Halloween is just around the corner, and it’s the perfect time to take a spooky spin on a few traditional classroom activities. Today on the blog, I have a handful of Halloween ideas for kids that you can tailor to the needs of your students and the content you’re teaching this fall.
In the list you’ll find below, I have a digital spin for you. The Halloween ideas for kids on this list incorporate Chromebooks and websites that work well on these popular devices. From interactive spooky storytelling (that might connect to your ELA standards) to measurement skills in a Halloween recipe, these are ready for you to customize for your group of students.
Let’s jump into the list and start with a few ways to customize these Halloween ideas for kids!
How to Customize Halloween Ideas for Kids
Regular readers of the blog know that I’m a big fan of artificial intelligence in education. You might have explored this landing page full of resources or downloaded this ebook with ChatGPT prompts for teachers. What does AI have to do with Halloween? You can use artificial intelligence tools to customize the activities on this list.
Earlier this school year, I shared a post with 8 Fall Activities for Kids With a Digital Spin. In the post, I talked about how to customize the activity ideas using AI tools like ChatGPT or Bard. For example, you might like the idea of “Spooky Story Writing” from the list below. You can customize this activity by following these steps:
- Open up a chatbot tool (like ChatGPT or Bard).
- Copy and paste the activity idea you like (use the list below or tweak it a bit).
- Then add the following to your prompt: Customize this activity for a group of [GRADE LEVEL] students who are learning about [OBJECTIVE/TOPIC] who have used [EDTECH TOOL] and are struggling with [AREA OF CONCERN].
Of course, you don’t have to use the exact prompt above, but this gives you an idea of how to customize the activities I’ve listed below.
If you like the idea of customizing activity ideas, you’ll definitely want to check out episode 230 of my Easy EdTech Podcast. It’s called “Fall Activity Ideas You Can Customize with AI,” and you can find it on your favorite podcast platform or press play below.
Halloween Ideas for Kids
Here is a list of 13 Halloween ideas for kids to try both inside and outside of the classroom.
Write a Scary Story
On Chromebooks, you can use a variety of open-ended creation tools to help students share their spooky stories. Book Creator gives students the ability to add voice recordings on each page, which is great for sharing sound effects. Students can also use the audio recording feature to have students record their voices sounding extra spooky as they narrate their writing.
Create Pictures for Scary Stories
Regular readers of the blog (sign up for the free newsletter here) know that I’m a big fan of all things Adobe. I even wrote a book featuring activity ideas for using Adobe Spark (now called Adobe Express). You can use the tool Adobe Firefly or the “text to image” option in Adobe Express to have students create pictures for their scary stories. They can export the image and add it to their digital story or print it out and add it to a physical book.
Create Halloween MadLibs-Style Stories
Do you love MadLibs? I loved MadLibs growing up, and it’s not something I really used as a classroom teacher. Now, it’s easier than ever to create a story to share with your students, asking them to add nouns, adjectives, and other specifics, just like traditional MadLibs. Try the prompt:
Write a MadLibs-Style short story to share with a group of [GRADE LEVEL] students about [TOPIC] and make a connection to Halloween. Don’t forget to include [ADD SOMETHING EXTRA, SUCH AS SOMETHING SPECIAL FOR YOUR CLASS].
Measure a Pumpkin
Students can measure pumpkins of various sizes and record their measurements in a Chromebook-friendly space like Google Sheets. They can graph their findings or use this spreadsheet tool to find the average circumference of the class collection of pumpkins.
Film a Spooky Story Video
Have you used the green screen feature in Flip (formerly Flipgrid)? It’s one of my favorite video tools because students can easily choose a background and film a video in front of that background. Students can either snap a picture, find a picture (Unsplash is a great option), or upload a photo they’ve made themselves. You might have students create an AI-generated image like I mentioned earlier in this post, and then upload it to the background of their Flip video. It’s the perfect combination for telling a spooky story.
Spooky Patterns
For another math connection, students can create spooky patterns related to Halloween shapes, like bats, ghosts, and pumpkins. You might have them open up a tool like Seesaw on their Chromebook and use the drawing tool to create a pattern. They can make patterns using Halloween emojis and ask a partner to guess what emoji comes next.
Note: This podcast episode has more ideas for using emojis in the classroom.
Read Halloween-Themed Texts
There are lots of excellent reading materials students can access on Chromebooks. And I have two blog posts from the Class Tech Tips archives with ideas for you to explore. This first list of “5 Favorite Print and Digital Halloween Books” includes links to the Kindle version, and this list of “Halloween Books for Kids & Spooky Teacher Gifts” consists of a combination of print and digital texts along with gift ideas for this season.
Research Historical Figures
Last year, I put together a blog post on “6 Spooky Tips for Halloween Reading Activities.” In this post, I shared the idea that you can take a spin on a Halloween reading topic by exploring biographies with students. I gave an example from PebbleGo Next, where you’ll find articles in categories such as “Composers, Musicians, and Singers” as well as “Explorers and Pioneers.” If you anticipate that students in your class are choosing historical figures for a Halloween costume, you can definitely make a particular connection. For example, they might dress up like Amelia Earhart and read an article all about her, too.
Halloween Trivia Quiz
Use a pre-made quiz or create your own in a favorite tool like Kahoot! It’s Chromebook-friendly and great for getting every student involved. Not only can you start from scratch with your own Halloween trivia, but Kahoot has lots of options for pre-made content to explore. You can make a copy of a quiz and tailor it to your group of students, too.
Spooky Current Events
During the Halloween season, local and national news outlets often look for ways to make connections to this holiday. You might find that a newspaper’s website has a profile of a spot in your community that is said to be haunted, or they are profiling a community event related to Halloween. This list of current events resources includes Chromebook-friendly connections for you to explore.
Halloween History Timeline
I am a big fan of timelines, and you might have caught this post with a dozen timeline tools that I posted on the blog earlier this year. You might decide to investigate a social studies topic related to the Halloween season with your students. They can create a timeline on Chromebooks using one of the tools on the list.
Spooky Musical Playlist
Looking for a musical connection? Try playing a different Halloween-themed song at the start of each day during the week leading up to Halloween. Have students post on Jamboard or Figjam which song is their favorite, along with a reason why. If you’re looking to make a math connection, have students pick their favorite using a tool like Mentimeter and display the bar or circle graph with their results.
Try a Halloween Recipe
As I write this post for you in September, my social media is full of ideas for Halloween treats. You can ask students to try out a recipe as a way to put their measurement skills into practice. You might have them measure out trail mix for a Halloween community walk or chronicle the steps for creating a Halloween treat using Google Slides to showcase the steps they took to make their creation.
And there you have it! Here is a cauldron of bewitching Halloween ideas for kids that you can customize for your students. Chromebooks are powerful classroom tools that can boost creativity and foster collaborative learning environments. The possibilities are endless!
Let me know what you create this spooky season. Reach out on social media by sending a message or tagging me in a post on Instagram or Twitter (X). If you like to correspond via email instead, sign up for my free weekly newsletter and reply to any of my Monday messages to share your Halloween ideas for kids!
