7 Spooky Halloween Maths Activities And Games For Primary Schools

Scare away the zombies from the first half of term with these 7 spine chilling Halloween maths games and activities. Exorcise your back to school exhaustion, brew up some classroom magic, and get ready to sink your fangs into some spook-tacular Halloween-themed puzzles and problems that will test a range of different Key Stage 2 maths skills.

Look out also for the Halloween maths worksheets in the printable version of this teaching resource.

Halloween Maths Activity 1: Negative Numbers Trick Or Treat Adventure

This simple Halloween maths puzzle will help your primary school learners practise using negative numbers in and fun and engaging way.

Sid and Susie the skeletons are both heading down a trick or treat path, and it is up to your pupils to work out how many treats each is left with after they complete their math filled journey.  

Each house along the path requires your class to work out the answer to a negative numbers based question. At some houses the calculations will create a positive number (a ‘treat’) and at others their calculation will create a negative number (a ‘trick’).

Susie the skeleton’s path is slightly trickier than Sid’s and has more difficult calculations, but this could mean more treats come the end of the journey! It is up to your class to decide which path they will take! Halloween maths activities don’t come easier to use than this!

How To Use The Halloween Maths Worksheet

You can print off the worksheet and get your class to tackle the path individually or in teams, or if printing poses a problem then simply put the sheets up on the interactive whiteboard and use maths books for answers.

Halloween Maths Activity 2: Spider Web Angles

These spiders have made different paths with their silk, and it is up to your class to work out the angles they have made! Each spider has chosen to begin creating their web using a different angle, so make sure your primary pupils pay close attention to each and every arachnid!

How To Use The Halloween Maths Worksheet

Print off this Halloween PDF worksheet and hand it out to each member of your class. You will also need protractors for each pupil to use to work out the angles the spiders have made.

Halloween Maths Activity 3: Fill In The Symbols To Help The Witch Make Her Potion

You’ll find addition, subtraction, division and multiplication facts tested in this worksheet, making it the perfect Halloween activity for KS2. Willow the witch is struggling to work out the amount of each spooky ingredient she needs for her potion, so she needs your class’s help!

Using the symbols for each of the four operations, it is up to your pupils to fill in the correct one in each box to ensure that exactly the right number of frogs legs, eyeballs and more end up in the potion.

How To Use The Halloween Maths Worksheet

This is a great maths activity to use to settle your class down after an exciting lunch time. Print it off for them from the maths resource provided and explain that Willow the witch needs their help, and all that is left for you to do is sit back and watch them complete this topical maths challenge using their four operations knowledge!

There are two pages packed with gruesome ingredients, so you can choose which pupils need an extra challenge and give them the extra sheet to really test their potion making skills.

Halloween Maths Activity 4: Spooky Maths Division Word Problems!

This activity is a ready made Halloween maths worksheet with 8 ghoulish division based word problems to solve. These questions are bound to get your class into the Halloween spirit whilst practising division, so what more could you ask for?

How To Use This Halloween Maths Worksheet

Perfect as a quick and easy maths starter activity, you can print one of these Halloween maths worksheets for every member of the class as a great way to ensure 10 minutes of focus.

Depending on the maths level of the children in your class, you can adapt the numbers in the problems to stretch and challenge each pupil by writing individual problems up on the interactive whiteboard.

Halloween Maths Activity 5: Bats Versus Broomsticks Measuring Activity

Depending on whether or not the autumn weather has truly taken hold, this activity is the perfect one to make the most of the last few rays of sunshine and to take your maths lesson outside. This is one of the most active Halloween maths activities we have on our list.

First of all ask your class to make a paper aeroplane each, and then decorate it with either bats or broomsticks. Everyone is likely to have a slightly different method of paper plane construction, but that doesn’t matter.

Once everyone has made their paper plane, take them outside (or into the school hall if the rain is showing no sign of letting up) and let them practise flying them!

After the excitement of releasing the planes has died down, it is time for some Halloween maths, this time based on measurement and comparisons, but also including some other essential maths facts around mean, averages and even simple addition and subtraction.

Pupils can measure and compare the distances their planes have flown, and you can ask questions such as:

• How far did your bat/broomstick fly in metres?
• How far did your bat/broomstick fly in centimetres?
• Which bat/broomstick flew the farthest?
• What was the average distance flown by bats and by broomsticks across the class?
• What was the average distance of all the bats?
• What was the average distance of all of the broomsticks?
• What is the ratio of the average distance of the halloween bats to the broomsticks.
• Which type of plane (bat vs broomstick) flew the farthest distance when all of them are added together?
• What percentage of the planes failed to fly?

Extra Halloween Maths Activity Idea

To turn this activity into more of a competition amongst your class, why not add some extra monsters into the mix? How much further did the zombie plane fly than the ghost one? Is Frankenstein a better pilot than Dracula? The spooky possibilities are endless.

Halloween Maths Activity 6: Frankenstein’s Friends – Roman Numeral Door Numbers

Whilst they are not the most important element of the curriculum for many teachers, by Year 4 pupils should be comfortable with Roman Numerals up to 100, so this fun Halloween maths game is a great way to challenge the Roman Numeral knowledge in your class.

How To Use This Halloween Maths Worksheet

In a similar vein to the negative numbers trick or treat adventure sheet, you can print off the worksheet and get your class to tackle the path individually or in teams, or if printing poses a problem then simply put the sheets up on the interactive whiteboard and use maths books for answers.

Halloween Maths Activity 7: Spider Web Area & Perimeter Greater Depth Investigation

Spider webs are everywhere approaching Halloween, but rather than accidentally walking into them in the playground, why not bring these clever creations into the classroom to help area and perimeter stick to your pupils like a fly in a web!

How To Run This Halloween Maths Activity

Using the spider web shown here as an example, your class will need to work to find the area of one section of the spider web and then multiply this by the total number of sections around that layer to find the overall surface area of each layer of the web.

Then, they can repeat this for each layer of the web, eventually working out the total area of the web.

Simplify Things: If you are looking for a way to simplify this task, make each layer of the spider web a single shape, either in the form of a circle, square or triangle.

We hope this set of 7 devilishly good Halloween maths activities for KS2 brings some spooky fun to your classroom. Let us know how you get on Twitter @thirdspacetweet!

Bonus Halloween Maths Activity: Pumpkin Patch Problems

a) Two shops are selling pumpkins and both have deals on. Shop A is selling 3 large pumpkins for £6.99. Shop B is selling 5 large pumpkins for £10.85. Which shop has the best deal? Explain your answer.

b) Rhys buys a pumpkin weighing 2,500 grams and a candle weighing 2,000 grams. If pumpkins are sold at 78p per kg and candles sold at £1.46 per kg, how much change will he get from £5?

c) A pumpkin weighed 5.5kg before it was carved. It now weighs 3kg. What fraction of its weight has been removed?

Looking for more? We’ve got lots more maths games and fun maths activities for you, including 19 fun end of term maths activities, some great back to school maths activities and our favourite fun maths lessons.