What's a teacher to do with all of that leftover Halloween candy?!

We all know the teacher sayings about Halloween and how it gets our kids all out of control. But let’s face it, whether Halloween is during the week or on a weekend, the first day back to school AFTER Halloween is wild too! Everyone wants to talk about their costumes and how much candy they got when you really need them focused on reading and math.

So why not weave some Halloween into your lessons for a few days after? That’s all your students want to talk about anyway, and I’m sure you have TONS of Halloween candy left over (unless you’re like me and have a desire to eat it all!)! That’s what I decided to do today, and I’m so glad I did! My students were engaged because it was a topic that they were dying to talk about. Instead of trying to squash it, I just let it run its course. Here’s some activities that we did to get my kiddos working on skills that I needed to teach, but still give them that little taste of Halloween.

We used our sight words to write predictable sentences using some Halloween candy. We glued the candy onto our sentence, and practiced reading our friends’ sentences. You could also make pages for a class book using your students’ names!

We used Halloween candy to practice putting spaces between our words, and counting the number of words in a sentence. NOONE forgot spaces between their words today!

We also practiced some beginning sounds! Each student chose their favorite candy, and wrote (or drew) a list of words that started with the same beginning sound! Not only did everyone present their lists to the class afterwards, but they also got to share what their favorite candy was and WHY. What great speaking and listening practice!

In math, we went “trick or treating” at a “friend’s house.” One student held the candy bowl, and pretended to be the person who was at home. The other student pretended to knock on their door and said “trick or treat!” The person holding the candy bowl told the trick or treater how many pieces of candy to take.

We did this for two trick or treaters. Then, the trick or treaters showed the math group their candy. As a group, we had to talk about and decide who had more candy, and how many more pieces of candy they had. This was a great way to teach this concept because they understood the real life connection. They are always talking about how many MORE things someone else has!