Fabulous Friday Freebies: Halloween Freebies!

This week I'm re-posting our most popular Halloween freebie article with one new freebie added to the end. Enjoy!

As the weather chills down and the children prepare for a sugar rush, the freebies heat up! Here are some fabulous Halloween freebies! If you have a Halloween freebie that you would like to share, please let us know in the comments and we will consider featuring your freebie in one of our future October freebie editions.

This Halloween Dry Ice Secrets packet gives a ton of information about dry ice and ways to use it in your classroom for science experiments! I found lots of useful information and fun ideas to try in the classroom. This would be perfect for a variety of ages.

This Halloween Poetry Bookmarks freebie is a different way to get students to write by following directions written on Halloween themed bookmarks. Also included are blank bookmarks that can be used for poems and themed writing paper as well.

Find a huge list of fun Halloween science experiment ideas on Science Bob's blog! There is a huge list of activities to capture your students' attention including an idea on how to make a screaming cup and a recipe for homemade slime.

Check out  this selection of 10 FREE Halloween bingo games! About Home has a great selection of bingo games you can download like the Crayola color it bingo games pictured above. I loved the selection and bingo is perfect as you can play for a short or long time.

Experiments to try for Halloween in Your Classroom!

I always enjoyed doing experiments in school and I know my students did too! Here are 16 creepy and fun Halloween science experiments!

Halloween Candy Experiments

Dissolving Candy Pumpkins - Lemon Lime Adventures
Exploding Microwaveable Peeps - Housing a Forest
3 Fun Experiments for Leftover Halloween Candy - Play Dr. Hutch
Pop Rocks Expander - Steve Spangler Science
Oil Test for Starburst - Candy Experiments

Ghosts and Other Spirits

Tea Bag Ghosts - Play dough to Plato
Ghost Rockets - Growing a Jeweled Rose
Static Powered Dancing Ghost - Science Bob
Magic Expanding Ghost - Bitz & Giggles
Make Ectoplasm Slime - About Education

Blood & Guts

What is Blood Made Of - I can Teach my Child
Vampire Blood Chlorophyll Experiment - Inspiration Laboratories
Make Fake Blood - Steve Spangler Science
Make Vampire Blood - Primary Education Oasis
Create Blood Clots - Science Buddies

Ghouls and Goblins

Make Zombie Brains - Professor Egghead

What To Do with Halloween Candy Besides Eat It

Happy Halloween!  I hope you all are having fun despite the crazy buzz of excitement and sugar rushes that come with this holiday.  Today I'm posting a fun way to use up some of your students candy besides consume it.  CandyExperiments has simple science experiments you can do with some of the excessive treats that kids collect.  Here are five of my favorite experiments...

1) Chocolate Bloom--students expose their chocolate bars to different temperatures and see what happens when the ingredients start to separate.

2) Life Saver Sparks--students eat life savers in the dark in front of a mirror and watch what happens.

3) Candy Bar Bath--students test candy bars to see which sink and which float.  Then they predict why.

4) Harvesting S's and M's--students pull the letters off of Skittles and M&M's.

5) Hidden Sugars--students learn to read labels and, hopefully, rethink some of their food choices.

This could be done in class or sent home as an experiment.  I doubt many parents would mind seeing the candy being used for the sake of education instead of tooth decay!

Have fun.  Be safe.  Let us know if you try it and how it goes.  We'd love to hear your feedback.

Fabulous Friday Freebies: Educational Halloween Freebies!

 

Halloween will be in a few short weeks! Do you have a costume picked out? If not, check out our suggestions of Halloween costumes for teachers. 

To help you celebrate Halloween in your classroom, here are some fabulous Halloween freebies you can use to make your teaching a little scarier than usual this year!

Just as described, here is monster sized list of Halloween projects. There are enormous amount of ideas of things you and your students can make for some hands on fun this fall.

Want to do something that involves pumpkins this year but you're not sure what? KinderArt has a list of 100 ideas of things that you can do with a pumpkin. Each idea is unique so there is a little something for everyone there!

Cybraryman has a huge compilation of Halloween related resources. For younger kids there are math worksheets, Spelloween links, experiments, crafts and more. For older kids there are also fun links such as a Salem With Trials Jeopardy game, trivia games and more. There is something for just about every school subject so I'm sure that you will find something useful here!

If you are interested in cultures from around the world, check out how they celebrate Halloween by looking at Jack O'Lanterns.net. There are links to help you find more about Halloween around the world including celebrations in Mexico, Spain, China and more. 

Shelly Terrell has a list of 18 educational Halloween apps. Not every app suggested is free but most are. Do you use apps in your classroom?

Enjoy this list! If you have a Halloween freebie please share it with us in the comments and I will feature it in a future Halloween freebie post!

Halloween Costume Ideas for Teachers

 

Today I am re-posting an article from last year since this is the right time to start creating a Halloween costume. There are a few new ideas I added in for this year so check it out.

I realize that not every school allow or encourages their staff to dress in costume during Halloween or other holidays. However, if you ARE at a school that allows their staff to dress in costume, there are plenty of fun ways you can still teach your students with what you're wearing! Here are some costume ideas perfect for teachers that love to dress up.

This is me in my favorite teacher costume! I am an art teacher so of course I had to do something artistic and so I made myself into a painting. It was a very affordable costume which cost nothing since all I needed was a large piece of cardboard and paint (which I already have). Even though some students have already seen that costume I keep it around each year since students always get a kick out of it.

Here are some other ideas for perfect teacher costumes! 

E-How.com has several suggestions of Halloween costumes for different teachers. For literacy teachers, you could dress like a character in a book your students are reading. Social studies or foreign language teachers could dress up from a certain culture or time period.

U-Createcrafts.com has a cute article on making a book fairy costume. This could be perfect for a literacy teacher, librarian, or elementary school teacher.

Everyday Living Everyday has a post about some teachers that dressed up as school supplies for Halloween. They made their own costumes and it looks great!

Become a pumpkin pi like this guy here! It looks relatively easy to make and it's not a full body costume.

How about making yourself a Facebook costume? Love this play on words!

Squidoo.com sells costumes that would be perfect for teachers but I think that many of these ideas could easily be made with either things you have around the house or with a simple trip to a used clothing store. A Sherlock Holmes costume could be easily put together or a Where's Waldo? costume as well. To create the classic stripes you could paint red acrylic strips on a white shirt.

What does your school do for Halloween? Please let us know in the comments below.

Dressing Up for Halloween

 

I realize that not every school allow or encourages their staff to dress in costume during Halloween or other holidays. However, if you ARE at a school that allows their staff to dress in costume, there are plenty of fun ways you can still teach your students with what you're wearing! Here are some costume ideas perfect for teachers that love to dress up.

This is me in my favorite teacher costume! I am an art teacher so of course I had to do something artistic and so I made myself into a painting. It was a very affordable costume which cost nothing since all I needed was a large piece of cardboard and paint (which I already have). Even though some students have already seen that costume I keep it around each year since students always get a kick out of it.

Here are some other ideas for perfect teacher costumes! 

E-How.com has several suggestions of Halloween costumes for different teachers. For literacy teachers, you could dress like a character in a book your students are reading. Social studies or foreign language teachers could dress up from a certain culture or time period.

U-Createcrafts.com has a cute article on making a book fairy costume. This could be perfect for a literacy teacher, librarian, or elementary school teacher.

Squidoo.com sells costumes that would be perfect for teachers but I think that many of these ideas could easily be made with either things you have around the house or with a simple trip to a used clothing store. A Sherlock Holmes costume could be easily put together or a Where's Waldo? costume as well. To create the classic stripes you could paint red acrylic strips on a white shirt.

Do you have a cute Halloween costume idea for teachers? Please let us know in the comments below.

Fabulous Friday Freebies! Halloween Freebies Part II

Here is part II of the Halloween edition of Fabulous Friday Freebies! If you missed part I, check it out here. Otherwise, look before for some fun freebies for your little classroom ghosts and goblins.

First is this fantastic Halloween descriptive writing pack I found after checking out all the links on our favorite freebie linky party. I was impressed with a freebie of this length (20 pages) and the pages are very high quality. This lesson is recommended for 4th-6th grade.

For younger children that might be scared by most Halloween themes, this set of monster visual direction cards would be a fun way to incorporate friendly monsters into your classroom this year. Each monster has various cues to help remind students of their expectations.

If you are looking for a fun artistic activity, here are two free roll a dice drawing games. In one game you can draw a monster by rolling the dice and in the other you can create a jack-o-lantern. These type of activities help with students who get stuck on thinking of new and creative ideas and makes drawing more unpredictable.

This set of Halloween themed would you rather questions are perfect for a variety of ages. You can use these for a brain break, to start classroom discussions, as journal prompts/starters, or even answer the questions in small groups for team building.

Lastly, this science experiment idea is a fun twist on a classic science experiment. See all the details here! I can't imagine a student that would not have fun with this activity.



Thanks for checking out our Fabulous Friday Freebies!

Halloween Literacy & Fun Packet for Sale

Recently I updated my Halloween Literacy Packet which was the first item I ever posted on my TPT store! Since my first item I have learned a lot about how to make packets more appealing to students and how to include different types of lessons so I made some big changes.

Before I updated this packet it had only about five meager lessons with few graphics and few open ended activities. Now there is a greater variety activity, lots of fun graphics, and one of the centers includes a blank page so you can add your own words to the activity.

The packet now includes five literacy centers and two fun activities, all with a Halloween theme. The literacy centers that are included in this packet include a compare and contrast Venn diagram page, a Halloween writing prompt, a draw a description page, a Halloween story writing game, and a Halloween synonyms center.

Two fun activities are included which are a Halloween word search and a Halloween word scramble. The fun activities are perfect for a bonus fun activity, the last few minutes of class, or for fast/early finishers.

I'm excited about the game included in this packet. Students roll a die to determine their character, setting, and story's problem which is a fun way to encourage their creativity in writing. Two pages of Halloween themed writing paper is included for them to record their story on.

Thanks for checking out my Halloween literacy packet!

Fabulous Friday Freebies: Halloween Freebies!

As the weather chills down and the children prepare for a sugar rush, the freebies heat up! Here are some fabulous Halloween freebies! If you have a Halloween freebie that you would like to share, please let us know in the comments and we will consider featuring your freebie in one of our future October freebie editions.

This Halloween Dry Ice Secrets packet gives a ton of information about dry ice and ways to use it in your classroom for science experiments! I found lots of useful information and fun ideas to try in the classroom. This would be perfect for a variety of ages.

This Halloween Poetry Bookmarks freebie is a different way to get students to write by following directions written on Halloween themed bookmarks. Also included are blank bookmarks that can be used for poems and themed writing paper as well.

I selected this Halloween logic puzzle because these were one of my favorite activities in school. Although it is not geared towards any subject, it's a great activity for students to use their logic to figure out the puzzle.

Find a huge list of fun Halloween science experiment ideas on Science Bob's blog! There is a huge list of activities to capture your students' attention including an idea on how to make a screaming cup and a recipe for homemade slime.