Many school systems are trying to be politically correct and therefore ban kids Halloween Activities during school hours. This leaves many parents searching for educational, yet fun games for Halloween to use at home. Parents might search for free games on line, or purchase a fun Halloween activity book at a bookstore or find an downloadable eBook. Here are some ideas of the sorts of educational games or activities kids love and can be used to reinforce their skills.
- Word Puzzles are always fun and simple activities to give children. They are generally individual so can be used in the car, while in a waiting room, or on a rainy weekend afternoon. Word puzzles would be variations on word searches, unscrambling words, or creating words based on a theme.
- Mazes are always a great problem solving activity, quick and simple. Educational mazes might have problems to solve or riddles to answer along the way, generally ending up with a secret word or phrase.
- Math worksheets provide many options for kids Halloween activities with quality, fun exercises that motivate students while giving extra practice on skills covered in school. These worksheets might be a riddle, puzzle or even a Sudoku type problem but they all need to use current math skills to be effective.
- Writing prompts used at home will challenge the family to write some fun and interesting Halloween stories and share with each other. Parents can motivate the students to get some journal writing in with few complaints if they find some different and interesting prompts.
- Brain Teasers or trivia cards are always an engaging way to pass time with the family. Families at the dinner table or while riding in the car can take turns reading brain teasers or Halloween trivia. Many of these promote problem solving and higher level thinking skills while the children think they are just having fun!
- Game boards with a Halloween theme give the family a break form the standard games they use all the time. Finding Halloween board games that tap into school topics, math vocabulary, problems solving make it even better.
Parents searching for educational, yet fun games for Halloween will be better off if they find one or two products that have quality activities spanning several grade levels. That way all the children in the house can use just one resource, and there will always be new activities available for future years. It is also important to be sure there are enough activities at each skill level so the resource can be used several times during the holiday.
If the school system near you bans kids Halloween activities and you happen to love the holiday, then finding fun games for Halloween to use at home will be just the thing for you. Parents looking for an alternative to handing out candy could even run off a bunch of downloadable puzzles on orange paper, roll it up with a cute bow and hand it out for trick or treating!
Sue Gnagy Fegan used a structured, sequential multisensory teaching approach for the past 34 years. She saw first hand the benefits of engaging students in productive, hands on activities in class. She created and has presented Make it Fun! Make it Challenging! Make it Multisensory! workshop at conferences across the country.
Teachers and Parents will benefit from having a secret weapon available to them in their classroom or at home with a variety of well researched, fun and innovative ideas at their fingertips to make any holiday season fun while keeping the educational quality going. For Halloween Fun Activities: Go to http://www.squidoo.com/HalloweenFunActivities for more information on ways to bring holiday fun into the classroom. For some teaching tips on making your classroom more multisensory in general, check out my website at http://www.thesue-teaching-tips.info/fun_teaching_tips.html
