How to Celebrate Halloween in Your Classroom

I have been teaching kindergarten since 1995 and I have found Halloween to be the kids favorite holiday of the year. Some teachers will spend a lot of time celebrating St. Patrick's Day and Valentine's Day but it's Halloween that the kids love most. I have created a great thematic unit (link at the bottom of the article). Follow these simple steps to give your students a Halloween they will never forget.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Fog machine
• Not-so-scary decorations
• Halloween sound effects CD

1. Black out the windows. Black out the windows if possible using black butcher paper. Make the room as dark as possible. Remember, your eyes adjust to darkness so the room will seem really dark when you enter and then hardly dark in a few minutes.
2. Fog machine! Buy a fog machine and shoot the fog out from under the door before you let the kids in the classroom, this will really excite them! Once they are in the room shoot the fog every 10 or 15 minutes. Don't worry, it won't set off the smoke alarm.
3. Have a pumpkin carving contest with your big buddies. You probably don't want your young students carving pumpkins even with safe pumpkin carving knives.
4. Give the kids flashlights and do "flashlight reading" with the kids. Pointing a flashlight at a book and tracking the words is an excellent reading exercise.
5. Play some Halloween games like Halloween bingo.
6. Play a Halloween sound effects CD. Play this CD during the day but be sure to check it to make sure it's not too scary (chainsaws, screaming and so forth). These CDs are readily available throughout October.

Tips & Warnings

• If there are any questionable decorations or sound effects try them out with the lights on before the kids see them in the dark.