Creative Halloween Yoga Poses for Kids

Halloween is the MOST popular holiday at my school, hands down.

You can’t even say the word “October” without hearing squeals of excitement permeating the hallways.

Needless to say, I used this Halloween excitement to fully take advantage of how motivated kids were in my classroom the first couple of years.

I drew them in with Halloween-themed lessons and got them more excited about yoga and creating poses. They loved sharing their costume ideas and then creating new poses on their own and with their class.

Some of my favorite yoga lessons ever come from the creativity that surrounds this amazing holiday.

We could do yoga poses and sequences based on Halloween for the entire month and almost never get bored.

Check out this fun and simple lesson plan for how to teach kids yoga based on Halloween-themed excitement.

For added fun, let your kids know they can dress up and try some fun Halloween hairstyles especially for the day!

Scroll down to the end to get a free printable version of all the Halloween themed yoga poses for kids in a PDF download!

Introduction to Halloween Yoga Lesson

One of my favorite holidays is coming up… Raise your hand if you think you know what it is.  HINT: it’s a holiday where you get to pretend you are something different.

Yes, it’s Halloween!

I love Halloween because it is a lot like yoga. In yoga, we get to pretend we are something different by making our bodies into a different shape: an animal, something in nature, or a different creature.

There are plenty of different characters that you can pretend to be as a yogi, too.

To pretend to be something different today, we are going to talk about what we hope to dress up as on Halloween. Then we will create a special Halloween yoga pose to match the character.

One of my favorite things about Halloween is all of the pumpkins everywhere. I love the color, the different shapes, and the faces that you can carve. I would love to dress up like a pumpkin for Halloween!

Here is one way to do a pumpkin pose

Lay on your back and bring your knees into your chest, hold onto your shins, and rock up and down a few times.

Get their brains ready for some thinking with a Mindfulness Halloween word search!

Try a word search with your students to help them get their brains ready and thinking. Mindfulness can be accomplished in many ways!

Use this fun Halloween word search printable to get them ready and brainstorming about all the fun things we find during Halloween.

Create Halloween yoga poses together

Let’s make some other Halloween yoga poses!

(Let them raise their hand and share some ideas of what traditional Halloween characters or items are. Here is a video of a few to get you started!)

Scroll down for the rest of the poses and images 😉

Vampire

Upward mountain

Stand with feet together and arms up in a “v” shape. Look up proudly and pretend to hold your cape up behind you. Stand on your tiptoes for extra balance practice!

Harvest moon

Crescent moon

Stand with feet together and arms reaching up. Clasp your hands together and tilt to one side, arching your body in the shape of a crescent moon.

Witches and warlocks

Chair pose

Stand with your feet together and knees bent. Pretend to hold a broom in between your legs and soar from side to side.

Witches and wizards

Warrior two

Stand with your feet wide. Bend one knee and point your toes in the same direction. Hover your arms out and pretend to hold a wand, swishing it over your bent leg to cast spells.

Monster

Star and horse pose

Stand with your feet wide apart, toes facing forward. Reach your arms up and out to make yourself into a big scary monster. Then bend your knees deep, stick out your tongue and turn your hands into claws. ROAR!

Ghost

Half moon

Stand with legs wide and arms out to the side, toes pointing forward. Start to tilt to one side, bringing one hand slowly to the ground, and the other straight up to the sky. Pretend to be a ghost flying sideways through the air!

Black cat

Cat pose

Kneel on hands and knees. Press your hands into the earth and arch your back up to the ceiling, tucking your chin into your chest.

Creepy Spider

Reverse Tabletop

Sit on your bottom with your feet flat in front of you. Place your hands on the ground behind you and press into the floor with your hands and feet to lift your hips up. Crawl forward and back or side to side!

Spider Web

Turtle pose

Sit on your bottom with your legs apart, knees slightly bent. Reach your arms in between your legs, under your knees, and wrap them up around your shins. Tuck your head down like a spider crouching on a web.

Poisonous Serpent

Cobra pose

Lay on your tummy with your legs together like a tail. Start with your head down like you are hiding, then on “3” press your torso up and hiss, wiggle around like a scary snake!

Halloween Yoga Challenge: Pumpkin patch

Wheel or swan

If you have the flexibility, try wheel pose and swan pose with a partner to make several circles like pumpkins in a pumpkin patch!

Wheel: lay on your back with your arms bent above you, hands on the floor with fingers facing your shoulders. Bend your knees and scoot your feet close to your bottom. Press up and make an arching wheel pose.

Swan: lay on your tummy with your hands by your shoulders. Press your arms straight and look up and back, arching your low bend. Bend your knees and reach your toes to your head.

Frankenstein

Seated forward fold

Sit on your bottom with your legs straight in front of you. Hold your arms straight out and pretend to wake up from the dead like the monster! Bonus points if you go from laying down to sitting up to work on core strength.

Corpse Pose

Savasana

Lay on the ground with arms at your sides or on your tummy. Keep your body as still as possible, only breathing slowly in and out through your nose.

Now, let’s figure out some other poses we can make up.

If you plan to dress up for Halloween, and you already know what you are going to be, let’s take some time to think of a pose that represents our costumes.

Give the students a minute or two of time on their mat to invent a couple of poses that might represent their characters.

Who can raise their hand to share their costume idea and pose that will go with it?

Let the students share their costume and the pose. Encourage everyone else to try the pose out as well. 

Popular Halloween costume ideas and yoga poses:

Superhero

Warrior three with arms above you like you are flying through the air.

Pikachu

Toe stand with arms out like paws (both feet on the floor).

Spiderman

Star pose as if attached to the wall.

Princess

Tadasana with one foot behind as if in a curtsey, hands holding a skirt.

Fairy

Locust pose: lie on your tummy and raise your hands and feet up off the floor as if you are flying.

Mermaid

Sit on your bottom with your knees bent and feet tucked to one side. Twist around the opposite direction.

Another good idea to keep this theme going is to find a couple of good Halloween books.

You can create poses to go with the characters in the book or base them off the pose ideas from above. Here are some good books for creating Halloween yoga poses with kids. 

Little Blue Truck’s Halloween by Alice Schertle

Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson

There’s a Monster in your Book by Tom Fletcher

Five Little Pumpkins by Dan Yaccarino (great for acting out the rhyme!)

Guided by the Light of the Moon: A Kid’s Yoga Halloween book by Jennifer Byer  

Mindfulness Craft Activities with A Halloween Theme for Kids

Spooky Skeletons: Try this fun skeleton craft for kids with Q-tips and spooky skull.

Wizard/Witches’ Wands: Did you have a bunch of kids dressed like Harry Potter for Halloween? Use this wizard wand craft to make them a costume accessory!

Zombie Faces: Create a fun and scary zombie craft for kids using simple crafting materials. Great for younger kids and older, and plenty of room for creativity.

Halloween/Autumn-Themed Yoga Games for Kids

Pumpkin Pass:

Bring a mini pumpkin or another gourd to class and sit in a circle. Teach the kiddos Boat Pose first, but give them the option to rest their hands behind them. Another good pose is Legs up the Wall. Instruct them they need to pass a pumpkin around the whole circle without letting it touch the ground, feet only!

Spider Races:

Start on one side of the room in Spider Pose (reverse tabletop). Race across to the other side of the room while looking at the ceiling! Go backwards or sideways for an extra challenge.

Scavenger Hunt:

Kids will need to use their brains to figure out these clues! Try this Halloween scavenger hunt for your kiddos to keep the themed fun going.

Spooky Trees:

A twist on Red Light/Green Light, or “Grandmother’s Footsteps.” Gather everyone to one side of the room. One person, “It”, is on the other side facing the wall. The large group must slowly and quietly creep to the other side of the room to the person who is “It.”

When “It” says 1…2…3… BOO, they turn around. All the others must freeze in tree pose. If they have two feet on the ground or are moving, they have to go back to start again. You can also choose to have them freeze like monsters, skeletons, mummies, or any other Halloween creature.

I hope you liked these Halloween yoga poses for kids!

What other Halloween poses have created with your own kids or students?

Need more themed yoga lesson plans? Check out these popular posts:

• Easy Themed Yoga Poses for Kids [with videos]
• Pirate Themed Yoga Lesson Plan for Kids
• 4th of July Themed Yoga Lesson for Kids
• Adorable Animal Yoga ABC Poses for Kids! [VIDEO]
• Circus Themed Yoga Lesson Plan for Kids
• Spring Themed Yoga Poses and Activities for Kids (with Mindfulness!)

Check out this free download of all the Halloween Yoga Poses in a PDF format here:

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