Halloween is a much-loved time of year in Early Years settings, filled with excitement, imagination, and a hint of spookiness! While some children might dress up and talk about pumpkins or witches at home, it’s a great opportunity to bring themed learning into your setting through creative play and craft. Using high-quality, open-ended resources from TTS, you can create engaging activities that support fine motor development, communication and language, and creative expression – all while having lots of fun.
Art and Crafts Ideas for Halloween
Below are four Halloween-themed crafts perfect for any EYFS setting:
Silhouette Art with Black Card and Watercolours
Silhouette artwork is a simple but stunning Halloween activity. Provide children with black card, pre-cut shapes (like witches, bats, cats, or haunted houses), and watercolours or liquid watercolour paints. Children can place the silhouette shapes on white paper, then paint over and around them using Halloween-inspired colours like orange, purple, and green.
Once dry, remove the black shapes to reveal bold silhouette outlines. This supports early art skills, pattern exploration, and understanding of colour and contrast.
Puffy Paint Pumpkins
Create a sensory-rich pumpkin painting experience using puffy paint (made from shaving foam, PVA glue and orange paint). Children can use painting tools or fingers to fill in pumpkin outlines with the puffy mixture, then add googly eyes, pipe cleaner stems, or drawn-on faces.
This fun, squishy texture adds a new sensory dimension to creative play and encourages mark-making and fine motor coordination in a truly engaging way.
Apple Printing Pumpkins
Turn apples into stamps for pumpkin printing! Simply cut apples in half, offer orange paint in shallow trays and encourage children to press the apple halves onto paper. Once dry, children can draw or stick on green stems and faces using felt tip pens.
This activity is great for exploring shape, texture, and pattern – and it links well with discussions about harvest and autumn.
Paper Plate Spider Webs
Offer children a paper plate with a cut out middle and hole-punched around the outside rim. Along with black wool or string and show them how to thread the string through the holes to make spider webs. Add a cut-out spider or even a small plastic one from your loose parts or mini-beast box!
Threading activities like this are excellent for fine motor development, hand-eye coordination and perseverance.
Suggested Picture Books for Halloween
Storytime is the perfect way to wind down after crafting or introduce Halloween themes with gentle humour. Here are some great Halloween-themed picture books for Early Years:
- Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson – A classic, fun rhyming story featuring a kind witch and her animal friends.
- Pumpkin Soup by Helen Cooper – A cosy tale of friendship and sharing with lovely autumnal illustrations.
- Spooky Pookie by Sandra Boynton – A light-hearted book about Halloween costumes, ideal for toddlers.
- We’re Going on a Pumpkin Hunt by Goldie Hawk – A fun Halloween twist on a familiar structure.
Halloween crafts in Early Years are about more than just themed fun – they build vital skills like creativity, communication, and coordination. With accessible, sensory-rich materials from TTS and plenty of opportunity for open-ended play, your Halloween celebrations can be both developmentally rich and delightfully spooky. So, gather your googly eyes and glitter – there’s no better time to get crafty!
Many thanks to Hayley Winter for sharing this blog with us. Hayley is an Early Years teacher and leader who is passionate about learning through play. She shares simple and effective teaching ideas for 3-5 year olds on social media.
