Following the huge popularity of the top 5……lame Christmas activities feature last December it is time to cash in on the success of that and, true to form, Tokyo Fox has managed to cobble together an equally feeble Halloween edition!

With October 31st drawing ever closer, the teachers among us are probably trying to think of a few spook-tacular games and activities to jazz up our lessons. If you’re in the mood for it all and have that Halloween feeling then these can be fun times but if you’re not into the spirit then it can all be a bit of a drag. Thankfully, help is at hand and here, in no particular order, is the Tokyo Fox top 5……lame Halloween activities for kids!

Disclaimer: This is just for fun and should not to be taken too seriously! 

1. Halloween Words Pelmanism – This card game was made pretty much as a joke to amuse myself but believe it or not this was way more popular than I could ever have imagined. Basically, write some Halloween two-syllable words or two-word phrases on two bits of paper (i.e. Hallo-Ween, Black-Cat, Haunted-House, JackO-Lantern, Vam-Pire etc etc). It might be a good idea to get the students to just match up the two sets first to get them accustomed to the words. Once that’s done and dusted you can play a game of pelmanism with each student continuing to turn over another set of cards when they have got a correct pair. I used orange and black cards to get even more into the Halloween spirit.

2. Three-Letter Conundrum – Take the flashcard letters A, B, T and get the students to re-arrange them to make the Halloween word! This activity practices (or reinforces) phonics and you could even pad out the activity beforehand by firstly eliciting each letter and any words (whether Halloween-related or otherwise!) beginning with that letter. Of course, more letters could be jumbled up and rearranged to form longer Halloween-related words. Alphamats or magnetic letters can of course be used instead of flashcards.

3. Halloween Naughts & Crosses – Use the whiteboard and divide it into 9 squares with one lexical item (i.e. Spider, Witch….) either written or drawn in each square. The students then throw a sticky ball at each square with the winner being the one who manages to get three-in-a-row.

4. Preposition Drawing – This can be done on the whiteboard or in the students’ notebooks (if you want the evidence to remain!) and first you get them to draw some kind of Haunted house though any kind of regular house should suffice! Then you shout out instructions like ‘the witch is by/next to the house’ or ‘the ghost is under the house’ and let the students conjure up their own Halloween creations.

5. Stick The Tail On The Black Cat – A lame variation on the classic ‘pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey’ party game with the students being blindfolded (or just closing their eyes) and then having to place a black tail in the correct place on the drawing of a black cat which can either be on the whiteboard or a self-created poster on the wall. Affix either magnets or sticky tape to the back and have fun!

So there you have it! Just about any usual activity can be slightly adjusted to make it seem Halloween-y! I seem to recall doing the likes of ‘What time is it Mrs Witch?’ and ‘Is there a/an (object) in the pumpkin?’ years ago. If you’ve got a selection of Halloween flashcards, like below, then there’s a whole host of games available for you to have an enjoyable time with your students!

You can see the ‘TF Top 5……Lame Christmas Activities For Kids’ here