Scary Halloween Classroom Games
Most children love all things Halloween. As adults, we assume it's because
Halloween means candy and children generally love candy. But many children love
more than just the abundance of candy at Halloween time. They really get into
the ghoulish aspect of the holiday and delight in the displays of goopy brains
and squishy body parts.
Halloween games, therefore, can be really fun and goopy, if you wish. The kids
will go with it, don't worry.
First up, a brain game. There's a fun game on store shelves where you pick
through a rubber "brain" to figure out what's in it. You can create this easily
yourself. Make some jello and fill it with a variety of items, like gummy worms
and other gummy candies, some small candy and trinkets and other items. Tell the
children to root around in the bowl of jello (call it a "brain" if this will get
the kids more interested) to figure out what's in it. It's goopy and messy and
kids love it. Best yet, color the jello black so it's too dark to see what's
inside and it looks more like goopy brain matter (the way kids see it, anyway).
In that same, or similar vein, kids love the spaghetti game. Be sure they are
wearing a smock over their clothes or are wearing play clothes before playing
this game. Make a big bowl of spaghetti and fill it with all kinds of items,
like plastic bugs, gummy worms and other items that might feel a bit strange.
Make the children feel around in the bowl of spaghetti and identify the items
they feel. Once they are done and cleaned up, have them list as many items as
they can remember. Whoever gets the most items listed (and right) gets a prize.
Spaghetti, anyone?
Another similar game that's always popular is to take a cardboard box and paint
it black, both the inside and outside. Carve a small hole in the top, really
just large enough for the children to get their hands into, and fill the box
with a variety of items. They can be related to Halloween (like a small pumpkin)
or not (wrapped Tootsie rolls or a tiny toy Hummer car). Have the children guess
what's inside the box and award the box itself to the child who guesses the most
number of items correctly. To make this goopy and silly, be sure to include some
items that might feel like body parts or brain matter.
Kids love creating silly fictional stories, often with absurd plotlines.
Halloween is the optimum time to let them run wild with their imaginations. Have
them spend a bit of time writing out the scariest story they can think of. Some
children might need some direction not to make it ridiculously grotesque, so use
caution with these children in your clarification of this assignment. Once the
stories are written, have the children hand them in and then have a guest reader
for each one of them. Each child will come to the front of the class and read
the story with as much dramatization as they can muster. Once the story is read,
everyone has to guess who wrote the story. The writer should play along,
otherwise everyone will know it was their story! The winner is the child who
wrote a story so intriguing and unusual that nobody knew it was his or hers!
Kids love the word find games when you give them a word or words relating to a
holiday or something else and have them find words within those words. In this
case, give them Halloween-related words and ask them to find as many scary words
as they can. For example, you might give them the word "Halloween" and see how
many scary words they can make from the letters. Or you could give them a series
of words and let them rearrange the letters in all of the words to create scary
words, or even create a story from the scary words. Put a time limit on this
game and award a prize for the child who creates the most words in the least
amount of time.