Holiday Activities and Freebies!
Halloween can be a fun holiday to enjoy with your kindergarten class, but even a small amount of spookiness can quickly become overwhelming for some young students. In this post, I’m going to share some not-so-spooky kindergarten Halloween party activities that will help you create a fun celebration where all of your student will feel comfortable.
If your current teaching situation allows you to have classroom parties for holidays, Halloween can be a fun one to enjoy with your students. There are many reasons why it can be worth the time to plan a Halloween party for your class:
It doesn’t have to take a lot of time or money to put together a memorable classroom party for your class! Since kindergarteners are young and likely have a wide range of experience with Halloween, it’s a good idea to keep spookiness to a minimum. (This is why I love to do spider and bat thematic units in October! They allow us to learn more about these creatures so they are more interesting than spooky!)
If you’re looking for some simple activities that will help you create special holiday memories with your class, keep reading for four of my favorites! All of these classroom Halloween party ideas are easy to prep, fun for students, and keep spookiness to a minimum.
One of my favorite things to do with students during a Halloween party is a candy corn taste test! There are so many different skills that students can practice with this fun activity. It’s a great way to enjoy a Halloween party with your students while still working on academic skills.
First, students can taste four different types of candy corn. I like to use a bag of Autumn Mix and add a bag of caramel candy corn. Once students have had a chance to taste all four, they can decide which one they liked the most. They can add their vote to a class graph so students can see how their peers voted, as well. This class graph can serve as an anchor chart for the next activity.
After compiling the votes on a class graph, students can practice graphing skills on their own paper. They can fill in the bar graph based on the class votes, then practice interpreting the data by writing the most-liked and least-liked candy from the taste test.
A hands-on craft activity is another fun addition to a classroom Halloween party! You can continue the candy corn taste test fun with a painting project and writing activity.
First, students will choose the candy corn template that coordinates with their vote from the taste test. They can fill in the template with the appropriate colors using Q-tip painting. This is a great way for students to improve their pincer grasp and hand-eye coordination!
Once the painting is complete, students can write an illustrate a sentence about which candy corn they liked the best. The finished craft and writing project makes a fun fall bulletin board display or students can also take them straight home to use as an addition to their Halloween decorations.
Games are also a great option for a classroom Halloween party, especially when those games can practice academic skills at the same time!
In this game, a friendly ghost is covered in numbered circles. Students will take turns rolling a die and coloring that number on the game mat. This is a fun way for students to practice subitizing! There is also a second mat if you’d like students to practice addition during the game. For that mat, you can have students roll two dice and have them total the number of dots before finding the corresponding number on the game mat.
If you’d like the game mats to be reusable, you can put them in a page protector or laminate them. Students can then use dry erase markers to color in the circles. You could also give them small Halloween-themed manipulatives or mini erasers that they can use to cover the circles. This easy swap is a simple way to bring a little more holiday fun to this game!
If you want to share a simple Halloween gift with your students, this party favor is a great option! You can give your students plastic vampire teeth with a colorful tag attached that says “Have a FANGtastic Halloween!” It’s always fun to snap a picture of the class wearing their vampire teeth!
I hope that this post has given you some inspiration for simple Halloween party activities that aren’t super spooky for your students or time-consuming to plan. You’ll be able to make special memories with your students without putting learning on the back burner.
I have put together a free download with all of the printables you need to add these activities to your Halloween party. Just fill out the information below and I’ll send the files straight to your inbox!
Be sure to save this post so you can come back to it later! Just add the pin below to your favorite Pinterest board of holiday ideas for kindergarten. You’ll be able to quickly find these free printables when you’re planning your classroom Halloween party!
