Halloween activities for kids make fall one of my favorite seasons, with the changing colors, cooler days, slower pace, and holidays abound. As I transform my office into a festive space, I’m excited to share some affordable ways to incorporate a Halloween and fall theme into your speech and language sessions. In this recently updated post, you’ll find seven engaging activities, complete with a table for sensory bin ideas and a curated list of books with targeted speech and language goals. Let’s dive into these fun ideas!
Setting the Scene with Decor
Over the years, I’ve amassed a collection of Halloween decorations during post-season clearance sales at Target and Walmart. Seasonal items from the Dollar Tree also help me create a fun, inviting atmosphere. By adorning my space with plastic tablecloths, colorful banners, and haunted houses for storage, I aim to bring a smile to each client’s face. This vibrant decor encourages clients to comment and label objects, enhancing engagement during therapy sessions.
A favorite find has been a clearance door covering adorned with removable stickers from Target. These stickers have provided joy to multiple clients over the years. We work on following directions with commands like, “Put five pumpkins on the fence,” or “Give each pumpkin and ghost a hat.” This activity allows me to target both familiar and novel commands, adapting it to meet the varied needs of my clients.
Popular Halloween Books for Children
Halloween Activities for Kids: Book Recommendations
| Book Title | Age Range | Incorporate Speech & Language Goals |
|---|---|---|
| The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything | Toddlers to Pre-K | Sequence events as the old lady encounters different items in the story. |
| Room on the Broom | Toddlers to Early Elementary | Identify and describe the characters on each page. |
| We’re All in the Same Boat | Toddlers to Early Elementary | Discuss emotions and feelings of the characters throughout the story. |
| Five Little Pumpkins | Toddlers to Pre-K | Use finger plays to count and act out the pumpkins. |
| Boo! A Made-You-Look Book | Toddlers to Early Elementary | Practice vocabulary by naming items that appear in the illustrations. |
| Spookly the Square Pumpkin | Toddlers to Early Elementary | Discuss shapes and colors while reading. |
| The Ghosts of John* | Toddlers to Early Elementary | Explore descriptive language by talking about what makes something spooky. |
Halloween Activities for Kids: Fun Pumpkin Craft
A perennial favorite is my Styrofoam pumpkins craft, featuring plastic facial parts from the Dollar Tree. This activity not only makes requests with complete sentences like “I need a mouth” or “I want eyes,” but it’s especially beneficial for my young language learners using speech-generating devices.
Clients love taking their creations home, and some caregivers have reported purchasing additional pumpkins and facial parts to enjoy this activity with siblings. I cherish when we discuss activities in the speech room that can be generalized to other settings—what a fantastic way to practice functional and seasonal vocabulary!
Turning Toys into Halloween Fun
This year, we’re getting creative by turning any toy into a Halloween theme! Using tissues and elastic bands, kids can make ghosts to hang from their toys or Magna-tile creations. This simple yet enjoyable activity promotes creativity while allowing children to practice vocabulary and sentence structure as they describe their spooky designs.
Make a Scarecrow Snack
One surefire way to win over kids is through food! We’ve created a scarecrow treat to practice sequencing, commenting, and requesting. I found this fun snack recipe in a Pillsbury Halloween cookbook years ago when my son was little. Here’s how you can make it:
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| First, spread white icing on a vanilla cookie. |
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| Second, shred some Triscuit crackers to make straw. |
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| Place shredded crackers on the sides of the cookie. |
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| Add a candy corn nose. |
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| Use chocolate chips for eyes and black icing for a mouth. |
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| Add a gumdrop hat and then enjoy your treat! |
Playdough Halloween Activities for Kids
Halloween Activities for Kids: Playdough Fun
Many of my activities for little ones aged 2-7 involve hands-on play and sensory time, and playdough is a fan favorite! I make my own batch using a quick and easy recipe. When we move on to a new color, I send the previous batch home with the client and whip up a fresh one.
I once discovered a sound sequencing activity using playdough and mini erasers. Clients worked on sequencing simple CV, VC, and CVCV combinations while pushing the objects into the dough. We can easily spend half of our hour-long session just playing with dough!
Halloween Activities for Kids: Sensory Bins
I love switching out sensory bins for seasonal activities. In September, we practiced sounds and words while digging through a bin filled with leaves, and in October, we hunted for targets in a Halloween-themed bin. Near Thanksgiving, I mix Velcro foods with fake gourds to target CVC words like “cut.” I typically find most of my sensory bin materials at the Dollar Tree and dispose of items that can’t be sanitized, replacing them each season.
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| Fall |
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| Halloween |
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| Thanksgiving |
More Sensory Bin Ideas for Halloween
| Theme Name | Materials Needed | Targets for Speech & Language |
|---|---|---|
| Ghostly Discovery | White rice, small ghost toys, spoons | Practice “more,” “help,” and descriptive words for what they find. |
| Pumpkin Patch | Orange sensory balls, green leaves, toy pumpkins | Target vocabulary for colors, sizes, and textures. |
| Spooky Sounds | Black beans, plastic spiders, scoops | Describe the sounds of each object and practice action words like “scoop” and “dig.” |
| Witch’s Brew | Green water beads, plastic cauldrons, spoons | Focus on verbs (mix, pour) and adjectives (slippery, slimy). |
| Monster Mash | Brown rice, monster figurines, measuring cups | Use comparative language (biggest, smallest) and practice counting. |
Using Legos in Halloween Activities for Kids
I often have a couple of upper elementary students working on articulating /s/ or /r/. They love earning a Lego brick for each target they practice. Once all targets are earned, clients can create a Halloween character. Kids are often more imaginative than I am, and I let them lead the way in crafting without a predetermined plan. Here’s what one fifth grader created—clearly, he’s a Minecraft fan!
Conclusion: Recap of Seven Activities
I hope you enjoyed this fall post and found new resources for your speech sessions! Incorporate these not-so-spooky Halloween activities—popular children’s books, a fun pumpkin craft, Halloween-themed toy creations, a scarecrow snack, playdough fun, sensory bins, and Lego creativity—to create a fun and engaging atmosphere for speech and language development. Happy Halloween!
Nanette Cote is an ASHA certified speech pathologist, published author, and private practice business owner with 30 years experience.
What a great post! Love your ideas! The decorating, food and therapy ideas are SPOOKtacular!
Love your home therapy space, so inviting! I know your students are gaining a great deal of language from all your thematic and creative ideas!
Love the idea of using a door covering for therapy and the scarecrow snack is perfect!!!! I would love to observe you doing therapy!
LOVE the scarecrow treat and of course the foam pumpkins—I think mine is exactly the same! Great minds!!
Isn't dollar tree the best place to find some awesome tx activities? Love your clever use of the halloween bins n houses for storage of materials. So festive! Also great idea for following directions task with the stickers. Clever. My favorite though, has to be the cute scarecrow cookies. Love love love! Great ideas. Thanks
What a cute scarecrow! And I am definitely trying foam pumpkins next year.
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I love the scarecrow treats Thank you for sharing!
Okay, I wanna come play at your therapy office! What great pix. Happy Halloween!
The scarecrow is super cute! I'm going to have to remember to check out the dollar store next year for the foam pumpkins. Adorable!