The Unteachables Podcast

#145: The Halloween classroom management mistakes that turn your class into a horror movie (and what to do instead)

• Claire English • Season 7 • Episode 145

Share episode

Ah yes, spooky season. The sugar. The chaos. In this episode, I’m giving you a front seat to exactly how to lean into the festive vibes of Halloween (and any holiday season) without your classroom descending into a full-blown free-for-all.

This episode is packed with practical ways to keep your routines, keep your calm, all while adding just the right sprinkle of spooky magic to make it fun and functional.

From Halloween-themed SEL check-ins to brain breaks that actually regulate, I’m sharing the exact routines I don’t ditch (and how I just theme them instead). You’ll walk away with fresh ideas and feel-good strategies that will keep your students engaged without sacrificing your classroom management game.

So if you’ve ever asked yourself, “How do I do something fun for Halloween without losing control of my room?” - this one’s for you.

Let’s roll the tape. 👻

What you’ll learn in this episode:

  • Why festive behaviour spirals are so common (and how to avoid them)
  • The biggest mistake teachers make when planning fun holiday lessons
  • How to add novelty without losing structure
  • Exactly what to swap and what to keep during spooky season
  • Halloween-themed routines and brain breaks that work
  • How your non-verbals are sending louder messages than your instructions

Resources Mentioned:

🎃 Grab the Halloween Mega Bundle!

Have a question, comment, or just want to say hello? Drop us a text!

RESOURCES AND MORE SUPPORT:

Connect with me:


SPEAKER_00:

Oh, hi there, teachers. Welcome to the Unteachables Podcast. I'm your host, Claire English, and I am just a fellow teacher, a toddler mama, and a big old behaviour nerd on a mission to demystify and simplify that little thing called classroom management. The way we've all been taught to manage behaviour and classroom manage has left us playing crowd control, which is not something I subscribe to because we're not bouncers, we're teachers. So listen in as I walk you through the game-changing strategies, and I mean the things that we can actually do in action in our classrooms that will allow you to lean into your beautiful values as a compassionate educator and feel empowered to run your room with a little more calm, and dare I say it, a lot less chaos. I will see you in the episode. We can't do this because of this reason. So what I want to do is lean into, I lean into whatever festivities are happening, right? But I do it in a way that is super strategic and will continue the same classroom management magic that I do no matter what time of year it is. Gosh, that was a really strange introduction. Hello, welcome to the Unteachables Podcast. If you're new here, my name is Claire and I do talk all things classroom management on this podcast, which is why I wanted to bring a little bit of the spooky season vibe into the podcast today, because it can be a really tough time of year. Because not only is Halloween by nature quite exciting for some students, they want to go trick-or-treating. The sugar intake might be a little bit of an issue for behaviors. They just have a lot going on and we're getting tired. We are well past that first part of the year where there's that grace period. If you're in the northern hemisphere anyway, if you're in the southern hemisphere with me, you are nearing the end of the school year, so you're probably having five coffees a day, all cold and all just, you know, hoping for the release of summer. Anyway, so we've got October, we've got Halloween, we've got the dysregulation that that can cause. The advice that I give you on today's podcast episode, which is leaning into it without turning things into a free-for-all, this is the same advice that I am going to give you for every single festive season, whether it is the lead up to summer, so things get a little bit looser and more exciting, or whether it's, you know, leading up to Christmas or Thanksgiving or Easter, any time of the year where you might want to do things a little bit differently. This is the advice that I have for you, no matter what. So I'll be sending you this way if you've got any of those questions. Firstly, I want to say that any advice that I give you on today's episode is just said with so much love and absolutely no shame, no blame, because I have made so many errors when it comes to trying to lean into these holiday seasons. When I was first teaching, I and for many, many years after that as well, I'd be like, oh, I just really want to make something like fun and cool and special for Halloween or whatever the you know festive time was. So I would just download like free resources, I'd, you know, get like finder words, word searches, I'd do like activities, and it was always a nightmare. It was always a bit of fun. Students were engaged in it and all the rest of it, but things like the behavior would slip so so much. So that is just a word of warning. If you want to do things like word searches and like the things that don't have the relevance to your lesson, like any craft activities, whatever it might be, just a word to the wise, if that's the saying. I don't know. I I you know what? I feel like I've used all of the wrong sayings my whole life, and it's only when my friend Carly has been like, What did you just say? Um, I need her to tell me if that was the right or wrong saying, word to the wise, word to the wise, don't do that unless you're being really strategic around the routines and the structure and all the rest of it around those activities. Because when it comes to these festive periods, behaviors do ramp up, and the reason they ramp up is because we're letting go of the day-to-day things that usually would increase the felt safety in our classroom. So we start to let routine slip, the expectations are different, the buy-in shifts because when you're giving students a Halloween word search, they know that it's not related to the learning. They know that it's not related to the, I mean, for some of you it could, I don't know how you're weaving it in, right? But for an English teacher in secondary school, like it didn't relate to anything that I was doing. I just wanted to be a, you know, have a bit of fun with them and be not the dud teacher that's not leaning into doing a bit of like Halloween fun. But kids know when it's not related to the learning, they know when it's not strategic, they know when it's something that you're just chucking at them for a bit of a laugh, a bit of fun, or just to kind of pass some time. And behaviors do ramp up when we do things like that. Some students haven't got the buy-in, they don't see the point of it. They think, oh, well, you know, they're just doing that anyway. They're just giving us a word search anyway. So stuff that I'll sit on my phone or stuff that I'll run out of the classroom and go to the bathroom. The expectations, the non-verbal expect, you could be saying to them, you need to sit down, you need to be quiet, you need to be doing your work. You can be saying to them, I expect the same thing that I expect of you every single day. But the non-verbals that you are sending, those non-verbal expectations that you're sending to students, are going to be different than that. They're going to be, this is work that is not your usual work. It's not something that's related to the learning that we're usually doing. So the expectations I have of you are going to be different. It's just the way that it is, right? I'm not saying you can't do it. I'm just saying be aware that the buy-in is going to be different and the structure's different and everything's different around that. I've had students run out of my class and tell the principal, I'm not going to Miss English's class because she's not doing work in there anyway. No matter how much I've tried to frame that, like, hey, we're doing some vocab, some spooky vocab, or some, you know, gratitude vocab. No matter what I've tried to do to frame it in that particular way, the students have caught, like certain students have put BS on it and they have dubbed on me to the principal. Um, not saying I did anything wrong, by the way. I'm just saying that students have used that as an excuse to leave the classroom and have no buy-in. Anyway, I'm not saying that you can't do things for Halloween, not at all. This episode isn't don't it lean into the spooky season. It's how do you lean into the spooky season without the class turning into a free-for-all? That's what the episode is, so I'm going to show you how I do it. The first thing I do is keep the exact routines and structures that I usually have, but I just theme them. I make them more fun. I inject some novelty, I inject some fun into them. For example, my entry routine. Every single lesson I give them a starter activity that is felt safety in action. They know that when they turn up to Miss English's class, there's going to be a starter activity there that they are going to be able to achieve, that is accessible, that is going to take about three minutes, pen to paper. The expectation is they sit there, they do that, and then after that I transition into the lesson. I'm not chucking that out because it's Halloween, but I will use a Halloween-themed pen to paper activity that they can complete, and then I'll have a really fun discussion after that. That means that I'm still starting the lesson in a way that is structured, there's routine, and they're still having a bit of fun, they're having a bit of a laugh, and I'm injecting that into the lesson just through what I usually would do. Um, you can use, you know, attendance questions that are Halloween-based, you can use, like, you know, you can just inject it into that entry routine. Some of the I'll I'll give you some of the ones that I use. Not me just pressing pause and going to Canva to look at the presentations that I've got. So the kind of questions that you can give students for like an attendance question or a starter question, things like what's the worst thing you could get when trick-or-treating? Uh, finish the sentence, it wouldn't be Halloween without. Do you like watching scary films? Why or why not? What was your first ever Halloween costume? Um, finish this sentence. If it's pumpkin flavored, I'm uh the next one. If I had to make a costume in five minutes using only the things in this room, what would it be? Uh who uh somebody says trick, what are you doing? So these kind of questions you can use as really quick attendance questions. So as you go, if you use attendance questions usually, inject a bit of Halloween fun by using those kind of questions, or you can use them as a starter activity and they can write their answer and then you can share them as a class and have a bit of a laugh. Um, but they're my chit-chat questions. Another thing that I do is every single lesson. I if you've listened to me for any amount of time, you will know that I use agenda slides. You will know that I always have a map to their learning on the board as they walk in, and that is like I dork out on that 24-7. Um, but I have a Halloween version of that agenda slide that I use, and it's exactly the same. It's the same as they're used to. I have just literally themed it as like a spooky Halloween one with pumpkins and like spider webs and stuff. So when they walk into the lesson in that latter half of October leading up to Halloween, there's just a bit more of like a novelty, a bit more of a fun vibe, but I'm not actually doing anything that is outside of the structure and the routine. So I'm not losing that felt safety. We're still, you know, we've still got the consistency, the predictability is still there. So I love doing that as well. Just having like little things that are Halloween themed, but not necessarily changing up everything. Um, every lesson I do brain breaks, and my brain breaks are Halloween themed. Again, I'm going to pause it and read out some of the ones that I have. So one of my favorite brain break games is Beat the Clock because it's like three minutes, pen to paper, really quick. I love to use it for transitions because it gets them back to their seat and gets them, you know, back into like a writing by themselves kind of mode. Um, you can tell that where my brains are today, writing kind of mode. But beat the clock is one that I usually would do, but I then theme that as Halloween. So they used to beat the clock, and I just have like a Halloween edition. So the kinds of by the way, beat the clock is just three minutes. I give them like a task to do in that in that three minutes. So for example, name 10 things you would find in a haunted house, and they have to beat that three-minute timer and write those ten things. And then I just say, if you've got the ten things down and three minutes isn't up, then you keep going and you have to be the one that has the most things on your paper. Um, so beat the clock is a really fun one. My kids love it. So name 10 things you would find in a haunted house, list 10 famous Halloween characters, list 10 popular Halloween costumes, uh, list 10 items you'd grab first in a zombie apocalypse, list 10 animals that are considered to be spooky, uh, list 10 different types of Halloween treats, 10 things you might find in a witch's brew. So just a lot of fun. I also do um Halloween versions of like this or that, which is another brain break I love. So this or that, would you rather eat brains or eat an eyeball, grow a witch's ward on the end of your nose or become as hairy as a werewolf? Be the only one wearing a costume at a party or be the only one without a costume on. Uh there's ones like be locked in a morgue overnight or be buried alive for five minutes, but survive obviously. Some of these might not be appropriate if you're teaching younger ones, but they like, you know, just injecting a little bit of that novelty into your brain breaks, but then you're still keeping the same. You can do these like for two weeks. You can do these all leading up to Halloween and still keep that same consistency and structure. Actually, another um brain break that my students love is Word Hunter. So they I give them like a string of letters, and then they just have to find as many words from those letters as they possibly can. So I do a Halloween version of Word Hunter, but instead of just having 10 random letters across the bottom of the screen, I've got just like spooky words that they then have to make as many words out as possible. It's so simple and it's nothing like groundbreaking, but it looks good and like it looks really fun, and it just is a bit of fun. It's just something a little bit more on theme. So I have words like frightened and nightmares and superstition and witchcraft, and they have to make as many words out of those as possible within two minutes, three minutes, however much time you have up on the board. Again, I love this particular brain break for transitions. I also like using this at the end of the lesson just to fill in a little bit of dead air time if we've got a few minutes left of the lesson. Um, for really tough classes, I've used this in English just to kind of start the lesson, kick it off, and I've used that as like a consistent routine before. And even the toughest of teen crowds will be like, oh, I want to play Word Hunter. Um, so like you know, I really, I really ramp it up though. Like, you know, I get my door con. So Word Hunter is another great brain break that you can bring a little bit of Halloween spooky themeness to. Another thing that I love to theme as Halloween. So I do SEL check-ins with my students, and I'm sure that a lot of you do something similar where you've got, like, you know, how you're feeling, you've got some maybe smiley faces, or you've got something visual for them just to kind of check in how they're feeling. I have Halloween-themed SEL check-ins. I've actually got themed ones for like Thanksgiving, Halloween, like leading up to summer, all of those ones, um, the winter break. But the Halloween-themed ones are so fun. They're so I I mean, I think they're funny. I think they're funny, which is the main thing, but um I've got like on this on the skeleton scale, how are you, or on the bat scale, or on the um, what other ones do I have? Let me look at my trusty canvas again. On the pumpkin scale, so I've got eight different pumpkins, all like varying levels of like polished, and then the last one's like just an old um kind of broken in pumpkin that's you know three weeks past Halloween on the step. Um, I love the worries on the ghost scale, on the witch scale. So just things that are a little bit of fun where they can still reflect on how they're feeling, they can still justify it, they can still explain why they're the number eight ghost with his head down. Like it's just someone with a sheet over their head and they've got glasses over them, it's got their their little head down. There's one with like a dog looking a little bit forlorn, like they're just a bit funny. Um, but it's still really meaningful because students will look at that, they will reflect on how they're feeling, and then they'll justify why they chose that picture. I love these visual SEL check-ins. So that's another way I lean into the spooky season, but I'm still keeping the same structures. Like everything that I'm speaking about in today's episode, the starter routine, like the starter um activity, the agenda slide, the brain breaks, the SEL check-ins, you know, what I use for those little dead air times, those things are actually like that. Is the classroom management magic? That is the stuff that helps to reduce low-level behaviors. That's the stuff that helps students to feel safe, things are predictable, it helps with their regulation, um, you know, it helps with their felt safety. I don't know if I said that already, but this is classroom management magic. And instead of leaning into things for the like Halloween period where it's going to be dysregulating and things that are going to be outside of the norm, you're actually doing a lot of fun things with a lot of novelty and probably injecting more Halloween fun into your day, but doing so in a way that's going to be beneficial for classroom management, not dysregulating for students. So I would consider that a win-win-win-win-win. Um, so you're not having to just go, okay, what am I doing for Halloween? I'm just gonna print out something and chuck it on the board or like whatever it might be. You are doing something that is really strategic, really aligned, and yeah, just brilliant for classroom management. And your students are gonna appreciate it and have a lot of fun. Um, all of the things that I've spoken about, by the way, I've I'm clearly reading it off the Canvas slides that I have created. If you're in the Behavior Club, uh, all of those are inside of this month's bundle. So all of the Halloween goodies are there. Um, if you are not in the behavior club and you want to check out all of those resources, you can just head to the link. I'll pop that in the show notes. I don't know what the link is off the top of my head, or you can just go to my shop and it's on like the homepage of my shop, which is the unteachables.shop, and it'll be there for you. It's also on TPT if you're a TPTer. But I'll pop all of those links in the show notes if you want to grab those. But otherwise, like I've told you some attendance questions, I've given you some ideas, you can just run with them if you want to as well. You don't have to do anything particular. Um, but it is just a really nice way to lean into the I was gonna say silly season, not the spooky season. Okay, you know when I start rambling, that is the mark that I need to end the episode. So I hope you have a brilliant week. I hope that it's given you some really great ideas for Halloween and God speed into the sugary expanse of the silly season. All right, take care, bye bye.

Head Shot

Claire English

Host