Halloween STEM Freebie!

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays! I love planning activities for my classroom that are interactive and fun for my students. Last year we did a STEM activity using one of my favorite Halloween read alouds, and it was a huge hit with my students! 

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This STEM activity encourages collaboration and group work for students! AND it uses a fun read aloud to help get students imaginations flowing. There are multiple options for differentiation as well, and this activity can be spread out amongst multiple days in your classroom. 

LET’S PREP!

Here are the things that you need for this fun STEM activity:

• Ten Timid Ghosts by Jennifer O’Connell
• Unifex Cubes
• Paper plates
• Candy corn OR candy pumpkins (optional!) You can easily just use unifex cubes if that’s what you have in your classroom.
• Toothpicks
• Recording sheets and paper ghosts (free later in this post).

OUR ACTIVITY!

My students have been working in STEM rotations all year, so I knew that they were capable of working in a group to complete this activity. I like to keep my groups relatively small. I found that having 3 students in each group was a good size. 4 students was doable, however, I often saw a student not participating as much in my groups of 4. I also chose to assign students their groups rather than let them choose.

DAY 1:

First, I read the story Ten Timid Ghosts to my students. This story is a counting story, and is very light hearted! At the end of the story, just one ghost is left in the haunted house. I love that this book works on counting and numbers as well. 🙂

After we read the story, I gave each group of students a paper ghost. They worked together to give their ghost a name. Next, I taped the ghost for them on the center of their paper plates. I folded back the flap on the bottom, and taped that flap to the plate so that the ghost would stand up!

On day 1, students worked together using snap cubes, or unifex cubes to build a haunted house for their ghost (just like in the story!!). Their challenge was that their ghost had to fit inside, AND that their house had to stand up. I gave students some time to talk about their ideas first, before I game them their cubes.

Students worked for about 15 minutes on their houses for day 1.

At the end of this first day, I decided to give my students additional time to work on the houses and modify their designs. So, I saved their plates on the counter, and told them that we would come back to this project the next day. I LOVE how each groups’ houses were turning out so differently. 🙂

DAY 2:

Students continued to work on their houses. When their houses were complete, each group worked together to fill out their recording sheet. This project has 2 versions of the recording sheet: one for the unifex cubes, and one for the candy corn and pumpkins:

Every group’s house turned out so well!

DAY 3:

Day 3 of this project is totally optional! I found that my students loved just using the unifex cubes to build their houses. However, on day 3 I told them that we would use candy corn and candy pumpkins along with toothpicks to try and build new houses for our ghosts. This was definitely harder for them than using the cubes. I also have had some classes over the years that I felt were not ready to use toothpicks. That’s why I love having the option of the cubes! Using the candy definitely gave this activity a fun Halloween twist, and I loved that it was a little bit more of a challenge for my groups to complete.

The rules were the same: They had to build a house that stood up, and their ghost had to fit inside!

After they completed this part of the project, we had a great class discussion and compared our two building materials for the houses.

We talked about the challenges that they faced and how they worked together in their groups to help each other.

My students asked to do this project again later in the month with the unifex cubes because they had so much fun the first time!

MORE HALLOWEEN FUN AND FREEBIES:

Another one of my favorite Halloween read alouds is Big Pumpkin. I do an entire unit with this story and work on story elements: characters, setting, and plot. I also love doing a sequencing activity with this book!! Click on the picture below to download this FREE fun sequencing activity:

We also love reading Room on the Broom and doing more fun sequencing and story activities! 

Check out my Halloween Centers on TPT for even more fun and ideas this season!

FREE STEM RECORDING SHEETS!

To download the ghost printables and STEM recording sheets from this blog post, please click on the pink button below:

I hope that you enjoy doing this STEM activity with your class this season!