get dressed up... There’s no better time of the year to encourage fancy dress than at Halloween. With the 31st falling on a Monday this year, students will have all weekend to plan their costumes. You may want to give your students a theme to work around to help make it a bit more educational, such as ‘Historical Heroes and Heroines’ or ‘Literary Villains’.

Don’t limit the fancy dress to outfits - you can dress up the classroom too. Plan an arts and crafts afternoon carving pumpkins, cutting out hanging bats and ghosts and making slime.

Younger children can make pumpkin stamps out of halved apples and some orange paint or colour in printouts of witches, goblins and ghouls.

Prepare activities... Halloween can tie in nicely with your science lessons, particularly if you’re teaching human anatomy (where students can make fake blood) or chemistry (where dry ice can make a splash).

For younger children getting to grips with numbers and measurements, pumpkins can be used to help teach weight and size. Have students guess how big and heavy they think a pumpkin is and teach them how they can find out an accurate answer.

If you’re a supply teacher and on standby for the days surrounding Halloween, ensure you’ve got a few appropriately themed games and activities in your resource kit just in case you get called in over this period.

Make it educational... While Halloween’s history is often forgotten in the excitements of dressing up and collecting sweets, its origins date back centuries. Take the opportunity to teach students about Samhain, the ancient Celtic festival said to have influenced Halloween, and All Saints’ Day, a day designated to honour martyrs and saints.

For older students, use Halloween as a tool to help teach literary concepts such as plot structure, foreshadowing, genre and setting. Make it interesting for your students by introducing spooky stories and films such as Casper, The Witches, Coraline and Hocus Pocus.

Halloween haikus could also be a fun and creative way to help hone writing skills. You could also encourage students to incorporate Halloween themes into their creative writing, using suspense and drama to enhance their stories.

SEND tips...

If you’re a SEND teacher looking for ways to celebrate Halloween with your students, there are plenty of ways you can help ensure everyone is included.

SEND students may feel uncomfortable with loud, lively parties, so ensure you have plenty of quieter activities planned, such as reading stories in a comfortable corner of the classroom or drawing spooky characters.

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