Halloween is the perfect excuse to mix a little spooky fun into your lesson plans, and these five activities are designed to do just that. Whether you’re teaching in costume or just trying to survive the sugar rush, this set of classroom-ready ideas will keep your students engaged, learning, and laughing (with just a few goosebumps along the way).
Halloween Activities Handout
The handouts for this post are available in the Fall Vault, along with other fun fall activities your students will love. You’ll find printables and instructions for all the activities mentioned here.
5 Halloween Activities
🎃 Activity #1: Candy Bar Table & Sweet Facts
What’s hot (and still topping the charts) in 2024?
The most popular Halloween candies are still clinging to the top: M&M’s, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Sour Patch Kids, Skittles, and Starburst. Those little colorful M&M’s remain yearly favorites, with Reese’s Cups right up there too NBC4 Washington. Are you a chocolate lover? The table below features the top four chocolate options for 2024.
Classroom twist: Hand students a “Candy Bar Chart: Then vs. Now.” On the left, have a mock “vintage” lineup of Reese’s, M&M’s, Snickers, etc. On the right, students add current favorites (like Sour Patch Kids or Candy Corn). Then they write a one-sentence explanation of why they think tastes or trends might have changed, perfect for data literacy and critical thinking.
🍬 Top-Selling Candy Bars (2024)
| Candy | Sales | Company |
|---|---|---|
 Snickers |
$457 million | Mars |
 Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups |
$421 million | Hershey |
 M&Ms |
$409 million | Mars |
 Hershey’s Milk Chocolate |
$284 million | Hershey |
👻 Activity #2: Halloween Trivia Scavenger Hunt
Are you looking for a print-and-go activity your students are sure to love? This trivia hunt is packed with weird and wonderful facts, from the origin of Jack O’ Lanterns to how many licks it takes to reach the center of a Tootsie Pop (yes, we’re still counting).
Game idea: Create a “Candy Quest” board. Each correct answer moves your team closer to the “Trick-or-Treat Treasure.” Easy to play, hard to resist.
🕷️Activity #3: Analogy-Poetry with a Halloween Twist
Forget grumbling, analogy poems are about to get fang-tastic!
How to play:
- Students list 4–6 Halloween-themed words (e.g., “witch,” “owl,” “candy”).
- They match each with a rhyming pair to build analogies, like:
- “A witch is to night as a jack-o’-lantern is to light.”
They can then combine them into a mini-poem. It’s creative, it’s quirky, and it’s surprisingly effective at reinforcing vocabulary and figurative language.
Bonus spin: Want to level it up? Turn the poems into illustrated posters for a hallway display.
🧟 Activity #4: Monster Fact Cards & Craftivity
Turn fact-finding into a fun bulletin board!
Steps:
- Students discover a peculiar Halloween fact (e.g., candy corn is technically shaped like a corn kernel, but it contains no corn, adding to its eerie quality!).
- They write the fact on the included printable card and decorate it into a monster with googly eyes and yarn pom-poms.
- Combine the monsters to create a “Trivia Menagerie” on the bulletin board.
This activity works across grade levels, from kindergarteners creating googly-eyed monsters to sixth graders citing candy corn statistics with flair.
💀Activity #5: Picture Book Pairings & Craftivity Mash-Up
Let’s pair storytelling with some hands-on action:
Suggested books:
- Funnybones by Janet and Alan Ahlberg – classic rhymes and skeleton giggles.
- Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich by Adam Rex – hilarious, random monster poetry.
Craftivity idea: After reading, kids make “Monster Message Bags.” They decorate a small paper bag with spooky faces, then inside, place a folded sheet with one of the following:
- a fun monster fact
- a one-line analogy poem inspired by the book
- a funny punny monster riddle
Then hang these on a “Monster Mailbox” corner for classmates to enjoy.
Wrap it up with a reading circle; students pull a bag, read a poem/riddle, and guess the monster. Guaranteed giggles.
These activities go beyond worksheets. They’re playful, thought-provoking, and classroom-approved spooky fun.
All five activities are available in printable and Google Slides formats inside the Fall Vault. Whether you’re going on a scavenger hunt, crafting monsters, or evaluating candy trivia, these lessons are designed to be flexible, fun, and easy to implement, no broomstick required.
Skills: Data Literacy · Research · Poetry · Craftivity · Reading Comprehension
Grades: 2–6
Format: Printable + Digital
Grab the handout here.
