13 Spooky Halloween Sensory Activities

Halloween is extra enjoyable when you add in some spooky Halloween sensory activities.

What Are Sensory Activities?

Sensory activities stimulate the senses of touch, taste, sight, smell, and hearing.

Children love sensory activities because they stimulate different parts of the brain and allow them to make new connections.

In other words, sensory activities inspire wonder.

While everyone has five senses, these Halloween sensory activities will focus on the often-neglected sense of touch.

Kids love to feel their way to discovery!

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13 Halloween Sensory Activities

Try one, two, or all thirteen Halloween sensory activities! From edible science activities to squishy bags, there’s something for everyone!

Slimy Eyeballs

Fill a large bowl with green grapes and add a couple of tablespoons of oil.

Add in a few prizes such as decorative glass marbles.

Toss to coat the grapes with oil.

Cover the bowl with a towel, and have the children dig through the bowl of eyeballs to find the treasure.

Bury the Spiders

Fill a plastic shoebox will dried black beans.

Add a packet of plastic spider rings.

Kids can have fun digging through the beans to find the spiders.

Afterward, children can freely play with the beans and spiders.

You could also add cotton balls and small cups like Gatorade caps for spider webs and homes.

Halloween Squishy Bags

Fill a sturdy ziplock bag with hair gel or water beads.

You can add spooky items such as Halloween erasers or skeletons.

Kids can squeeze and squish the bags to reveal the items and feel the textures.

Glow in the Dark Slime

What’s more fun than making slime?

Making spooky slime that glows in the dark!

You’ll find the recipe right here.

Make Your Own Witches Brew

Fill a big stock pot with water. You can add food coloring to darken the water.

Add in plastic insects, dried leaves, or other Halloween-themed items.

Give your child a large spoon to stir the brew. You can also give her cups, bowls, and ladle to serve her brew.

Spooky Story Walk

Tell a spooky story that involves feeling different materials.

Children can feel or walk over the various textures as they hear the story.

You can set up pebbles and crunch over the path.

You can use faux fur to feel the fur of a spooky animal (like a black cat that brushes your leg).

Yarn or pulled cotton balls can stand in for spider webs brushing your face.

Engage the senses in your story!

Halloween Worms

Make a “feel box” of Halloween worms.

Put cooked and cooled spaghetti tossed in a little oil into a bowl and cover it with a towel.

You can also add fake snow to a plastic bin (just add water). This can be the dirt.

Then mix in the spaghetti worms for sensory play.

Follow the Web

Unwind a skein of yarn to create a web pattern in a room.

You can wind it around chairs and tables and doorknobs.

Hide a Halloween treat at the end of the yarn trail.

Give a child one end of the yarn and have her wind up the web to find the treat!

Halloween Sensory Bottle

Fill 1/4 of a clear plastic bottle with water.

Add Halloween glitter, plastic spiders, colored pompoms, water beads, sequins–anything Halloween related! Don’t pack in too many items; less is more.

Fill the bottle the rest of the way with clear dish soap.

Add glue to the rim of the bottle and screw on the cap. Let it dry overnight.

You can upend the bottle and watch the objects float by slowly.

Jell-O Eyeballs

Put the rounded halves of plastic Easter eggs in an egg container. Spray with oil spray.

Make Jell-O according to package directions for “Jello Jigglers” (aka use a little less water) if you want to eat the eyeballs afterward.

As a no-sugar alternative, you can use unsweetened Knox Gelatin and add food coloring. This is best for sensory play.

Pour the mixture into the Easter Egg halves.

Drop a black jelly bean or raisin into each egg container. This is the pupil.

Cool the eggs in the refrigerator to make eyeballs!

Tip the eyeballs out once they are set.

You can set the eyeballs on a large tray for lots of squishy fun!

Halloween Play Dough

Make a homemade playdough recipe.

Color some of the dough orange, some green, and some purple.

You can add spices, extracts, or essential oils to the various colors to add a multisensory experience.

Use Halloween-themed cookie cutters to create Halloween shapes from the dough.

Halloween Dyed Rice Sensory Bin

You can dye white rice to make any color:

Place 1 cup or more of dried rice in a baggie.
Add 1 Tbsp of vinegar for every cup of rice.
Add the desired amount of food dye.
Seal the bag and shake!
Spread the rice on a tray to dry (this takes a few hours).

Surprisingly, dyed rice does not spread to your hands once it is dried.

You can make different colors of rice to mix together (like orange, red, and purple) with spoons and small cups.

Or you can make a single color and add items to the bin such as small plastic pumpkins, candy eyeballs, or plastic spider rings.

Give kids a set of tongs and small cups to dip into the rice bin.

Marshmallow Pumpkin Brain Slime

Here is one of the spookiest Halloween sensory activities.

Hollow out a pumpkin and draw a face on the front.

Fill the inside of the pumpkin with this recipe for glow-in-the-dark slime or this glitter slime.

It’s like you are playing with the pumpkin’s goopy, slimy brains!