How Can Teachers Integrate Halloween in the Secondary Classroom?

Celebrating Halloween in the secondary classroom can feel like more of a trick than a treat. While our elementary counterparts often have school-sponsored costume parades or classwide parties, those of us at the middle and high school level are typically left to our own devices when it comes to our Halloween plans. However, holidays tend to show us that teenagers are really just big kids, and embracing the spirit of the season can create buy-in and engagement. If you’re ready to bring some spooky celebrations into the secondary setting, check out our three favorite strategies!

1. Find Curricular Connections

It may take a bit of creativity, but if you can find a way to connect your course content to Halloween, this can be a seamless strategy! For English Language Arts or Social Studies teachers, this could look like a reading comprehension activity about the history of Halloween. For our friends teaching Math, you might consider having students create graphs to represent the amount of each candy type in a variety pack, or try an awesome Halloween-centric consumer math activity from Next Gen Personal Finance! Science pals could try out a lesson on the environmental impact of Halloween traditions and have students identify ways to make the holiday more sustainable.

Whatever your content area, we guarantee there is a connection to be made. It may be a slight departure from your October unit plan, but combining your subject matter with the festivities can make the inevitable holiday-induced detour a whole lot smoother.

2. Embrace a Thematic Moment

Feeling stuck on that curricular connection? Determined to stick to the scope and sequence during spooky season? All hope is not lost! Don’t underestimate the impact of some jack-o-lantern clipart or a few well-placed ghost cartoons. Simply adding Halloween-themed visuals to an existing activity can make a huge difference in student engagement.

We love bringing seasonal elements into our digital activities, and we’re happy to share the love so that you’re not spending precious time reinventing the wheel. We have a variety of fall and Halloween-themed station review activities, including a mid-year review for Biology and multi-step equations practice for Algebra. Whether you’re teaching about suspense in literature or reviewing the finer points of slope, we’ve got you covered with thematic options that will turn classwork into a treat!

3. Go All In!

Listen — sometimes, we just need to go for it and embrace the holiday joy. While many schools go on fall break at some point in October, others of us are not quite so lucky, and a break from regularly scheduled programming is DESPERATELY needed right around Halloween. If that’s you, and your school culture supports the occasional day of breathing room, feel free to really get festive! Break out the Halloween coloring pages, put on some spooky tunes, and give students a mindful holiday moment. These informal, low-key days can be just what we all need to reset, build rapport, and increase classroom community.

If you’re looking for a bit of structure while also allowing for a de-stress day, pair a (PG!) Halloween movie with our SEL bingo or tic-tac-toe activities! Students will enjoy a festive film while also building their social-emotional learning skills. It doesn’t get better than that!

No matter how you choose to celebrate, we hope your Halloween is all treats and no tricks!

Questions? Ideas to share? We’d love to chat! Send us an email at hello@survivinginsecondary.com, and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.