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Halloween

Halloween Lessons and Teacher Resources

Lesson Plans | Additional Resources

Introduction:

Halloween is a holiday celebrated on October 31. It has roots in the Celtic festival of Samhain and the Christian holy day of All Saints’ Day. It is largely a secular celebration, but some Christians and pagans have expressed strong feelings about its religious overtones. Irish immigrants carried versions of the tradition to North America during Ireland’s Great Famine of 1846. The day is often associated with the colors orange and black, and is strongly associated with symbols such as the jack-o’-lantern. Halloween activities include trick-or-treating, wearing costumes, ghost tours, bonfires, costume parties, visiting haunted attractions, carving jack-o’-lanterns, pranking people, reading scary stories, and watching horror movies. … Elements of the autumn season, such as pumpkins, corn husks, and scarecrows, are also prevalent. Homes are often decorated with these types of symbols around Halloween. – Wikipedia

Lesson Plans:

Art:

• In this inexpensive art lesson, students mix primary colors to paint a pumpkin scene on a rock (P-5)
• Here Halloween storyboards are assembled and acted out (3-5)
• Here is a good Halloween idea called “Monsters, Ghosts, and Other Things That Go BOO” (6)

Computers & Internet:

• Microsoft Publisher’s textbox tool is used here to label Halloween tombstones (2-6)
• Halloween invitations, envelopes, badges & stickers are created here with MS Word (4-7)

Language Arts:

• This ABC and 123 idea is to be used around holidays (P)
• “The Boo Game” is a great way to review vocabulary words in any subject (K-5)
• Here is a lesson on constant digraphs for use around Halloween. (2)
• Students learn about pumpkins with “The Pumpkin Book” in this lesson (2-3)

• In this Halloween idea, language arts students write advertisements about haunted houses for sale (3-5)
• Autumn Fun – Children write biographies for their Pumpkin Pal art projects (3-6)
• This “juicy, succulent, interesting, and sensational” Halloween poetry mini-lesson teaches the application of descriptive language (3-12)
• This lesson builds familiarity with reference sources by researching night creatures (5-6)
• This lesson on “The Raven” focusing on atmosphere and symbolism (6-12)
• This is a “Scary Story” lesson plan (6-12)
• This lesson on descriptive language uses Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” and is appropriate for Halloween (8)

Math:

• Here are several Halloween math ideas using clever pumpkin/ghost lima bean counters (P-3)
• This estimation and graphing lesson uses pumpkin seeds (K-1)
• This one is called the “Pumpkin Numbers Game” (K-1)
• This is a Halloween pumpkin face geometry shapes lesson (K)
• What’s the perfect Halloween math lesson plan – estimating with pumpkin seeds (1)
• This yummy fall math idea uses candy corn to illustrate inequalities (1-2)
• This is a Halloween 2-digit addition with regrouping worksheet idea (2)
• Decoding these pumpkin math riddles will make Halloween learning fun (3-6)
• This multidisciplinary lesson deals with the estimation of a pumpkin’s weight as it is carved (4-8)

Multidisciplinary:

• “Witching You a Happy Halloween” is a multidisciplinary Halloween unit for the month of October (4)

Music:

• Although not a lesson plan, this collection of Halloween Songs are great for teaching Halloween Safety (P-2)
• This lesson on ascending and descending scale is great for use around Halloween (K-2)
• This is a drama lesson with reading and singing, best for use around Halloween (1)
• Rhythm Canons are the topic of this brief Halloween (or other Holiday) lesson idea (3)

Physical Education:

• This version of the Ghosts and Goblins Tag Game uses locomotor skills (K-1)
• This lesson uses games like “Tunnel Tag,” and “Halloween Costume” to teach personal and general space awareness (K-3)
• “Ghouls and Goblins” is a clever Halloween tag game idea (2-12)
• This psychomotor Haunted Maze is a Halloween PE team building activity (3-7)

Science:

• Here is a fantastic multidisciplinary spider unit titled “Spooky Spiders and Wacky Webs” (1)
• Here “The Magic School Bus” takes us through a haunted museum and a unit on sound (2-3)
• “How to make Fake Warts” is a “cool” science lesson sent in by a student (4-8)

Social Studies:

• Here is a social studies activity on bartering and trade using a Halloween analogy (3)
• Here continents and oceans are plotted on a pumpkin globe (3)

Additional Resources:

• Go to EdHelper.com for Halloween word searches and worksheets
• Search for more Halloween activities, videos, audio files, and lesson plan resources at Hotchalk.com
• Add your Christmas or Thanksgiving lesson plans now! Then we’ll have a big collection for the holidays! Kwanzaa, Hannukah, and New Years lessons would be great too!