“Okay… what are we actually doing on Friday?”
If you’ve taught K-2 during Halloween week, you know that by Wednesday the excitement is already in the room. Costumes are being planned out loud at the carpet, someone has brought in a plastic spider, and every lesson has to compete with the countdown to the party.
I remember spending that week searching for Halloween activities I could use in my dual language classroom. Almost everything I found was in English. So I decided to create some Spanish language Halloween activities.
In this post, I’ll walk you through a free bilingual Halloween pack with vocabulary, reading, writing and math activities in both languages, plus a set of Halloween party slides you can put on the board and use for the whole party. You can download the Halloween activities at the end of the post.
Start With the Words, Building Halloween Vocabulary in Both Languages
The pack opens with 12 picture vocabulary cards in Spanish and the same 12 in English, so you can post one set during Spanish time and the other during English time.
- murciélago / bat
- gato / cat
- calabaza / pumpkin
- araña / spider
- dulce / candy
- fantasma / ghost
- momia / mummy
- bruja / witch
- vampiro / vampire
- esqueleto / skeleton
- luna / moon
- caldera / cauldron
These same words come back in every other activity in the pack, from the readers to the word search. Students see and use the same vocabulary all week instead of learning a new list for each activity.
To get them moving, there’s a Busca y escribe recording sheet, and a matching Find and Write sheet in English. Hang the cards around the room and students walk around to find each picture and write the word.
Teacher Tip: Introduce the cards orally before any writing. Say the word, have students repeat it, and point out cognates as you go (vampiro/vampire, momia/mummy). It’s a quick way to show students they already know more than they think in both languages.
Reading They Can Do on Their Own, Emergent Readers and Comprehension
This is the part I’m most excited about, because it gives your youngest readers something they can actually read independently during a week when focus is limited.
The emergent readers are built on a repeated sentence pattern with high-frequency words:
- Día de las brujas: “Yo veo a una bruja.” “Yo veo a una momia.” “Yo veo a un esqueleto.”
- The last page asks “¿Qué ves tú?” so students finish with “Yo veo ___.”
- The English reader follows the same structure: “I see a witch.” “I see a mummy.” “What do you see? I see a ___.”
Each reader comes with a Mi banco de palabras / My Word Bank page listing the high-frequency words (yo, veo, a, un / I, see, a, you) alongside the Halloween vocabulary.
Notice the a / un difference in the Spanish book (una bruja, un fantasma). It’s a natural place for a quick conversation about masculine and feminine nouns.
For students who are ready for more, there are three short Spanish reading passages with comprehension questions: Sami y el disfraz, Una calabaza gigante, and Calabazas para Halloween. Each one includes an answer key.
Teacher Tip: Have students reread the emergent reader several times across the week, then send it home. Rereading is where fluency builds, and kids love reading “their” Halloween book to someone at home.
Writing With Built-In Support, Pumpkin Disguises and Costume Writing
The writing pages are open-ended enough to be fun and structured enough for emergent writers.
- Disfraza una calabaza / Disguise a Pumpkin: students draw a costume on a pumpkin and finish the sentence “Es ___” or “It is ___.”
- Yo estoy disfrazado/a de… / I am dressed up as…: students draw themselves in their costume and write about it.
The sentence frames are in both languages, so students write in whichever language you’re teaching that day.
Teacher Tip: Keep the vocabulary cards and word bank visible while students write. When the words are right there, students spend their energy on composing a sentence instead of searching for spelling.
Halloween Math and a Word Search for Early Finishers
The pack also includes Halloween sumas and restas: picture-supported addition and subtraction where students count Halloween images, plus additional sumas and restas practice pages for students ready to work with numbers only.
There’s also a sopa de letras (word search) using the Halloween vocabulary, with an answer key. It’s ideal for early finishers or a calm activity before the party starts.
Done-for-You Halloween Party Slides
Then comes the party.
I put together a set of Halloween party slides in Canva so you don’t have to search for videos in the middle of class. Every slide links to a video you can play straight from the board:
- Games: a Halloween guessing game, “Guess That Picture,” and several “Would You Rather” Halloween editions
- Movement breaks: “Dance or Pose” and a Halloween freeze dance
- Directed drawings: How to draw Halloween edition
- Read alouds in English: including Room on the Broom and The Pumpkin Thief
- Read alouds in Spanish: several Spanish Halloween read-alouds too!
Open the slides, click present, and move through them in whatever order fits your schedule.
Teacher Tip: Depending on the energy of your class, you can play games, have a dance party, draw, or listen to a read-aloud.
Grab Your Free Bilingual Halloween Pack
Download all of these bilingual Halloween activities below. Including the Halloween party slides.
Want Resources Like This All Year?
Halloween is one week. Your students need materials that work in both languages every week.
Inside Biliteracy Builders, I’ve created Spanish and bilingual resources for K-2 dual language teachers: literacy, phonics, math, and seasonal activities designed for how Spanish works, not translated from English.
👉You can join for $19/month or $170/year here.
Biliteracy Builders is built by a dual language teacher, for dual language teachers. Every resource comes from someone who has lived experience in the classroom.
Looking 👀 for More Dual Language Materials? Check these out!😍
- Pumpkin Writing Paper
- 7 November Read Alouds for Dual Language Classrooms
- Bilingual Partner Pairing Cards Freebie
Don’t forget to pin this resource on Pinterest!
