Halloween Celebrations in the Classroom

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays of the year, maybe that is because my husband has a Halloween birthday! Either way, I love all of the fun traditions the month of October brings. If you are looking for general tips about holidays in the classroom, check out an old post HERE. If you are looking for October Binder Task ideas or October Vocabulary Activities, check out old posts in my October category! Today’s blog post is going to share all sorts of ideas for a Halloween celebration in the classroom!

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What is Halloween?

Like all the “big” holidays of the year, Halloween can pose a LOT of changes in the classroom. Routines change and expectations remain the same. I like to discuss the holiday all month long to help students understand what and why they are celebrating the holiday. Introduce the meaning of Halloween using a social story.

How to Manage Behaviors on Halloween

There are a LOT of behaviors we can anticipate seeing during the Halloween season. A LOT. Halloween is quite an interesting holiday if you step back and look at it from a literal perspective. Here are a few social stories on various behaviors that can help with Halloween traditions:

• How to Act in the Community: this lesson is OH so important for families that plan on going trick or treating or trunk or treat activities in their community!
• School Celebrations: this lesson is kind of a given if your school celebrates holidays. If you are having a costume parade, celebration or performance the routine is going to be different. Review expectations before the celebrations begin!
• Keeping My Clothes On: are students wearing costumes? Are they itchy, bulky, uncomfortable? Help kiddos understand that they must keep clothes on and help them to communicate if they are feeling uncomfortable
• Personal Space: If you hold a bucket of candy out, chances are kids are going to charge that bucket like their life depends on it. Practice trick or treating in the classroom with kiddos so they remember personal space.
• Sharing: Got candy? It’s time to share!
• Manners: Thank you for the candy! Trick or Treat PLEASE! We don’t want any rude trick-or-treaters running around on Halloween!

Halloween Picture Books

I loved using picture books throughout the month of October when I was in the classroom! Halloween has SO MANY fun themes and amazing picture books. I believe picture books are a great way to build the holiday vocabulary for your students. My collection of halloween books is now continuing to grow at home with Tucker! Here are some of my favorites:

• The Spooky Wheels on the Bus by Elizabeth Mills
• Spooky House by Roger Priddy
• There’s a Monster in Your Book by Tom Fletcher
• Pinkalicious: Pink or Treat! by Victoria Kann
• The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything by Linda Williams
• Pete the Cat: Five Little Pumpkins by James Dean
• Little Blue Truck’s Halloween by Alice Schertle
• The Berenstain Bears Trick or Treat by Stan Berenstain
• Happy Halloween ABC by Olga Ortiz
• The Night Before Halloween by Natasha Wing

Pumpkin Carving in the Classroom

PUMPKIN CARVING! Carving pumpkins is a go to activity for halloween celebrations in the classroom. So many sensory explorations built in with communication opportunities. Depending on your kiddos ages, abilities and staff support you may or may not choose to actually “carve” pumpkins! Either way, exploring the inside guts of the pumpkin is so important for our developing kiddos! This pumpkin carving communication aide is a great way to make this a small group or whole class activity that benefits everyone! Have students pick shapes and body parts to build carving communication!

Whether you choose stickers, traditional carving or simple pumpkin body parts to decorate your pumpkin, it’s all a win! Here are some things I have used over the years for pumpkins in the classroom!

Trick or Treating in the Classroom

Trick or treating is the highlight of Halloween. It’s a big deal for kids. When else do you get to go ask for endless amounts of candy? It also requires many skills to successfully go trick or treating. When in the classroom, I always had my students practice going trick or treating. This social story is a perfect pairing to prep students for a successful trick or treating outing!

I also created a freebie just for you guys! This communication tool can be used while out and about with family either trick or treating or truck or treat. It can even be used in the classroom for practice. You can grab it free HERE or by clicking below:

I also created a simple visual schedule for trick or treating. You can easily glue the visuals back to back and laminate them for easy carrying! Grab the visual below HERE.

I also LOVE this freebie from Alyssa at Simply Special Ed.

Communication Over the Holidays

Communication should always be a priority in the classroom. We do not want to limit communication for our limited verbal speaking students on a holiday. There is nothing worst then planning an activity for your students without considering communication aides. ALL, I mean ALL, students should be able to participate in all of your holiday and seasonal activities too. To help out, I created a communication board for halloween with common words to build communication opportunities in the classroom and home during the halloween season!

Halloween Videos and Songs

Here are two fun songs/dances for the halloween season in your classroom! These are perfect to spice up morning meeting or to create brain breaks in October!

Halloween Goodies

Halloween trinkets and games are also a fun way to build the celebration in your classroom.

• The wind up trinkets are a great way to build communication in the classroom. You can use them for describing activities, requesting more, help and so much more!
• Halloween glasses can be a fun behavior motivator throughout the day. Simple rules such as first/then to earn glasses can be a great motivator for the kiddos!
• I also love fun games that can be used for gross and fine motor development! Bean bag monster toss is a fun team building game that can be used throughout the whole month of October, especially for those indoor rainy/snowy recesses!
• Lastly, a fun balancing monster eyeball game is a great way to build confidence, team work and concentration during the Halloween season!

Halloween Crafts and Sensory Activities

Below are some fun ideas from other sites for the holiday that I wanted to share with you!

Every month I like to create seasonal sensory trays. This month I chose three different colors of dyed rice and added some dollar spot mini erasers. SO easy and so simple!

I have a whole blog post with 5 different pumpkin sensory activities. Click below to read more and grab your free pumpkin slime visual recipe!

Halloween can be a blast in the classroom if planned out ahead of time. I know this blog post is full of all sorts of goodies, and I completely understand if you can’t incorporate all of these ideas every year. I do hope you found some of these tips and tricks helpful for this Halloween season. If you plan on discussing more holidays this year, check out my Holiday social stories discounted bundle!

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