October has its own kind of magic.
Leaves change colour overnight, pumpkins take over porches, and suddenly even ordinary afternoons feel like adventures waiting to happen. For parents and educators, it’s the perfect moment to sneak a little learning into the fun.
Here are seven Halloween-inspired STEM (plus arts & design) activities — each one simple to do at home and wired to a toy or kit from BrightBean to enrich, extend, and anchor discovery.
1. The Glow-in-the-Dark Slime Lab
Lesson: Chemistry + Curiosity
Blend school glue, baking soda, saline, and glow pigment, then stretch, poke, and experiment. Kids learn how the polymer chains form and how texture changes with different ratios.
BrightBean pick: Learning Resources STEM Explorers™ Super Hero Science Set — this kit includes kid-safe lab tools, funnels, decoder lenses, and more, letting you frame slime experiments as “superhero science.”
Tip: Start with a baseline slime recipe, then challenge kids: “What if I double the activator? Or halve it?”
2. Pumpkin Pressure Experiment
Lesson: Air Pressure + Engineering
Hollow a small pumpkin (or gourd), insert a balloon or create a small vent hole, and have children inflate the lining to test how air behaves under pressure. Try sealed vs. vented variations.
BrightBean pick: Learning Resources STEM Explorers Bridge Builder — while not about air per se, this lets kids tinker with structures and foundations, which parallels thinking about internal vs external pressures.
Also, Roominate kits from BrightBean’s collection offer building, circuits, and creative structure play that complement this pressure experiment.
3. Haunted Circuits
Lesson: Electricity + Creative Engineering
Design a haunted house cutout on card stock. Add copper tape, coin batteries, and LEDs. Where wires meet or cross, children learn about conductors, circuit paths, and switches.
BrightBean pick: Roominate School Bus kit gives exposure to circuits and modular building.
4. Monster Drop Physics
Lesson: Gravity + Measurement
Drop gummy worms, candy corn, or small toys from varying heights. Use a timer to record fall times and graph the results. Discuss how shape, mass, and air resistance influence speed.
BrightBean pick: Use Thames & Kosmos Kids First: Science Kit — it includes basic lab tools (tweezers, pipettes, measurement tools) that can be repurposed for fall experiments and measurement.
5. Ghostly Coding Challenge
Lesson: Programming + Logic
Open Scratch or micro:bit, and invite kids to create a ghost sprite that floats, flickers, and vanishes on command. Ask them to build subroutines (“disappear if touched”, “flash 3 times”).
BrightBean pick: Roominate (with circuits) supports introductory electronics logic.
6. The Secret Colors of Fall (Leaf Chromatography)
Lesson: Biology + Chemical Separation
Collect colorful leaves, cut, soak in rubbing alcohol, and run the solution up filter paper. Watch hidden pigments separate into reds, yellows, and greens.
BrightBean pick: Use magnifiers and science tools from BrightBean’s Science & Discovery or Chemistry & Physics categories.
The Takeaway
When kids are given the freedom to explore, question, and create, learning becomes second nature. The right toys aren’t just about keeping little hands busy — they’re about unlocking the curiosity that fuels every future inventor, artist, and problem-solver.
