Get ready to bring the spooky, creative fun of Halloween into your classroom! I know that finding the perfect holiday craft can be a challenge for any teacher. You need something that will engage your students, be easy on the budget, and most importantly, won’t create a massive mess to clean up afterward. Forget those overly complicated projects with hard-to-find supplies that leave you feeling stressed.
I’ve designed this guide specifically for a classroom setting, packing it with 15 elementary school-approved Halloween crafts that your students will love. We’re going to focus on simple, low-mess projects that use common supplies you likely already have in your craft closet. My goal is to help you have a fun and stress-free craft day that’s all about creativity and smiles!
Our Top Picks for a Spooktacular Craft Time 🎃
- Best for Minimal Mess: #3. Paper Strip Pumpkins. This craft is a teacher’s dream! It uses just paper and fasteners, meaning no sticky glue or paint spills to worry about.
- Easiest for Young Learners (K-2): #1. Paper Plate Ghosts. A true classic that’s perfect for little hands. It’s simple, allows for tons of creativity, and is virtually mess-proof with our tips.
- Most Creative for Older Grades (3-5): #11. Spooky Silhouette Scenes. I love this project for upper elementary because it lets older kids explore artistic ideas and create truly stunning results.
- Best Use of Common Supplies: #5. Toilet Paper Roll Bats. We all have empty toilet paper rolls! This is the ultimate upcycling craft that turns trash into spooky treasures with just a few other basic supplies.
15 Easy & Low-Mess Halloween Crafts for the Classroom 👻
Paper Plate Ghosts 👻
You can’t go wrong with this classic! I’ve seen so many students light up while making these. They get to design their own ghost’s expression, making each one unique. Just add some paper streamers, and you have a flowy, spooky friend to hang up.
- Great For: Grades K – 2
- Key Materials: Paper plates, black construction paper, glue sticks, white streamers
- Time to Complete: Approx. 15-20 minutes
To avoid the chaos of scissors with your youngest students, I always pre-cut a bunch of different mouth and eye shapes. Let them pick their favorites to create the ghost’s face. And stick to glue sticks—it’s the secret to keeping this project mess-free!
Cotton Ball Ghost Garland ☁️
This is a wonderful sensory activity that results in a fantastic classroom decoration. Students create fluffy ghosts by sticking soft cotton balls onto a ghost outline. Once you string them together, you have a festive garland to hang across the whiteboard or a doorway.
- Great For: Grades K – 2
- Key Materials: Black cardstock, cotton balls, school glue, string
- Time to Complete: Approx. 20-25 minutes
Give each student a paper plate to serve as a “glue palette.” Pour a small puddle of glue onto the plate, and they can simply dip and stick the cotton balls. This trick prevents them from squeezing the glue bottle for every single piece, which minimizes overuse and mess.
Paper Strip Pumpkins 🎃
I absolutely adore how these 3D pumpkins turn out, and they are so simple to make. Students use strips of orange paper, fasten them in the middle, and poof—a perfect little pumpkin! They look fantastic sitting on students’ desks or lining a sunny windowsill.
- Great For: Grades 1 – 4
- Key Materials: Orange & green construction paper, brads or a stapler, scissors
- Time to Complete: Approx. 15 minutes
For your younger students (grades 1-2), I recommend pre-cutting the orange paper strips. Your older kids (grades 3-4) can use this as a chance to practice their measuring and cutting skills. Using a single stapler or a brad in the center is so much cleaner and faster than waiting for glue to dry.
Popsicle Stick Spiderwebs 🕸️
Here’s a fantastic project that blends art with a touch of engineering. Students first create the frame of the web with popsicle sticks, then they get to practice their fine motor skills by weaving yarn to build the web. It’s a hands-on activity that really holds their focus.
- Great For: Grades 2 – 5
- Key Materials: Popsicle sticks, white yarn, school glue, plastic spider rings
- Time to Complete: Approx. 25-30 minutes
The most helpful thing you can do is prep the frames ahead of time. Use a hot glue gun (teacher-operated only!) to glue the popsicle sticks into a star shape. This ensures they are super sturdy and ready for your students to start the fun weaving part immediately.
Toilet Paper Roll Bats 🦇
Let’s get upcycling! Turn those empty toilet paper rolls you’ve been saving into a colony of adorable bats. Students just need to cover the roll, fold the top to create pointy ears, and add some wings. It’s a simple, sustainable, and super cute craft.
- Great For: Grades 1 – 3
- Key Materials: Toilet paper rolls, black paint or construction paper, googly eyes, glue
- Time to Complete: Approx. 20 minutes
Want to skip the potential mess of black paint? Have your students wrap and glue a pre-cut rectangle of black construction paper around the roll instead. In my experience, it’s faster, much cleaner, and dries instantly.
Coffee Filter Monsters 👾
This project is part art, part science experiment, and 100% fun. Students use washable markers to color on a coffee filter. When they spray it with water, they can watch the colors bleed together in a process called chromatography. This creates a beautiful tie-dye effect that makes a perfect monster body.
- Great For: Grades 1 – 5
- Key Materials: White coffee filters, washable markers, a spray bottle, paper scraps
- Time to Complete: Approx. 15 minutes + drying time
Before the spraying begins, have students lay their colored coffee filters on a tray or a sheet of wax paper. This simple step contains all the colorful water runoff and makes cleanup as easy as tossing the liner in the trash.
Handprint Spiders 🕷️
I’ve always loved handprint crafts because they make such a sweet keepsake for parents. For this one, students make two black handprints, overlapping the palms to create a spider body with eight little finger-legs. Add some googly eyes, and you’ve got a creepy-crawly masterpiece!
- Great For: Grades K – 2
- Key Materials: Black tempera paint, white paper, paper plates, googly eyes
- Time to Complete: Approx. 10 minutes per student
The key to success here is setting up a “paint station” that you or a parent volunteer can manage. This contains the mess to one specific area of the classroom. Also, have a pack of baby wipes ready for immediate hand cleanup right after they press their hands to the paper!
Q-Tip Skeletons 💀
This craft is a sneaky and fun way to get students thinking about the human body. They arrange and glue down Q-tips on black paper to build a skeleton. It’s amazing to see the different poses and arrangements the kids come up with!
- Great For: Grades 2 – 4
- Key Materials: Black construction paper, Q-tips, cotton balls, school glue
- Time to Complete: Approx. 25 minutes
To provide a little support, I like to print a very faint skeleton outline onto the black paper to use as a guide. This gives younger learners some structure while still allowing older students to get creative with their skeleton’s final pose.
Paper Bag Monster Puppets 👹
This is one of my all-time favorites because the fun continues long after the crafting is done! Each student gets a simple paper lunch bag and a ton of supplies to design their very own monster puppet. It’s a fantastic project for sparking imaginative play.
- Great For: Grades K – 3
- Key Materials: Paper lunch bags, construction paper, markers, glue sticks, yarn
- Time to Complete: Approx. 30 minutes
To manage the flow of students and materials, I set up “Monster Part” stations around the classroom. For example, one station has pre-cut eyes, another has horns, and a third has yarn for hair. This encourages students to walk around and mix and match materials to build their perfect puppet.
Leaf Ghosts 🍃
Why not take the classroom outside for a few minutes? Have the kids search for interesting fallen leaves to use for their craft. Back inside, they’ll paint the leaves white and draw on ghostly faces. It’s such a simple way to incorporate a bit of nature into your art projects.
- Great For: Grades 2 – 5
- Key Materials: Fallen leaves, white craft paint, black permanent marker
- Time to Complete: Approx. 15 minutes + drying time
To make the leaves easier to work with, I recommend pressing them inside a heavy book for a day or so before you plan to craft. This ensures they are nice and flat, which makes them much easier to paint and prevents them from curling up as the paint dries.
Spooky Silhouette Scenes 🏚️
This project is a showstopper and perfect for your older elementary students who are ready for a challenge. They create a beautiful sunset background and then add black paper cutouts of spooky scenes. The contrast between the colorful background and dark shapes looks incredibly striking.
- Great For: Grades 3 – 5
- Key Materials: White paper, chalk pastels or paint, black construction paper, scissors, glue
- Time to Complete: Approx. 35-40 minutes
I always provide a few templates for the silhouette shapes—like a haunted house, a spooky cat, or a witch. Students can trace these onto black paper, which is a great support for kids who are less confident in their drawing skills, while still allowing others to design their own freehand.
Puffy Paint Ghosts 🍦
Get ready for some texture! You just mix equal parts shaving cream and school glue to create this amazing puffy “paint,” a popular and simple recipe. Students get to spoon the mixture onto a ghost shape, and it dries into a fantastic 3D texture that they will love to touch.
- Great For: Grades 1 – 4
- Key Materials: Shaving cream (not gel!), school glue, black cardstock, mixing bowl
- Time to Complete: Approx. 20 minutes + drying time
Okay, I admit this one can get messy, so preparation is everything. Have students work on top of a placemat or a cafeteria tray. I find it best to mix the puffy paint in one large bowl myself and then distribute it to students on paper plates to control the portions and the mess.
Accordion Fold Bats ⚫
This is a wonderfully simple and clean craft that’s also great for practicing fine motor skills. Students just fold a sheet of black paper back and forth like an accordion. You cinch it in the middle with a pipe cleaner, fan out the wings, and it’s done! They look great hanging from the ceiling.
- Great For: Grades 2 – 5
- Key Materials: Black construction paper, pipe cleaners, googly eyes
- Time to Complete: Approx. 15 minutes
To help your younger students, you can draw faint, evenly spaced lines on the paper to guide their accordion folds. For older kids, you can challenge them to make several bats of different sizes and hang them together to create a cool mobile.
Egg Carton Spiders 🥚
Here is another fantastic recycling craft that makes use of cardboard egg cartons. You’ll cut out the individual egg cups, let the students paint them, and then add some pipe cleaner legs. It’s a classic for a reason—they are so fun and easy to make!
- Great For: Grades 1 – 4
- Key Materials: Cardboard egg cartons, black paint, black pipe cleaners, googly eyes
- Time to Complete: Approx. 20 minutes + drying time
Trust me on this one: pre-cut the egg cartons and pre-poke the holes for the legs. This is the trickiest part for little hands, and doing it ahead of time makes the actual craft time go so much more smoothly for your students.
Construction Paper Candy Corn 🍬
Looking for a super simple, colorful project with virtually no cleanup? This is it. Students cut out layered shapes from orange, yellow, and white paper to create the classic candy corn look. It’s a great activity for practicing scissor skills and layering.
- Great For: Grades K – 2
- Key Materials: Orange, yellow, white, and black construction paper, scissors, glue sticks
- Time to Complete: Approx. 15 minutes
I like to create a simple cardboard tracer for the main candy corn shape. Students can trace it onto the white paper, cut it out, and then use that white piece as a visual guide to cut their slightly smaller yellow and orange layers.
A Teacher’s Guide to a Successful Craft Day 📋
A little bit of planning goes a long way. Here are my tried-and-true secrets to making sure our craft time is fun for the kids and manageable for you!
Prep Like a Pro: The real key to a low-stress craft day is doing the prep work beforehand. Make a “craft kit” for each student by putting all materials into a large zip-top bag or bin. Don’t forget to make a finished example to show the class what they’re working towards!
Embrace the “Mess Mat”: This is a must-have. Give every student a placemat, like a large piece of construction paper or a reusable mat. It clearly defines their workspace and makes cleanup incredibly fast.
Choose Your Glue Wisely: For most crafts, glue sticks are your best friend. If you must use liquid glue, chant this with your students: “Just a dot, not a lot!” Giving them small puddles of glue on paper plates for dipping also helps control the mess.
Differentiate Your Crafting: You can easily adapt one craft for all the skill levels in your room. For a bat craft, kindergarteners can use a pre-cut shape, 2nd graders can trace and cut their own, and 4th graders can design a unique wing shape for a mobile.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) 🤔
Q1: What are the most essential Halloween craft supplies for a classroom craft closet?
If you stock up on the basics, you’ll be ready for anything! I always make sure I have plenty of construction paper (especially black, orange, white, and green), paper plates, glue sticks, googly eyes in various sizes, pipe cleaners, and washable markers. These core items can be used for dozens of different projects.
Q2: How do I manage the cleanup process with 25 kids?
I always make cleanup part of the activity itself! We use our “mess mats,” which can be collected and thrown away or wiped down in seconds. I have one designated bin for collecting scissors and another for recycling paper scraps. My best trick is to turn on a 2-minute “cleanup song.” It turns the task into a fun, focused race against the clock, and you’d be amazed how fast the room gets clean.
Q3: What’s the best Halloween craft for a large class with a tight budget and limited time?
For this scenario, I would definitely choose either the Paper Strip Pumpkins (#3) or the Accordion Fold Bats (#13). Both of these crafts primarily use construction paper, which is a cheap and common supply. Better yet, they don’t involve any paint or glue drying time, and the steps are simple enough to be completed by a large group in under 30 minutes.
Time to Get Crafting! ✂️
You’re now ready with a great list of teacher-tested Halloween crafts! By picking projects with common supplies and low-mess potential, you can focus on the fun of the season without worrying about cleanup. These ideas aren’t just crafts—they are great chances for your students to build fine motor skills, practice following directions, and make a happy memory in your classroom. We’d love to see the spooktacular creations your students make! If you share a photo on social media, be sure to tag our handle. You can also leave a comment below to share your own favorite classroom craft tips.
Sources & References 📚
- National Geographic Kids. (n.d.). What is upcycling? Retrieved from https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/nature/save-the-earth/article/what-is-upcycling
- Understood.org. (n.d.). What are fine motor skills? Retrieved from https://www.understood.org/en/articles/what-are-fine-motor-skills
- Fini, A. (2024, May 2). Puffy Paint Recipe. The Best Ideas for Kids. Retrieved from https://www.thebestideasforkids.com/puffy-paint-recipe/
- Scientific American. (2015, October 26). Spooky Science: Glowing Paper Ghosts. Retrieved from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/spooky-science-glowing-paper-ghosts/
