The Classroom

Students Will Love These Not-So-Scary Halloween Activities

Newsela Editorial

Oct 17, 2024

Though we haven’t done a poll, we can guess that Halloween is one of your students’ favorite holidays. Candy, costumes, and in-school parties and events—what could be more fun than that? But just because Halloween is full of fun, that doesn’t mean it can’t be educational, too!

We’ve collected a group of not-so-scary Halloween activities for your ELA, science, and social studies classes to tap into students’ interest in the holiday and keep them engaged in their learning.

Explore spine-chilling stories with ELA Halloween activities

Once upon a weekday dreary, teachers pondered, weak and weary, over many a curious, unhelpful internet search of lesson plans. Don’t be one of those teachers stuck in an endless Edgar Allan Poe poem! Use our ideas for ELA Halloween-themed activities instead:

Share silly, not-so-scary poems and stories with elementary students

Share themed reading with your youngest students with these silly poems and stories to celebrate the scariest (or not-so-scariest!) holiday of the year:

“Won’t You Be My Frankenstein?” by Neal Levin
“Monster Magic” by J.R. Parsons
“Werewolf Charm School” by Ben Eggertsen
“Acro-Bat” by Karin Lynn Kandur

Have students answer three BIG Halloween questions

Help students practice applying the three big questions from “Notice and Note’s” nonfiction signposts using timely Halloween texts. Have students choose one article from the text set to read independently and answer the following questions:

What surprised me?
What did the author think I already knew?
What challenged, changed, or confirmed what I knew?

Introduce older students to horror fiction

Dig into the scarier side of Halloween fiction by introducing students to the horror genre with stories like:

“The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell
“The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe
“Frankenstein” excerpts by Mary Shelley
“The Pit and the Pendulum” by Edgar Allan Poe
“The Red Room” by H.G. Wells

Teach what makes the horror genre so thrilling

Why do people like horror stories? Help students learn to identify what characteristics make a good horror story and why people fear some aspects within them:

Discover the scientific reason why human screams trigger the fear receptors in our brains.
Read an opinion article about why horror movies have become more mainstream and its implications for society.
Explore what characteristics—like size, behavior, and intelligence—make people love some wild creatures and fear others.

Explore the themes of fitting in and witchcraft

Though many of us think of witchcraft as something that happens in fiction, in the 1600s, people who were seen as different in the town of Salem, Massachusetts, were accused of and punished for practicing dark magic. With this paired text activity, students can use both fiction and nonfiction to explore what it means to be targeted for being different:

Assign the fictional story “River, Carry Me Away” by Anna Yeatts, about a girl who is uncertain of her identity and the prejudice she faces from people in her community.
Assign a nonfiction article that gives a brief history of the Salem Witch Trials and how 20 people were executed—and later exonerated—for their perceived crimes.
Use the paired text analysis worksheet to compare and contrast elements from the two texts.

Introduce students to Edgar Allan Poe and “The Tell-Tale Heart”

Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most famous horror writers of all time, and “The Tell-Tale Heart” is one of his most famous works. Introduce students to the author and his stories with this paired text activity:

Assign the fiction selection, “The Tell-Tale Heart,” a story about a murderer who covered up their crime but slowly succumbed to guilt.
Assign Poe's biography to teach students more about his early life and career as a short-story writer, poet, critic, and editor.
Use the paired text analysis worksheet to compare what students learned about Poe and how, if at all, characteristics of his personal life show up in his writing.

Try some scary science Halloween activities

Even some of Halloween's most mysterious happenings often have a scientific explanation! Help students learn more about the science that makes our favorite treats, powers our bodies, and makes neat illusions with these activities:

Virtually visit the M&M Factory

Take students on a virtual field trip to one of the tastiest places on earth: The M&M Factory! During your trip, help students complete the following activities:

Take a virtual tour of the M&M Factory in New Jersey.
Explore the history of chocolate and the history of the M&M brand, and chart the events on a timeline.
Have students test their knowledge of the candy’s history and production with a trivia quiz.

Discover if the human body could move without a skeleton

Skeletons are a popular Halloween decoration, but they also hold our bodies up and help us move. Use this activity to explore the everyday mystery question, “Would you still be able to move your body without a skeleton?”

Discover the three types of muscles inside the human body: Cardiac, skeletal, and smooth.
Learn more about whether there’s a single strongest muscle in the human body and how scientists measure its strength.
See how bones and muscles work together to help our bodies move.

Learn why spiders don’t get tangled in their webs

Students may wonder if flies and other insects can get tangled in a spider’s web, so why doesn’t the spider get stuck while spinning it? Use this everyday mystery text set to explore that fact:

Learn more about how spiders weave their webs and how their body structure prevents them from getting tangled while they do.
Discover what spiderwebs are made of and why they’re so strong.
Explore why some people fear spiders even though they’re beneficial to humans.

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Discover even more interesting facts about spiders

Teach students even more about these creepy-crawly creatures by taking a deeper dive into the world of spiders:

Read more about the ecological importance of spiders, such as what they eat and how they affect human life.
Discover how some spiders use their webs rather than ears to hear what’s happening around them.
Explore the scientific experiments used to determine how some species of spiders can fly.

Take a look into the probability of zombies existing outside of science fiction

Zombies are a science fiction staple, but could they ever exist in the real world? Have students explore this question with resources like:

An explainer article examining why and how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is encouraging people to prepare for the zombie apocalypse.
An article uncovering why more American universities are offering courses about zombies, like the philosophical zombie course at Rollins University.
An article explaining the rare phenomenon of “zombie fires,” which can emerge in the far North after warmer-than-normal summers.

Try seasonal STEM Halloween activities

After learning about some interesting Halloween science topics, help students get hands-on and try these fun (and even some edible!) experiments:

Make rock candy

Halloween is all about the candy. Your students can make their own and learn more about the science behind confection with this rock candy experiment:

Read an article that tries to answer one of the world’s biggest questions: Why does sugar taste so good?
Explore how candy makers use chemistry to affect their creations' size, shape, and textures.
Make rock candy in class with sugar, food coloring, and other candy-making supplies.

Create a lava lamp

Any good Halloween party (or trick-or-treat-ready stoop) needs some good decorations. Help students create their own with this lava lamp activity:

Create your Halloween lava lamps using cooking oil, water, and antacid tablets.
Build background knowledge on the history of lava lamps and why this 1960s decoration is still popular today.
Teach students why lava lamps work by looking at the two types of mixtures: Heterogeneous and homogenous.

Test your senses with illusions

Help students learn how the eyes and mind can play Halloween tricks on them with this STEM activity:

Create an optical illusion using white paper and brightly colored markers.
Discover the science behind how our eyes process and make sense of light.
Learn more about why some people like to be scared or tricked—such as with haunted houses.

Dive into haunted history with Halloween social studies activities

Do your students know why they dress up, get candy, or carve pumpkins for Halloween? Help them build their background knowledge on the holiday with some interesting social studies activities:

Explore the hair-raising history of Halloween

How do people around the country—and worldwide—celebrate Halloween, and where do our traditions come from? Look at the holiday’s roots with articles on topics like:

The Celtic festival of Samhain, which served as the original Halloween and marks the end of the harvest.
How Airbnb rented out the real-life castle that inspired Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” for Halloween night.
How the word “boo” came to be associated with ghost stories.

Learn more about scary fairies

In fiction, not all faeries are as cute and friendly as Tinker Bell! Teach students how faeries can have a more sinister reputation with this activity:

Read an article about how people hid from faeries and other supernatural creatures during the Celtic Samhain festivals.
Watch an interactive video about how people celebrated Samhain, or Nutcrack Night, as a ritual to prepare for the beginning of the “dark half” of the year.
Use evidence from the article to design a STEM scary fairy trap using the draw-a-model graphic organizer.

Discover where zombies originated

Why are zombies a Halloween and horror staple? Use this elementary history lesson to help your youngest students look at the history of these undead creatures:

Have students read about the history of zombie lore that appears everywhere, from cultural folktales to television shows.
Explore how certain noises—like zombies’ moans—became part of the traditional Halloween sound effects.
Extend the lesson by having students create and record their own Halloween sound effects using items from around the classroom.

Find out why we visit haunted houses

Some people love the thrill of visiting a haunted house. But when did they become so popular? Explore the history and significance of haunted houses with your elementary students:

Assign an article to teach students about the history of haunted houses and how people have turned them into an entire Halloween industry.
Have students use what they learned in the article to write a recipe to create the perfect scary haunted house.
Add a STEAM challenge and ask students to design their own haunted house. Ask them to label the important features and write a paragraph describing what makes their haunted house special.

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