Spooktacular Outdoor Learning Activities for Halloween

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Spooktacular Outdoor Learning Activities for Halloween

Halloween is the perfect opportunity to bring learning outdoors and capture children’s imagination with themed activities. By combining seasonal excitement with educational value, you can create memorable lessons that boost engagement while encouraging creativity, teamwork, and problem-solving. Below, we’ve shared a selection of Halloween-inspired outdoor activities that teachers can try with their pupils this October.

Pumpkin Maths Trail

Transform your playground or outdoor learning area into a spooky maths trail. Hide pumpkins (real or paper cut-outs) around the space, each marked with a maths problem appropriate to the year group. Pupils collect and solve the problems as they go, with prizes for completing the trail. This activity is a fun way to encourage active learning while reinforcing key numeracy skills.

Nature Witch’s Potions

Set up a “witch’s potion station” outdoors using bowls, spoons, and containers. Ask children to collect natural materials like leaves, twigs, petals, and stones to mix into their potions. You can link this to literacy by encouraging pupils to create imaginative potion recipes, or to science by discussing textures, plant life, and materials.

Halloween-Themed Storytelling Circle

Gather pupils around a canopy or shade sail and host a spooky storytelling session. You could read age-appropriate Halloween tales, encourage children to write and share their own scary (but not too scary!) stories, or create a collaborative class tale where each pupil adds a new twist. This develops literacy, creativity, and listening skills in a fun outdoor environment.

Creepy-Crawly Hunt

Autumn is an ideal time to explore mini-beasts and changing habitats. Organise a creepy-crawly hunt around the school grounds, linking it to science topics on habitats, lifecycles, and adaptation. Pupils can use magnifying glasses to observe bugs, record their findings, and compare different species. Adding a Halloween twist makes the experience even more exciting.

Spooky Art with Natural Materials

Encourage pupils to collect autumn leaves, conkers, acorns, and twigs to create spooky artwork. They might design haunted forest collages, bat wings from leaves, or even spooky scarecrows for the playground. This activity is a great way to connect art with nature while celebrating the season.

Shadow Monsters

On a bright autumn day, take pupils outdoors to explore light and shadow. Provide them with Halloween-themed cut-outs (bats, cats, witches’ hats) or encourage them to create their own. Place the cut-outs in front of a torch or let the sun cast long “shadow monsters” on the ground. This links well to science topics on light and shadow while keeping the theme seasonal.

Final Thoughts

Halloween is more than just costumes and sweets – it’s an opportunity to use the season’s excitement to inspire outdoor learning. With the right mix of creativity and curriculum links, these activities can help pupils learn through play while making the most of your school’s outdoor spaces.

Able Canopies Ltd. design, manufacture and install canopies and shade structures at schools, nurseries and educational settings to enable year-round Free Flow Outdoor Play and Outdoor Learning.
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