It’s almost Halloween! I’m here to share engaging Halloween-themed activities and centers to keep your students learning and having FUN during this crazy holiday! Use these activities and centers to take the Halloween theme all over your classroom (even the blocks center). Don’t forget to grab your FREEBIES later in this post, or click to grab the Halloween Math and Literacy Unit, Halloween Fine Motor Mats, Pumpkin Patch Dramatic Play Unit, Little Learners Science All About Pumpkins, and Little Learners Science All About Nocturnal Animals. Let’s start planning!
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Halloween Centers & Activities!
Halloween Name Writing! Students make their name with the pumpkin letters, then practice writing the letters in their name on the sensory baggie with a pom pom (one letter at a time). Itis an easy way to make handwriting FUN.
Hair gel baggies are super simple to make. Grab some hair gel from the dollar store. Squeeze some hair gel in a baggie, and add a few eyeballs, glitter, and a few drops of gel food coloring. Tape the top closed. Trust me, you don’t want to forget this step. And you are ready to go!
Frankenstein Letter Match! Little learners will love practicing their letters with this cute Frankenstein theme! Students can find the matching capital letter card or use letter manipulatives with the letter mats. Throw everything in a sensory bin and give students tongs for added fine motor practice.
Skeleton Letters! Write capital letters on some butcher paper, wrapping paper, or construction paper. Then have students make the letters with q-tips. Pretend the q-tips are skeleton bones! To make it easier to form the letters, I cut some in half so they are smaller to make the curved letters. Students could also match letter manipulatives to the big letter or trace the large letters with skeleton pens.
Halloween Letter Mats! Make letters with play dough, mini erasers, small manipulatives, or trace the letters with a dry-erase marker on these fun Halloween letter mats. Put the worksheets away and make handwriting FUN and hands-on!
Halloween Writing Center! Put out some themed writing paper, vocabulary cards, and stickers for your Halloween theme to make the writing center new and exciting for your kiddos. I also added neon paint sticks (they dry in like two minutes). Adding new writing tools keeps students writing all year long.
Halloween Syllables! Students clap, count, and build the number of syllables each word has using these connecting cubes.
Halloween Book List! I absolutely have a children’s book obsession, so I change out the bookshelf for every theme! The bottom of the bookshelf is for our class books we’ve made and our book hospital. Want a list of my favorite Halloween books? Click HERE!
Halloween Color Clip! In my library center, you will find this cute Halloween Color Clip matching activity. It’s simple to play. Students clip the matching color squares. It’s bright, sparkly, and a great fine motor task! Want to make a set? It’s super simple! Just paint some clothespins and attached foam stickers to the end. Cut up matching colored cardstock, and you are all set.
Halloween Sort! All you need is a cupcake tin, tongs, and mini erasers or small Halloween manipulatives. Students will sort the items into separate tins. They will be working on one-to-one correspondence, hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills, and sorting skills. I like to tape one mini eraser to each spot on the muffin tin so when students dump the muffin tin at the end of the activity, the mini erasers are still stuck to the muffin pan.
Witches’ Brew Counting Game! Your students will FLIP over this counting game. They pick a recipe card and count out the objects to create the witches’ brew! I bought all of the “ingredients,” tray, and cauldron at the dollar store. Check here if you are having trouble finding materials for this activity.
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Monster Race! Races make any game more exciting, so I just had to make a Monster Race game for our Halloween theme. Instead of using counters, I put out googly eyes for students to use to cover their boards. Students roll one or two dice and cover the corresponding number of spaces on their board. The first one to race to the end wins!
Witch Number Build It Mats! Trace numbers with pom poms, mini spiders, or candy corn. If you are worried about students eating the candy, make each child their own baggie. Don’t want to use candy? Use mini erasers or any small manipulatives you have in your classroom. Students can even trace them with a dry-erase marker. Place witch fingers at the table and students can trace the number with the witch finger.
Candy Count! Practice sorting, counting, and graphing skills with a fun candy-sorting activity. I made a color die with stickers and made the game board using candy wrappers. Students rolled the die and moved a bear manipulative up the candy graph one space. Talk about more than, less than, and equal to with your little learners and for students who need more practice with one-to-one correspondence.
Trick-or-Treat Numbers! Place the Halloween number cards around the room and give students a clipboard, writing utensil, and recording sheet. Students will walk around the room and find the number cards. Then, they will trace them on the recording sheet and move to the next number. This is a great activity to get students up and moving but also learning!
Mummy Shapes! Little learners will love to make shapes with these cute mummy shapes cards! I set out large marshmallows overnight to dry and get hard. Then, I drew mummy faces and mummy wraps on them. Students will use pipe cleaners and mummy marshmallows to build the shapes. Then count the number of sides and vertices. You can also use playdough snakes to make the shapes.
Jack-O-Lantern Shape Craft! Make this simple craft with your little learners for a fun Halloween-themed activity. Everyone gets a green piece of paper, then cut an orange pumpkin shape. Students then will use black paper shapes to create the face. Add some eyes and a brown stem to complete the craft.
Halloween Patterns! Students will practice patterning skills, hand-eye coordination, and fine motor skills with this simple task. I laminated some orange bulletin board borders. Then cut it into smaller strips. Students make patterns with mini erasers, pom poms, Halloween candy, or any other small manipulatives.
Halloween STEM! Don’t forget to add Halloween props to the blocks center. Add spiders, popsicle sticks (for making fences), ghosts, bats, bones (Q tips), jack-o-lanterns, and foam boards (green/brown for dirt/fields). Add real photographs to inspire students to plan, design, and build new things. I put up these Halloween STEM I Can Build Cards on the bulletin boards to inspire my little engineers.
I made the ghosts by putting a tissue over a cotton ball and wrapping a pipe cleaner around it! Super simple and so cute!
Mummy craft! How cute is this little mummy? It’s a fun craft you can do for small groups or even at the Halloween party. I cut out the mummy for my students, but you can have your students cut the mummy out themselves if they are able to. All students do is tear up paper towels and glue them to the mummy. Once the mummy is covered, glue on two eyes, and it’s finished!
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Halloween Playdough Tray! Playdough trays are the BEST thing ever, as my students would tell you. I make one for every theme now because they LOVE them so much, and there are so many benefits (build fine motor strength, increase their vocabulary, use their imaginations, problem solve). Grab some cookie cutters, googly eyes, cut-up black pipe cleaners (in the middle of the tray), spider rings, and play dough. Let your students create Halloween sculptures with the play dough.
Halloween Fine Motor! I don’t know what it is about sparkly pom poms, but my students love transferring them into fun ice cube trays like these that I found at the dollar store. The pom poms are different sizes, so students are learning about math and building fine motor as they use the tweezers. Sometimes the simplest activities like this transfer activity are the biggest hit!
Halloween Sensory Table! In the sensory table are black beans, pumpkin gems, small scoops, mini erasers, spider rings, googly eyes, tweezers, and small jack-o-lanterns. Lots of fine motor work going on and science skills in the sensory table as they fill, dump, pinch, and scoop!
Halloween Potions! Grab a tray and spray some shaving cream in it. Then, drop in some food coloring or liquid watercolor to make it colorful! I added in some cups of bubbly water and droppers too. Throw in some Halloween manipulatives and you are ready to explore and play like a scientist!
Pumpkin Science Center! Explore all the parts of a pumpkin, how they grow, and so much more with the Little Learners All About Pumpkins Science Unit.
Nocturnal Animals Science Center! Already studied pumpkins? No worries! Check out this nocturnal animals science center to learn about the critters that are out at night! Little learners will love all the hands-on exploration opportunities and learning about animals.
Pumpkin Patch Dramatic Play! We changed the dramatic play center into a pumpkin patch. Read all about how we did it and what students were learning through play HERE. Grab the materials here!
Grab all the printable Halloween Math and Literacy Centers for your classroom HERE! Save time and go home after school because I’ve created it all for you. Just print and prep!
Check out this post to see 15 ideas to have a spooky, fun time at your Halloween party!
If you need some amazing Halloween sensory bottles, check out this post on how to make them!
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