Halloween Costumes for Teachers

My first year teaching grade 4 (and grade 5 and grade 8) I was a peacock

and last year I was Minnie Mouse. 

Complete with yellow shoes

I was told I needed 3 costumes to recycle throughout my teaching career (assuming I stayed at the same school). Since I’m substitute teaching this year if I happen to be working today (October 30th) I’ll bring along my Minnie Mouse costume because it is easy to bring and change into… no new costume this year. 

For those of us looking for an idea (probably for next year now since it is already Halloween) here is a list (with pictures) of 31 teacher costumes 

Buzz (a math game)

I played this game with some grade 2 students the other day that were skip counting by different numbers (2’s, 5’s, and 10’s) and for the most part… we had very little problems with it.

Here is the gist of it.

Have everyone that is going to be playing sit in a circle (ideally this would be the whole class). The game is basically just a counting game but anytime you get to a number that you would be skip counting by instead of saying that number one would say “buzz” instead. If the person says “buzz” on the wrong number they are out. If a person says the number instead of saying buzz they are also out. If someone says the wrong number they are out. The nice bonus to this game is that students need to be quiet in order to hear what number they are at so they know what they need to say.

It can however, get a little noisy once more than a couple people are sitting out so have something (like reading) for them to do at their desks).

In case my explanation made no sense at all here is a quick example. In this example we would be skip counting by 5’s (or saying buzz on any multiple of 5)

So here is what the students should be saying

1, 2, 3, 4, buzz, 6, 7, 8, 9, buzz, 11, 12, 13, 14, buzz, 16

Makes perfect sense right?

When students get a little older you could have them practice it with 7’s (so you would be saying buzz on any multiple of 7) or you could add in a second rule such as you must say buzz on any factor of 5 but you must say fizz on any multiple of 10. In this case the sequence should go:

1, 2, 3, 4, buzz, 6, 7, 8, 9, fizz buzz, 11, 12, 13, 14, buzz, 16

You need to say both fizz and buzz on number 10 because it is divisible by 5 and 10.

Use whatever number(s) you are currently working on in your math class and have fun!

Want more simple math games?  Try SNAKE!

Halloween Activity Booklets - for all ages!

It’s nearly here… Halloween that is. I always liked doing some activities specific to what holiday was coming up when I was in school and so when I’ve been a teacher I’ve also always enjoyed giving my students a little booklet of holiday activities to do. Today I’m doing the hard work of finding the work to put in these booklets for you (and I’m dividing it up by skill level and subject!). I’m also making sure it is free because that was ALWAYS a selling feature for me. Of course some of the material may be a little too easy for some of the groups or too difficult… so just use your judgement!

Warning: This post is going to be long and full of link... just scroll to through to the age level you teach and scan for the activities you want... I've given a brief description of them all.
To start with we have the early years (or kindergarten-grade 3). I always find this group the easiest to find free material for (and there is always so much of it!).
First, we have some writing paper. I found it on Teachers Pay Teachers but don’t worry… it’s free. The pages have big lines for kids who are still learning how to write.

Some reading comprehension pages (so a short story to read and a few questions) can be found on Itsy Bitsy Fun.

Here is a really simple crossword for your students that I got from ESL Themes.

and a simple word search compliments of Chicken Scratch.

An ABC maze (just follow the path in ABC order) from education.com

and also from education.com is a cut and paste Frankenstein activity (if you are putting this together in a book just make sure this page is not double sided)

On Halloween Ideas I found a matching worksheet where you match the word of a Halloween thing to a picture of it and a maze (that looks kind of difficult).

Next, I found a counting and colouring worksheet on tlsbooks.com. Students just have to find and count all of the ghosts (amongst other things) and write down the number… they can colour them as they find them so that they don’t count the same one multiple times.

Here is a colour by number page on education.com. There are a ton of similar ideas like this out there… just put in colour by number into Google for lots of other options.

Here is a Halloween themed page for adding one digit numbers to one digit numbers by Twisty Noodle.

I found this connect the dots page on Big Activities… I just picked one that was fairly simple. Finding more difficult ones isn’t hard with a simple Google search.

You can teach your students about bar graphs using this activity from Printables 4 Kids. All they have to do is count the number of the different kinds of candies and fill in the graph.

Have students work on their patterning by deciding what comes next in these Halloween patterns from Classroom jr.

For a whole class activity you could play some Halloween bingo. Artsy Fartsy Mama has 10 different cards ready for you to print.

And of course there are a plethora of Halloween themed colouring pages out there… just put it into Google or steal one of the following (or all of them).

Disney - Pluto

Or a few different Halloween pages

Next up we have the grades 4-6 range.

First, here is some Halloween writing paper from Total Pict for them to write a terrifying story on (just choose the one you like best)

Or use one of these papers instead that already come with writing prompts on them

Haunted Hose  or what’s behind the door. or monster under the bed


Use one of these sheets for students to practice adding punctuation

There is a Vampire version or witches
Students can learn about monsters around the world with this worksheet from education.com or all about vampires (complete with a quiz at the end)

I found this vampire bats reading comprehension activity on Teachers Pay Teachers (don’t worry, it’s free)

And here are 2 word scramble worksheets on

Verbs and different halloweeny things

Here is what appears to be a slightly more difficult word search than the last one I found from ELS Themes

this maze seemed REALLY hard for my other group so I’m putting here as well

Here is a math colouring worksheet (similar idea to colour by number).

Some Halloween themed word problems from Teacher Vision
I really like this idea on Teachers Pay Teachers. Just give each student a bag of M&M’s and have them complete this fraction activity. You could also add in a graphing activity.

Finally, some art ideas for Halloween can be found on

Rainbow Skies and Dragonflies (this one isn’t necessarily Halloween – which is great if you are at a religious school or any other school where Halloween may be a taboo topic.

A Faithful Attempt is one of my favourite art idea blogs. This art project could also be considered a fall art project and not necessarily Halloweeny.

Of course you can go up and get the bingo game from the other group above for some whole class fun too!... there is probably another Halloween themed bingo game out there that has more than 10 cards too.


Finally, the rest of the grades. These grades were the most difficult to find things for. What are they even into above grade 6? It’s a real mystery.

Pretty sure they would still a word search. This one from ESL Themes looked a little more difficult

The Teachers Corner has some different Halloween themed writing paper for your students to write a scary story on.

The Teachers Corner also has some riddles (with answers) for your students.

My students LOVED working with coordinate pairs last year (in grades 5 and 6). Math Aids has some 4 quadrant ones to make things a little more difficult for those upper grades.

And there you have it… a rather long list of fun, free, printable activities for you to do with your students this Halloween.

When all else fails.. plan a Halloween science experiment (or just show a bunch of Steve Spangler from YouTube

Am I missing anything? Is there something you like to do with your students that I didn’t include? Feel free to link it below in the comments section!

A Case of Mistaken Identity (Part 2)

This isn’t the first time this has happened to me… in fact it happens A LOT. I’ve had random strangers in stores trying to guess my ethnicity (Chinese, Asian, Metis, Aboriginal, Hawaiian, French??). I’ve had good friends convinced that I must be Asian (I’ve also had good friends not see the Asian side in me at all). But I digress.

ANYWHO, I was substitute teaching in a grade 3 class and the class had just come in for the day. This was the very first time any of them had seen me (to my recollection) and right away one young girl approached me to ask me a very important question.

“are you…. Were you… were you born… were you born…”

At this point I’m assuming she is going to ask if I was born in Winnipeg and she is just struggling on the word Winnipeg

So she continues “were you born in China”

Wait, what.

This hasn’t happened to me in the school setting for a number of years now… in fact not since an excited Asian girl blurted out before I had time to say anything.

Anyways, I told her I wasn’t and asked her if I looked like I had been. She gave me a confused look and then told me I did look like I should have been born in China… I’m sure she wasn’t satisfied with my reply of not being born in China but I left it at that and it wasn’t brought up again.

My last name can also be a confusing concept for children to grasp. Click here for that story.