What can preschoolers build, investigate, and discover with a little Halloween inspiration?
Halloween is the perfect time to turn simple classroom materials into playful STEAM experiences!
From stacking silly monsters to building spider webs, these hands-on Halloween activities invite little learners to experiment, solve problems, create, and try again.
Here are of our favorite Halloween STEAM experiences to bring back to your classroom this season.
Monster Stack Challenge: How Tall Can You Build a Monster?
What happens when you mix and match monster parts?
With cardboard tubes, colorful tape, googly eyes, and pipe cleaners, preschoolers can create their own silly monsters and experiment with stacking different body parts.
Can they build a tall monster? What happens when they switch the pieces around? How could they make their monster stand taller?
Children explore balance, size, structure, and creative thinking while building monsters that are as unique as their imaginations.
Halloween Tinker Tubs: What Can You Create?
Sometimes the best STEAM experiences begin with a basket of interesting materials and one simple question:
“What could you make?”
Fill a Halloween Tinker Tub™ with familiar classroom materials like craft sticks, blocks, pipe cleaners, plastic pumpkins, skeletons, and Halloween cups.
Children might build a haunted house, create a spooky creature, or invent something completely unexpected!
As they tinker, they practice problem-solving, collaboration, creativity, and redesigning when their first idea doesn’t work.
Walter’s Wonderful Web: What Shape Can You Build?
Can a spider web be shaped like a triangle? What about a square?
Inspired by Walter’s Wonderful Web by Tim Hopgood, this Storytime STEAM experience invites preschoolers to explore shapes through hands-on engineering.
After reading the story, offer craft sticks, pipe cleaners, straws, and playdough.
Invite children to design their own spider webs using different shapes and materials.
Will their web hold its shape? What happens when they change the connections? Can they invent a completely new web design?
Children explore geometry, construction, and creative problem-solving while discovering that spider webs can inspire all kinds of designs.
Invite Play → Observe Wonder → Extend STEAM
Start with a Halloween picture book such as Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson and ask:
“What could we build, investigate, or invent for a Halloween adventure?”
Set out one simple invitation and see where children’s ideas lead.
Watch what they test, change, combine, or try again. Then extend the experience with questions like:
- What do you notice?
- What happened when you changed something?
- How could you make it stronger, taller, or different?
- What would you like to try next?
Want Even More Halloween STEAM Fun?
Keep the curiosity going all October with our Halloween 5-Star Challenges!
You’ll get 31 playful Halloween challenge prompts designed to spark curiosity, creativity, critical thinking, communication, and collaboration.
Simple materials. Hands-on discovery. Plenty of Halloween fun.
Start with play. Follow the wonder.
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