Spooktacular October Activities for Elementary Students
No matter the age of the students, October is an exciting time. Some love hayrides and picking out pumpkins. However, others love anything spooky. October activities include the scariest costumes, seeing all the bats and spiders, and going through haunted houses.
Our elementary students have a massive range of interests during October. Thankfully, this incredible list of spooktacular October activities ensures there is something exciting for everyone!
Craftivities for the Season
Students love to use their creativity! Honestly, they can only sit behind a screen or use paper and pencil for so long. They need time to express themselves in other ways. Importantly, they can still do this through educational activities. For instance, The Real Me Halloween Craftivity allows students to focus on who they are. While it is fun to dress up, students must be true to themselves. This craft allows them to do exactly that!
There can be so much laughter during the fall season with everything there is to do. However, it can also be lonely. Thankfully, the Halloween Kindness Treat Bag allows students to focus on treating others. Instead of candy, they will do this through kindness activities. To ensure students see the impact of being kind, they will reflect on their life. This includes thinking back to times someone showed them kindness and times they showed someone kindness. Students will have all the treats they need when they have supportive people!
Teaching Ideas for October
Honestly, there are so many Spooktacular October activities! Thankfully, this means there is something for every classroom and every student’s interest.
Teach about Animals during October
Students love animals! Whenever teachers can incorporate them, student interest soars. Now, the Halloween Animal Articles do not focus on just any animals. They focus on spooky bats, creepy, crawling spiders, howling owls, and many more! Articles include vocabulary, graphic organizers, comprehension activities, and writing pages. Students will love these passages!
One of my favorite writing activities is All About Bats! Students research this spooky animal and write a paragraph all about bat facts! Students read about bats using informational articles and videos. We then talk about the facts they learned. We use a graphic organizer to sort all of our facts and then take it to writing!
October Stories Students Love
Similar to animals, stories love to listen to stories. Whether they are about pumpkins, black cats, or monsters, there is something so special about listening to a book or poem. Thankfully, the QR Code Halloween Stories and Favorite October Books have so many incredible ideas! With the QR Code options, students can even listen to a story of their own choice. After all, there is only one of me for over 20 students!
Hands-on Learning October Activities
Students cannot just sit at their desks all day. They need to explore content and manipulate objects. Thankfully, fall is the perfect time to bring in festive activities! For instance, the Pumpkin Measurement Activity allows students to learn all about measurement! There can even be a carving station where students can count the number of seeds inside! Students can even complete Halloween Science Activities to learn about the scientific method. There are many fun activities, such as vanishing ghosts and apple volcanoes!
Moon Study Science Exploration during October
Fall is the perfect time for students to explore outside. The weather is not too hot and not too cold. Additionally, the fall sky is stunning. Therefore, it is the perfect time for students to learn about space!
The Solar System & Planets Reading Passages and Research contain fascinating information! Students will love learning all about our planets. Likewise, students will love doing a moon study and sharing the phase from the night before.
The Moon Phase Study even provides so much guidance and support to students. They will love learning about moon rotation and revolution. Since students will be fascinated while learning about space, they can even explore Movement of the Earth. This will allow students to learn how mornings turn to night and fall changes to winter.
Other Crafting Ideas that Make Great October Activities
Students love crafts! Luckily, there are so many amazing Spooktacular October activities.
Painting Craft Ideas for October
Painting is a student-favorite activity. After reading the Halloween Animal Articles, students can pick an animal and try to paint it. It is always so much fun to see their creations!
If you have some extra time, consider directed drawing activities throughout the month.
Paper Craft Ideas for October
Going to an orchard to pick fresh apples is always fun. Students can create apples out of paper strips to bring to the classroom. Teachers can even bring in measurement practice by requiring students to use strips of specific lengths.
This apple paper craft would look great in classroom windows!
Other October Craft Ideas
Leaves are all over the ground in many areas. Allow students to bring some in from home or let them go outside together to pick some up. Then, have them write a poem about fall by incorporating the appearance of the leaf. Students can even paint one side of the leaf and then place it on the paper. It is fascinating to see all the lines and designs of the leaf! If students are too young to write, they can use their hands and fingers to design their fall tree!
Fall is an incredible time of the year. Students know the classroom routines and are well underway in building a classroom community. Thankfully, this is the perfect time to incorporate Spooktacular October activities into lessons!
Do you have a favorite October activity? I’d love to hear about it in the comments below!
Halloween escape room
October is all about learning about bats in our classroom. And of course, Creepy Pair of Underwear is a must.
Scooby Doo escape room
Mystery Science skeletons, pumpkin catapults, Bat wing STEM challenge, Halloween celebration with stations
We do pumpkin volcanos, painting pumpkins, carving pumpkins, comparing and contrasting pumpkins, a candy experiment, field trip to the pumpkin patch and corn maze, history of how Halloween came to be, and we go over safety tips to keep them safe while they are out trick or treating, build scarecrows, and we also go over the reason that our family celebrates Dia De Los Muertos and the steps of setting up everything and doing all of the decorations together to remember and celebrate our loved ones that have past, and we compare all of our holidays to each other and discuss which two holidays do we think are alike in different ways such as which two holidays does it take us the most time to prepare for, which holidays are the easiest ones that we prepare for, which ones do we decorate more for, and so forth.
We work on our energy unit, so energy types, circuits, light (refraction and reflection). I love using bats and echolocation to teach sound energy. We adopt a bat from BatWorld. 🙂
My favorite activity we do in the month of October is our pumpkin investigation unit! We estimate, weigh our pumpkin, float it, clean it out and count the seeds!
Pumpkin activities
Pumpkin/Fall activities
We do Fall activities and spend time outside looking at the changes in seasons and how animals adapt to the seasons, focus on Thanksgiving being Canadian it’s now in October.
We do cursive skeletons, a class combined drawing, some fun math worksheets, and an opinion piece about what makes them “batty”.
I do a stem pumpkin day where they do all sorts of measuring etc then they estimate how many seeds and we open the pumpkins up and count all the seeds! Our superintendent comes to help. There are also so many wonderful books to read during this month that lend to creative writing…my favorite is I Need My Monster.
I incorporate anything Halloween themed into the current curriculum for the month of October and then the week of Halloween we do lots of fun activities including STEM challenges, a Halloween parade and party
We do Thanksgiving, Fall, and Halloween themed art projects.
Just a 30 minute Halloween party. I’m not a very fun teacher.
Making flapjacks in class to go along with our tall tales unit. Kids can dress up as characters such as Paul Bunyan.
We practice our text formatting skills and make strips to put together for a pumpkin, one grade designs a haunted house and writes a real estate listing for it. Some grades do a Digital breakout. I have the K design a picture and print it out on puzzle piece paper.
Pumpkins, apples, and anything fall.
Unfortunately, we do not celebrate Halloween at our school, so it is regular old classroom activities for us!
We do our study of the horror genre in ELA, the stories and videos keep the students interested.
I work at an Airforce school so we do International Space Week where children make projects and posters space themed. We are a Muslim country so we do have some Muslims celebration coming over like Rabbi ul Awal.
This month we will focus on recycling as well
Pumpkins, bats, owls, nocturnal animals, all things fall
ALL THINGS Fall! and Halloween lol
I am an elementary SLP, so I use themes each week for my sessions. For October, I use bats, pumpkins, owls, and Halloween. Some of my favorite books to use are Room on the Broom, Pumpkin Jack, Crankenstein, Big Pumpkin, and Spookley the Square Pumpkin.
We have “Freaky Friday”. This is a center based Halloween party. The centers include decorating pumpkins, stacking ghosts (white cups), an obstacle course, sweeping pumpkins, a hayride etc.
Hispanic Heritage month, and PBIS Fall Fest.