Halloween Dice Games for Kids

There are lots of different ways to incorporate dice games into your Halloween content at school or at home. Using dice is a great way for kids to practice one-to-one correspondence and counting, or for older kids it just adds a fun spin to a game.

One of the most basic Halloween dice game ideas is rolling a jack ‘o lantern. Each number on the die corresponds to a different part of the face, so you can end up with, say, lots of eyes if you keep rolling the same number (or just keep rolling until you hit a number you haven’t had before). Views from a Stepstool has a version of this game that uses one die, while the printable from The Savvy Sparrow uses two dice so there are more options.

You can also roll a monster, which is the same concept, just a little more open ended. You can make up your own rules like the ones above, or use this one from Mommy Made That, which has kids roll for the number of eyes, legs, teeth and arms their monster will have, as well as color and other features to add.

Or roll a monster face with these instructions from Drawing How to Draw. This one uses a single die and you roll for the specific features (like a certain kind of mouth or hair) that you then draw on your page.

The Fourth Grade Geek has a dice game on Teachers Pay Teachers that would be fun for older elementary school kids. The object is to build your skeleton the fastest based on rolls of the dice, but there’s a twist: if you roll a 6, someone can steal one of your pieces!

You can also use dice to assemble a story, like with this printable from ELSA Support. This was designed for English language learners but would be fun for kids of all ages (with little kids you could roll as a group and write a story together). Each roll gives you a part of the story such as a character, setting, emotion, prop and problem, which are then used to write a spooky story.

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Fun End of the School Year Activities for the Classroom

The celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe is important throughout Mexico and other parts of the world. Her feast day is Dec. 12, and the celebrations honoring her appearance to Juan Diego in 1531 begin a few days before that.

Whether you celebrate yourself or just want to share about the celebration at home or in your classroom, Las Mañanitas: The Beautiful Celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe is a good place to start. The book, by Ernesto Joel Vega Rosales and Jeanette Gonzalez Seneviratne, with illustrations by Dana Sanmar, tells the story of a family’s celebration of the feast day in both English and Spanish.

They prepare with a novena, which is nine days of prayers and preparations. The children, Lucia and Pablo, are given special outfits made by their grandmother that look like what Juan Diego might have worn when he saw Our Lady. The book describes the prayers that are made each day, such as a prayer for respect for life, for families and for the indigenous people of the Americas, to name a few.

As told in the book, Juan Diego was a native Mexican born near modern day Mexico City. His given name was Cuaauhtlatoatzin, which means “He who speaks like an eagle.” When he converted to Christianity his name was changed to Juan Diego, and as he walked to church he passed a hill called Tepeyac. One day he heard the birds singing especially beautifully and a voice called him to go to the top of the hill.

There he saw Our Lady of Guadalupe, who asked him to tell the bishop she wanted a chapel built in her name at the foot of the hill. The bishop asked for a sign that Juan Diego really saw her, and later she had him collect flowers that she blessed and take them to the bishop. When Juan Diego dropped the flowers, an image of Our Lady could be seen on his cloak, which is still on display in her basilica to this day.

The feast day is celebrated as mañanitas, which includes singing, indigenous music and dancing, and children presenting flowers to Our Lady. Juan Diego is remembered today as being humble, brave and faithful, and was the first indigenous American made a saint.

The book is colorful and tells the story in a clear way, and it’s fun to have it both in English and Spanish if you teach Spanish or speak Spanish at home or in the classroom. It’s a great way to learn the basics of the celebration and the story of Juan Diego and why he is still remembered today.

About the book: 40 pages, paperback, published 2024 by Loyola Press. Suggested retail price $14.99.

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