🎃 10 techy Halloween ideas for class

📺 TODAY: Free webinar — and free Starbucks ☕️

This webinar is happening today! Sign up before it starts and you could still snag some free Starbucks — and some awesome teaching ideas. 😎

Title: Viral Learning: Video-Based Google Activities for the TikTok Generation
Hosts: Matt Miller and Trafera’s Josh Ratliff
Date: Wednesday, October 30 (this Wednesday!)
Time: 3pm U.S. Eastern / 2pm Central / 1pm Mountain / noon Pacific
Location: Online (I mean, it IS a webinar …)
Replay: Yes (but you have to register)

Bonus: Get a $5 Starbucks gift card (when you register with a valid school/work email AND complete the exit survey at the end of the live session)

📺 Register for the webinar (and free Starbucks) here ☕️

💡 THE BIG IDEA 💡

🎃 10 fun, techy Halloween classroom ideas

Let the Halloween classroom fun commence! If you’re looking for some quick, creative Halloween fun, these activity ideas can help …

1. A Halloween “add and pass” activity (and template!)

Students get a Halloween-themed image — something fun you can create easily with an AI image generator. One of them starts the story … then they pass it to the next student, who continues the story. Pass it a total of six times. Then, read what everyone has created.

Make a copy: The Halloween “add and pass” activity (Google Slides)

🎁 BONUS: I asked Google Gemini for some creative Halloween story writing prompts for elementary students and for middle/high school students.

2. A Halloween “Choose Your Own Adventure” story

A “Choose Your Own Adventure”-style story — also known as a “text adventure” — can be a fun Halloween activity. You could …

• use an AI assistant like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, or Anthropic Claude to generate the story turn by turn … and you, the teacher, could display it on the smart board/projector in a whole-class activity

• use student-facing AI chatbots like SchoolAI Spaces or MagicSchool’s MagicStudent so students can do the text adventure themselves

Here are some instructions you can use to get started.

• Preview the text adventure to make sure it’s the experience you want for your students.

• Change the “I’m a seventh grader” to match your students.

• Add anything else you want, like “don’t make it too spooky” or “make the main character’s name Kevin”.

3. Create a custom Halloween-themed song with Suno

Suno (suno.com) is an AI music generator. It’ll write you a custom song — lyrics, music, voices, everything — and you can click “play” to listen to it.

Ask it for a Halloween-themed song. Here are some Suno song prompt suggestions from Google Gemini to get you started:

• "A spooky, upbeat pop song about a friendly witch who flies around on her broomstick giving out candy to trick-or-treaters. The chorus should be catchy and easy for kids to sing along to."

• "A silly Halloween song about a group of monsters having a costume party in a haunted house. Make it sound like a funky dance track with funny sound effects."

• "A mysterious and spooky song about a black cat who explores a graveyard on Halloween night. The song should have a spooky but not scary vibe, with a catchy melody."

• If your class loves animals: "A fun, educational Halloween song about all the different animals associated with Halloween, like bats, owls, and spiders. Make it an upbeat folk song with lots of animal sounds."

• If your class is into superheroes: "An action-packed Halloween song about a group of superheroes who team up to defeat a mischievous ghost who is playing pranks on the town. Give it a powerful rock sound with a sing-along chorus."

• If your class enjoys dancing: "A high-energy Halloween song with a strong beat that's perfect for dancing. It should be about skeletons having a dance party in a spooky graveyard. Include lots of fun sound effects like rattling bones and spooky laughter."

🎁 BONUS: Want to write better prompts in Suno? Check out this guide to prompting Suno.

4. Do a Halloween-themed digital escape room

Digital escape rooms can be lots of fun! Plus, they’re pre-made, so all you have to do is give your students a link.

• Try the “Halloween Escape Room” on our digital escape rooms page. (Don’t worry … there’s an answer key. 😉)

• Check out all of the Halloween-themed escape rooms at VirtualEscapeRooms.org, created by DTT’s own Karly Moura

🎁 BONUS: Karly is offering DTT readers 50 percent off Halloween escape rooms! Use code “DITCHBOOK” at checkout. Expires November 1, 2024. It includes Halloween Haunt, Haunted Mansion Mystery, Trick or Treat Halloween Escape, Love Letters to Wednesday, and the Halloween Advent Calendar.

5. A “Choose a Halloween Costume for Me” chatbot

Let’s create a costume consultant that can recommend a Halloween costume for your students!

Use SchoolAI Spaces or MagicSchool’s MagicStudent to create an AI chatbot that will …

• Ask questions about the student to learn about their personality and interests

• Make a recommendation about a costume

• Add tips and accessories to make the costume work

Use the prompt below — and feel free to customize it however you’d like.

If you’d prefer to use ChatGPT or another AI assistant, just remember to make sure that students are old enough to use it per the terms of use.

6. Create or find Halloween coloring sheets

Just need some simple coloring sheets for your students?

Ask an AI image generator like Microsoft Designer or Ideogram.ai for coloring sheets. I used the prompt below and got good results.

🎁 BONUS: Search “Halloween coloring” on Canva to find TONS of pre-made pages you can print off.

7. Make a custom Halloween story or play with students’ names

Ask an AI assistant (ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, Anthropic Claude) to write a fun Halloween story or play for your students. You can even include their interests and their names.

Here’s a prompt you can use. (I tried this prompt and it gave me a play called “The Curse of the Snapchatting Mummy”. 😂)

8. Make a Halloween quiz game with questions from QuestionWell

Create a Halloween-themed game on a popular quiz game platform like Kahoot!, Quizizz, Quizlet Live, Gimkit, or Blooket.

Use QuestionWell (QuestionWell.org) to create the questions. Then just import them directly to the quiz game platform of your choice.

9. Do a virtual Halloween costume contest

If your students have access to an AI image generator, they could generate images of Halloween costumes in fun Halloween-themed scenes.

Example: My students had access to the image generator in Canva Magic Media in their Canva accounts.

Students generate images and then vote on the best ones!

10. Explore the history of Halloween

Want students to learn about the history and traditions of Halloween? Create a student-facing chatbot in SchoolAI Spaces or MagicSchool’s MagicStudent that guides them on a fun inquiry-based journey to learn about the origins and traditions around Halloween.

Create a student chatbot in either of those tools and share the link with students so they can join. (Or you could always run this prompt on an AI assistant like ChatGPT in front of the room as a whole-class activity.)

Here’s a prompt I used that worked pretty well …

🗄 TEMPLATE 🗄

🎟 The exit ticket builder template

Exit tickets can be a great way to see what students have learned at the end of a class period or school day.

They can also help students reflect on themselves as learners — or consider a question in light of everything they’ve learned during the day.

Our exit ticket builder template (Google Slides and PowerPoint) has 20 pre-made exit tickets ready to use.

🗄 Get the exit ticket builder template here

👋 How we can help

There are even more ways I can support you in the important work you do in education:

1. Read one of my six books about meaningful teaching with tech.

2. Take one of our online courses about practical and popular topics in education.

3. Bring me to your school, district or event to speak. I love working with educators!