Halloween Games and Printables for the Classroom

September 27, 2024 by Sarah White Leave a Comment

Halloween used to be one of the biggest holidays when it came to classroom parties at my daughter’s school (they still do a lot in the lower grades, and the young ones go trick or treating in the upper school classrooms). Halloween can be a lot of fun even if it’s not super spooky, and there are tons of easy Halloween games and printable activities you can do in the classroom or with a small group at home.

I love this giant Halloween word search for the classroom from Busy Toddler. Do a single one for a couple of kids (or to leave hanging in the classroom and each kid can find a couple of words) or make a couple and make a game where teams of kids can try to find the words.

There are tons of Halloween bingo cards out there that you can print for classroom use. These from Happiness is Homemade are super cute and easy for kids of any age to use. Don’t Eat Pete is kind of the opposite of bingo, where you start with all your spaces covered. One person is it, and they leave the room while the others decide which icon on the game board is Pete. When the “it” person returns they start uncovering the squares until they get to Pete, and everyone yells “Don’t eat Pete!” and a new it is named. You can find a printable for this game along with other Halloween printables at Fun Squared.

Memory matching games are also fun for small parties, and this one from Marley Doodle Digital is super cute. This could be a station at a Halloween party with other games and activities going on as well.

If you’re looking for some more active games to add to the mix, check out this list of minute to win it style games with a Halloween twist from So Festive. Making people into mummies with toilet paper is a classic we did for a few years, but I also love this one that involves blowing plastic spiders through an obstacle course (or just across a finish line, depending on the age of the kids) using a straw. So fun and easy to set up!

Halloween Shadow Match Game for Preschoolers

Halloween Concentration Game

Beginning Sound Pumpkin Matching Game

Free Halloween Themed Printables for Kids

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Fine Motor Task Cards for Kids

I don’t know why Pinterest just suddenly decided I needed to see all the content about task cards and task boxes for kids, but these ideas are great for the classroom to keep in centers or have on hand for early finishers. You can also use them at home as quiet bags or boxes for kids to use when younger siblings might be sleeping, or in the car for a non-screen activity.

Let’s take a look at some fine motor skill task cards and how you can use them to teach kids skills while they play.

Pre-K Pages has a nice set of playdough task cards you can use in boxes or bags with a little tray (or they can just work on the table if they are sitting at a table). Working with clay or play dough is a great fine motor skill exercise, or you can add these to your playdough center if you have one to give them a little bit of direction while they work.

Teaching Mama has a bunch of great ideas for fine motor task boxes, from practicing working a glue bottle to threading beads, using clothespins or scissors, dropping water, finger painting and more. There’s a free printable that shows all the task options she talks through in the post if you want to make your own little boxes, or just keep these ideas on hand when you’re ready to add some fine motor fun to your days.

One of the ideas she mentions in that post is working with a hole punch, and Early Learning Ideas has a whole bunch (the urge to write “hole bunch” is strong) of ideas for printables that help kids practice hole punching, whether it’s a strip with circles on it for them to punch or pictures that include circles for punching, these ideas make it a little more fun to practice this important skill.

My Happy Place Teaching has a whole post about using fine motor task boxes in kindergarten, and her paid resource includes more than 100 task ideas with printables. But if you don’t need 100 boxes you can still get some good ideas from this post about different tasks to include and why and when you can use them. She also mentions using them in the morning while you’re busy with kids coming in at different times, which is a great idea.

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