This year’s Halloween is going to be very different from traditional trick-or-treating, candy, and costumes. Even though children can’t go out and celebrate with friends, there are plenty of fun activities and traditions you can still host at home! Keep reading below for festive activities like in-house trick-or-treating, spooky movies, and an at-home costume contest!

Halloween Traditions at Home

In-house trick-or-treating: Can’t go out to trick-or-treat this year? Bring the tradition to you! Go crazy with the indoor decorations, and then set up bowls of candy scattered around the house. Each room in your home can have a different theme, like ghosts, witches, etc. Your children will love getting candy and going on a mini adventure. Decorate your home with the free spider and skeleton art projects (below)!

Costume Contest: Even costumes are going to be different this year. While your children may already have costumes picked out, make a game out of it by challenging them to come up with a costume with just items from their closet. See what they can come up with and hold a costume contest just for your family! Make it a virtual costume contest by including family and friends on FaceTime.

Halloween Scavenger Hunt: Put a twist on gathering candy with a scavenger hunt in your home! Write riddles or clues directing your children to a specific spot in your house, whether it’s a room, landmark, or object. When they find the object or room, reward them with candy! Here are some examples of clues you can write:

• Find me in the room where you watch movies. I am small, white, and can fly. Answer: A ghost in the living/TV room.
• As a witch, I think Halloween is really cool. Find me where you get dressed for school. Answer: witch in the closet.
• Cut me up and make me glow. Find your candy if you know where to go. Answer: jack-o-lantern.

Trunk-or-Treat: Organize a small group of one or two other families and have a mobile trick-or-treat experience. This is a safe way to get out of the house this Halloween; your children can show their friends their costumes from a safe distance and get some candy while they’re at it! To make this more of an activity, drive around the neighborhood and look at the decorations!

Spooky Movie Marathons: Make your house and holiday extra festive by playing some classic Halloween movies! Here are some of my favorite Halloween movies for children:

• Scoob
• Casper
• Mary and the Witch’s Flower
• Halloweentown
• The Nightmare Before Christmas
• Hocus Pocus
• Kiki’s Delivery Service
• It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

Halloween-Themed Food and Recipes: Check out some of these fun recipes that you can make at home as a fun Halloween activity! From Harry Potter treats to Halloween snacks, there’s something for everyone! Eat or drink these during your spooky movie marathon:

• Harry Potter’s Butterbeer
• 21 Fun Halloween Snacks for Kids
• 20 Fun and Easy Halloween Treats to Make with Your Kids

Boo Bags: Send a little Halloween cheer to friends this year with a boo bag! Create a goodie-filled bag or basket! Secretly place the bag or basket on the front porch of a friend of neighbor. Include a note, “You’ve been booed.” 

• Halloween candy
• Evan-Moor Halloween art
• Snacks 
• Mini pumpkin 
• A game or puzzle
• Halloween-themed book

Other Halloween Activities & Free Printables

If you’re looking for some crafts or other hands-on activities, check out these free activities that are fun for the whole family!

Free Headband Craft for Favorite Story Characters and Halloween Costumes: Here’s an activity that brings well-known stories to life and is fun for Halloween celebrations! Your child can decorate and color one of the headbands as part of a Halloween costume, and is still able to wear a mask, if needed. (From Retelling Tales with Headbands, grades PreK-1.)

Download your free Headband crafts here.

1. Read the story to your child
2. Have your child do the activity page.
3. Have your child color the headbands. Help your child cut them out and put them together.
4. Have your child wear the headband and re-tell you the story!

Easy Hanging Spider Craft: This is a quick and easy craft project to decorate your home! Using construction paper, string, and other basic supplies, you can have little paper spiders hanging all around the house!

Skeleton Art Project: Check out this fun skeleton project to make silly dancing skeletons! Using the materials provided you can make all kinds of different looking skeletons. Click here to see the full blog on this project, which includes additional science and reading activities!

Pumpkin Shape Book: This is a simple shape book project that includes the reproducibles and a pumpkin poem for students in grades K–1 to enjoy!

Halloween Thinking Activities: Practice critical thinking and writing skills with this grade 1–level Halloween activity unit! There are writing, math, and thinking activities included.

Pumpkin Poems: For grades 2–3, this small unit uses pumpkin poems to teach students about rhyming, couplets, and more! It features reading comprehension activities, activities based on the poems, and a chance for students to write their own Halloween poems.

Halloween Language Activities: Children grades 3–5 will enjoy these word and language activities, such as solving word searches, unscrambling Halloween-related words, and solving a code!

Human Skeleton Cut-out: Cut out and paste together the pieces of the human skeleton to make a life-sized paper version! Great for grades 1–6!

Even though Halloween is going to seem different this year, children will still have the opportunity to enjoy the traditions they love! Perhaps they’ll even discover a new activity they love that will become tradition going forward. Enjoy your safe, at-home, Halloween celebration with Evan-Moor activities.

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Christine Wooler has experience working with children as a youth soccer coach and summer camp counselor. She is currently studying English Literature and journalism in college. She enjoys exploring educational topics that help students have fun while learning.

Give children and students a positive start to their day with inspirational quotes. Inspirational quotes can help motivate children to learn and encourage them to accept mistakes and during the learning process. Start your school day or week with a simple quote or saying. You can choose one quote a week or write a new one each day! You can even ask children to contribute their favorite saying that inspires them. Easily display your inspirational quotes on your classroom whiteboard or an individual white board for distance learning.

Get inspiration for your own whiteboard designs and learn how to create a whiteboard with just a pocket protector and paper in this DIY Whiteboard video.

35 Inspirational quotes

“Happiness depends more on the internal frame of mind of a person’s own mind than on the externals in the world.” – George Washington

“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” – Albert Einstein

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” – Thomas Alva Edison

“Why fit in when you were born to stand out?” – Dr. Seuss

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” – Mark Twain

“Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That’s why we call it ‘The Present.'” – Eleanor Roosevelt

“If you can dream it, you can do it.” – Walt Disney

“People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou

“No one is perfect – that’s why pencils have erasers.” – Wolfgang Riebe

“The capacity to learn is a gift; the ability to learn is a skill; the willingness to learn is a choice.” – Brian Herbert

“Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious.” – Stephen Hawking

“Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good.” – Malcolm Gladwell

“Let us remember: One book, one pen, one child and one teacher can change the world.” – Malala Yousafzai

“Education is the key to unlocking the world, a passport to freedom.” – Oprah Winfrey

“Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body” – Joseph Addison

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” – Barack Obama

“Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.” – Judy Garland

“You can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will.” – Stephen King

“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” – Wayne Gretzky

“It’s always too soon to quit.” – Norman Vincent Peale

“Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.” – Dalai Lama

“If you see someone without a smile, give them one of yours.” – Dolly Parton

“You can always, always give something, even if it is only kindness!” – Anne Frank

“In a world where you can be anything, be kind.” – Jennifer Dukes Lee

“The time is always right to do what is right.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Tough times never last but tough people do.” – Robert H. Schuller

“You’re braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” – A. A. Milne

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” – Dr. Seuss

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.” – Dr. Seuss

“Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it or work around it.” – Michael Jordan

“It’s not whether you get knocked down; it’s whether you get up.” – Vince Lombardi

“Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.” – Wayne Gretzky

“Don’t let what you can’t do stop you from doing what you can do.” – John Wooden

“Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.” – Judy Garland

Include your daily or weekly quotes in your weekly writing prompts (for grades 2-6.)

• Read quotes aloud as a class and discuss the lesson or goal behind each one.
• List examples of how each quote can help children during their school day.
• Ask children or students to write about how each saying can help them.

Incorporate positive and encouraging quotes and start off your school day with positive thoughts. Student’s emotional health and well-being is an important part of the learning process, especially during irregular and stressful times. Use daily motivational quotes to boost emotional wellness, in addition to other social and emotional learning strategies.

You can find more activities and information for teaching social and emotional learning in this blog: Strategies for Teaching Social and Emotional Learning: Create a Classroom of Superheroes.

For more lesson tips and ideas, subscribe to our weekly newsletter!

Christine Wooler has experience working with children as a youth soccer coach and summer camp counselor. She is currently studying English Literature and journalism in college. She enjoys exploring educational topics that help students have fun while learning.

Every child learns differently and will respond to different teaching strategies depending on his or her learning style. Some students will excel with hands-on activities, while others prefer quiet reading or writing-based learning. So what are the different learning styles, and which one does your child prefer? Below are tips for how to identify what type of learner your child is and how to incorporate strategies to help him or her learn best.

What are the types of learning?

There are seven main types of learning styles, and though students can process all seven, usually one stands out as their strongest. The seven types are:

• Auditory (aural-musical)
• Visual (spatial)
• Verbal (writing-speaking)
• Kinesthetic (physical)
• Social (interpersonal)
• Solitary (intrapersonal)
• Logical (mathematical)

Teachers often use a combination of these styles in class, but adapting at-home learning or study activities to your child’s strengths will help him or her excel. For example, if your child is an auditory learner, encourage him or her to practice other types of learning, but emphasize reading out loud, listening to music, etc.

Auditory Learners

Auditory learners thrive in situations where directions or lessons are spoken rather than written. They prefer listening to audiobooks rather than reading, or would rather give an oral report on something than write a report on it. Your child may be an auditory learner if he or she:

• Likes background music when playing or trying to sleep
• Talks to others or self frequently
• Asks lots of questions
• Enjoys reading aloud
• Has difficulty understanding written instructions

If your child is an auditory learner, there are several learning strategies you can adapt in at-home work and studying. These include:

• Using rhyming word games to help memorization
• Reading aloud whenever possible
• Use video or audio tapes instead of reading materials
• Recite and repeat vocabulary or study materials with eyes closed
• Talk through difficult areas
• Working in a quiet environment or playing soft background music

Visual Learners

Visual learners excel when they have strong visual aids or examples included in their learning. They prefer charts, graphs, and pictures in their activities, and may work better after seeing a demonstration of what they’re supposed to do. Your child may be a visual learner if he or she:

• Likes movies or TV better than reading, audiobooks, or music
• Likes drawing, pictures, or art activities
• Struggles with auditory directions or verbal instructions
• Becomes impatient or disengaged when listening to something
• Processes information better when it is displayed as a chart or graph

Visual learners will improve their learning and memorization with strategies like these:

• Color coordinating notes and using different colored pens
• Flashcards for study facts
• Drawing diagrams or charts for memorization
• Show problem solving when working with multi-step problems

Verbal

These learners are often grouped with visual learners, but while visual learners benefit from pictures, verbal learners prefer words through writing and speaking. They will like reading comprehension questions that directly relate to the passage they just read as well as interacting with the text. Your child may be a verbal learner if he or she:

• Likes reading books or stories
• Can recall information from something he or she read
• Has trouble concentrating with auditory distractions
• Doesn’t process oral or visual presentations well

Use strategies like the following to help your reading/writing–style child improve his or her study methods:

• Copy notes by hand instead of typing
• Repeat writing important information for memorization
• Provide written instructions for activities
• Keep notes organized with headings, titles, etc.
• Write notes in the margins of readings

Kinesthetic Learners

Learning by doing is the best way for kinesthetic learners to learn. They will prefer hands-on activities and have a hard time sitting still while learning. They will learn better by doing and figuring it out for themselves rather than watching someone else do it. Your child may be a kinesthetic learner if he or she:

• Has difficulty processing reading or auditory material
• Likes sports, science experiments, or other hands-on activities
• Likes study activities and games
• Likes puzzles or figuring things out independently

For these types of learners, try the following study strategies:

• Play study games instead of using flashcards
• Create practice tests to simulate test environment
• Act out situations instead of reading about them
• Use movement or whiteboards for studying activities instead of sitting still

Social Learners

Students who are social learners will process and understand better when working in a group. Group activities and projects, as opposed to individual work, will benefit these types of learners. This has more to do with the setting they thrive in rather than the style of learning. They can be visual, auditory, or other learners as well. Your child may be a social learner if he or she:

• Gravitates toward groups
• Is extroverted
• Naturally assumes a leadership role in a group
• Learns and performs better in group settings

For these learners, practice some of the following activities and learning strategies:

• Form study groups with friends and classmates
• Play group games
• Work/study in partners
• Repeat information back to a partner instead of writing it out

Solitary Learners

Solitary learners prefer working independently rather than in groups; this is the setting they prefer, whether they are auditory, visual, or reading/writing learners. This style of learner will focus better when working individually. Your child may be a solitary learner if he or she:

• Works faster, better, and more efficiently alone.
• Is generally independent
• Behaves privately
• Has a hard time concentrating in busy areas or loud groups

Use study strategies like the following for your solitary learners:

• Provide quiet or independent study time, especially in stressful or busy environments
• Provide lots of visual and reading/writing materials for your learners, so they have plenty to work on individually
• Limit group projects or work so as to not overwhelm your students
• Encourage your learners to work individually but share with a partner or group

Logical Learners

Logical learners benefit from mathematical learning activities and will prefer logical processes to abstract ones. Logical learners may benefit from both individual and group settings. Logical learners will exhibit the following:

• Strong pattern and number recognition
• Interest and talent in math and science
• Difficulty with creative or abstract subjects
• Understanding of statistics or facts

Encourage the following strategies to help your logical learners:

• Include puzzles, numbers, or statistics whenever possible
• Make vocabulary into a crossword puzzle
• Develop systems or patterns in all subject areas to help logical students process information

Helping students recognize what study strategies work for them will help develop study habits and patterns that will help them down the line. It’s also important to note that not every child has just one learning style and that children will need help figuring out what works best for them by testing out different strategies. Observe your child in a working environment and play games to figure out what works best!

For more learning ideas and tips, subscribe to our monthly e-newsletter.

Christine Wooler has experience working with children as a youth soccer coach and summer camp counselor. She is currently studying English Literature and journalism in college. She enjoys exploring educational topics that help students have fun while learning.