“Double Double, Toil and Trouble. Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble.”
-William Shakespeare
Welcome to our homeschool Halloween unit!! October is one of my favorite months to be a homeschool mom. There are so many great Halloween projects and activities! Here you will find books, art, and science projects to do with your children ages 5-10 designed for the month of October. Read on to see our projects about monsters, spiders, and witches potions.
Books
First, check out our book list. These are the Halloween stories that we enjoy reading year and year. I have included the link to the YouTube read aloud if one exists. If not, definitely check your local library — fairly well in advance — to see if they have any of these great books!
- “Room on the Broom” – by Julia Donaldson
- “The Runaway Pumpkin” – by Kevin Lewis
- “Magic Tree House: Haunted Castle on Hallows Eve” – by Mary Pope Osborne
- “The Little Old Lady who wasn’t Afraid of Anything” – by Linda Williams
- “The Witches” – by Roald Dahl (this one is a three hour video! I highly recommend just checking this one out from the library and reading it over the course of a week)
- “The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown” – by Justine Corman
Homeschool Halloween Crafts
We started out the season with a couple of fun crafts with our local homeschool group. The first one is super easy for kids of all ages to do – Halloween Spider Lollipops! You will need just a few basic supplies
- googly eyes
- glue
- pipe cleaners
- tootsie roll pops!
First, wind four pipe cleaners around the lollipops to make the spiders 8 legs — It did help to cut the pipe cleaners in half. Then, you can glue on the eyes! Let the kids get creative, spiders have 10 eyes so they may want 10. Some of the kids wanted to make monsters instead of spiders, so I let them run with that as well. Anything to bring on the creativity!
The spider is a relatively quick craft, so the second item we had on our agenda was playdough monsters! This one is more involved and time consuming – depending on how into it the kids are of course. Some of the kids in our group spent over 30 minutes working on their monsters!!
It’s best to gather a few different colors of playdough. I like to buy the small containers from Walmart so they can use two or three colors. Then, I cut up the pipe cleaners. Supply them with some googly eyes and they are ready to create their own monster.
Spider Anatomy
Along with the spider lollipop, take a deeper look at spiders. Halloween is the perfect time to study these amazing animals. Enjoy this in depth Mystery Science about spiders, and build your own spider that climbs up a string! If you haven’t tried Mystery Science before, the program is a short video along with a hands on activity. Sometimes it includes a printable question sheet to go with the activity. Kids 2nd grade and up can most likely do this with minor help – younger kids would need more assistance. They have many free lessons, and have a variety of age appropriate activities. I promise I don’t work for mystery science – I just like them that much!!
Also, check out my Teachers pay Teachers mini unit ($1.50) on the parts of a spider as well – link here or click on the picture. This unit includes a detailed description and fill in diagram of the parts of a spider, as well as a bonus writing assignment for ages K-3rd graders. We love watching real spiders and documentaries, so we watched “Wild about Spiders” a short video on Amazon Prime after doing the mini lesson.
Halloween Stem
To incorporate some stem into your homeschool Halloween, try these awesome popsicle stick catapults. They are easy to make with jumbo popsicle sticks and some rubber bands. You can glue a Gatorade or water bottle cap on the end of the stick or use a plastic spoon! First, experiment with different ways to set up the sticks to make your catapult work. It’s great to let the kids figure it out. If you have tried for a while and can’t figure out how to launch your candy, you can use this tutorial here. We practiced launching them into the grass and then set up some targets to try and hit. Super fun day!
Homeschool Halloween Science
It wouldn’t been a Halloween week without concocting “witches” potions. We gather supplies from around the house… baking soda & vinegar of course, plus food coloring, dish soap, water, eyeballs, shaving cream, glitter etc. We use these supplies to create potions and bubbly things.
In this experiment, I give the kids mason jars, eye droppers, spoons, and a variety of containers and just let them go wild. We are lucky that we live in a warm climate, so that we can take this entire mess outside! The colors are what make the potions extra fun. Be sure to do it in an area where it won’t stain anything underneath with the food coloring! This year, we had a few friends over from our science group, and we made eruptions all over the backyard and the driveway! During the project, throw in a short explanation about how vinegar and baking soda combine to create carbon dioxide, which causes the eruption to happen, and you have a science lesson! Watch the fun below on Instagram:
Dancing Corn Experiment
One of my kids absolute homeschool Halloween & fall favorites is a dancing corn experiment. For this project, you will need:
- a mason jar
- kernel corn (this can be from a bag of popcorn)
- vinegar and baking soda.
We use these instructions in order to perform our experiment — The link says Thanksgiving science, but it can easily be used for Halloween! We add some red food coloring to make it colorful. See how long you can make the corn dance – once ours lasted 30 min or more! Explain to the kids how, just as in the volcanoes, the baking soda and vinegar combine to form a chemical reaction that creates carbon dioxide. And so, the carbon dioxide bubbles rise to the surface and take the corn too! When the bubbles pop at the top, the corn floats back down. The reaction repeats and the corn looks like it’s dancing!
Density Jar
In addition, a second colorful and educational science experiment that you can do with a mason jar and a few supplies is a density jar. A large mason jar or flower vase works well. This is fascinating for kids to see because they can observe how the layers (for the most part) don’t combine together! It presents a great time to discuss the density of different liquids as well.
You can use a variety of colors to die the different liquids. For instance, we color the water green and the corn syrup purple. You could also make your jar less layers if you don’t have the ingredients on hand. For the lowest layer, the most dense, you want honey. Then you have light corn syrup (can be colored), dish soap, water (can be colored), oil, and last but not least rubbing alcohol. You can read this tutorial here to help you add the 6 layers. For a more simple jar, you can do a 3 layer jar (syrup or honey, water, oil). It helps to have a funnel and an eye dropper on hand. If you want to make it spooky for Halloween, you can add eyeballs or spiders!
Fun Halloween Treats
To sum up – we love to have fun and get messy in October! The last project on our list is pictured at the very top of the page – Halloween pumpkin patch dirt cups! These are made with chocolate pudding as the bottom layer, crushed Oreos in the middle, and topped with gummy worms and candy corn pumpkins. These treats were a great and easy way to end our festivities.
Not into dirt cups? Have a kid who loves food projects? Try these cool monster Halloween treats (pictured on the left). To make these, buy or make rice crispy treats. You will also need candy eyeballs, candy melts (green, purple, or orange) and fun sprinkles. Melt the candy melts in the microwave for about 45 seconds, stir with a spoon, then dip and decorate! Easy and they came out really cute!
More Fun Halloween Treats for Older Kids
Adding to this list some other fun treats we have made in 2024! Now that my girls are a bit older, we have upped our decorating skills when making treats. This year we first tried some Jack Skellington Oreo Cake Pops. These were so fun to try to decorate and draw his face on the Oreo cookies. I recommend for kids 10 and up to try! To make them, melt white chocolate, and dip one face on the cookie in the chocolate. Then place a cake pop stick in the center of the cookie. Place the cookies on a baking sheet and put in the fridge for 5-10 minutes to harden. Then, take some black cookie frosting and try to dry his face!
Up for more? Make a s’more that looks like the spell “book” from Hocus Pocus. For these you’ll need:
- graham crackers
- marshmallow creme
- cake pop sticks
- semi-sweet chocolate chips (1/2 bag)
- black cookie decorating frosting
- candy eye-balls
Split a graham cracker in half and spread the marshmallow fluff in between the two pieces. Stick a cake pop stick in there as well. Then, melt the chocolate chips. Spread the melted chocolate over the top of the graham cracker, and add a candy eyeball. Place on plates or a baking sheet and refrigerate for 10 minutes to harden. Once hardened, decorate them like the spellbook!
So now we have shared the bulk of our homeschool Halloween projects with you. Hope you found one that suits you! Like what you see? Don’t miss our other science posts on the water cycle and space! And if you are looking to pick up the supplies for these projects, down below is our list.
Homeschool Halloween Unit Supplies
- tootsie roll pops
- pipe cleaners
- glue
- googly eyes
- playdough (a few colors)
- yarn – for mystery science
- stickers – for mystery science
- crayons – for mystery science
- popping corn
- baking soda
- vinegar
- mason jars
- spoons
- eye droppers
- funnel
- food coloring
- shaving cream (optional)
- dish soap
- honey
- light corn syrup
- vegetable oil
- rubbing alcohol
For dirt cups and Rice Krispy monsters:
- chocolate pudding
- Oreos (crushed)
- candy pumpkins
- gummy worms
- Rice Crispy Treats
- Candy melts (green, orange, or purple)
- candy eyeballs
- sprinkles
For Jack Skellington Oreos and Hocus Pocus Books:
- Cake Pop Sticks
- Oreos or similar cookie (about 20)
- white chocolate (about 1 cup)
- semi-sweet chocolate chips (about 1 cup)
- Graham Crackers (1 box)
- marshmallow fluff
- Black cookie decorating frosting tube (small tip the best)
- baking sheet for refrigerating
- candy eyeballs