What Non-Food Items Are Good for Halloween? A Teacher’s Tried-and-Tested Favorites
The Monday after Halloween, my third graders shuffled into class looking like zombies. Not costume zombies—real ones: droopy eyes, sticky fingers, and a faint smell of sour candy. One girl kept hiccuping. A boy in the back dropped his pencil three times because his hands were too coated in sugar to hold onto anything. I looked at the plastic pumpkin on my desk, filled with emergency lollipops I’d bought just in case, and realized I was part of the problem.
That was the year I started paying attention to non-food Halloween treats.
It wasn’t some big revelation. It was more practical than that. I had a student named Elijah with a severe peanut allergy, and his mom sent me a note before the class party: He knows what to avoid, but if you could keep the snacks separate, it helps. Elijah spent most of the party standing near the door in a cardboard astronaut helmet, not touching the snack table. I handed him a glow bracelet from the little prize bin I keep for good behavior. He snapped it around his wrist and immediately started explaining to another kid how the chemicals inside glow sticks react when you bend them. Ten minutes later, he was leading a small group of astronauts on a mission to Mars, all of them wearing glowing bracelets and rings.
The non-food thing wasn’t just about allergies, I realized. It was about giving kids something to do with their treats, not just something to eat.
So I started swapping more of the candy at our classroom Halloween celebration for non-food items. I didn’t ban candy completely—that felt like fighting the tide. But I shifted the balance. If a kid brought in a bag of candy, they could still have some. But the “official” treats from me and the room parents were mostly non-food. And honestly, the kids didn’t miss the chocolate as much as I thought they would.
The biggest hits surprised me. Glow sticks were the obvious winner. They’re cheap, you can buy them in bulk, and they work for all ages. Glow bracelets and necklaces are even better because they double as costume pieces. Kids wore them through the hallway parade, and then later during indoor recess when we turned off the lights for a few minutes. The excitement lasted longer than any sucker.
Mini notepads were another surprise. I found packs of small spiral notebooks with Halloween covers—pumpkins, ghosts, black cats—at a dollar store. Kids used them for writing “spooky stories” during free time. A few of my reluctant writers actually asked if they could keep them at their desks. I also added Halloween-themed pencils and erasers shaped like monsters and bats. They’re practical, they don’t break easily, and the kids love trading them mid-morning.
Temporary tattoos were a surprisingly good option, too. They’re just paper, water, and a little patience. I bought a sheet of witches and skeletons, and by the end of the party, half the class had a tiny spider on their hand or arm. No sugar, no wrapper to clean up, and no small parts to choke on. For younger kids, tattoos are especially nice because they feel fancy without being messy.
Stickers are the old standby, and they still work. Not the kind that take forever to peel off—those are a classroom nightmare. I mean the big, glossy ones that come off easily. A kid can stick one on a water bottle, a folder, or the back of their hand. They’re small and quiet, which matters during a party that’s already loud enough.
Another thing that worked: spider rings. They cost almost nothing, and they’re perfect for counting games, stacking, and pretending to be creepy-crawlies. But I learned to check for quality first. Some packs are flimsy and snap in two the first time a kid tries to put them on. Cheap plastic breakage is a real problem with non-food items. If it isn’t sturdy enough to survive a classroom of seven-year-olds, it isn’t worth handing out.
For older kids, the wins are different. My friend who teaches fifth grade says her students love funky bookmarks, glow-in-the-dark bouncy balls, and fine-tipped markers. Opposable fingers make all the difference. A third grader might cry if a tiny toy falls apart; a fifth grader just rolls their eyes and tosses it in the trash. Non-food treats for older kids have to feel genuinely useful or genuinely weird enough to be funny.
At home, I’ve brought the same idea into our own Halloween buckets. My kids still get some candy from the neighbors, but I add things before we head out: a new pack of crayons, a flashlight they can clip onto their costume, or a small bag of play-dough. Play-dough is technically not food, even if some kids try to eat it, so it works better for older ones. The flashlight is my favorite. It keeps them visible on dark sidewalks and gives them something to fiddle with while waiting for friends to catch up.
The practical side matters, though. Parents ask me what to buy, and I always say: think about where it will end up. Will it roll under the couch? Will it break before November 1st? Will it be a choking hazard for a preschooler? That last one is huge. A bouncy ball is great for a seven-year-old but dangerous for a two-year-old sibling. I keep non-food items in a separate bowl during celebrations, and I tell parents to do the same at home if they have kids of very different ages.
Another small thing: consider packaging. Single-wrapped items are easier for trunk-or-treat events and classroom parties. A loose spider ring is fine, but a small paper bag or cellophane pouch helps keep things organized and makes it feel more like a present. I save the little paper favor bags from previous parties and reuse them.
I still buy a small bag of candy for Halloween. The kids get a little sugar, the parents get to relax, and I get to keep a stash of miniature chocolate bars in my desk drawer for emergency morale. But the bulk of what I hand out isn’t edible anymore. The past few years, I’ve watched kids leave the classroom party with glow bracelets still on their wrists, sticking tattoos on their arms, and trading erasers like currency. The sugar crash is a little gentler. The stuff lasts beyond the week.
I won’t pretend every non-food item is a hit. Some boys left the mini notepads untouched until I showed them how to fold the pages into origami ninja stars. Some girls were disappointed that there wasn’t any candy in the prize bowl at first. And every year, a few of the glow sticks end up cracked open or lost under the bookshelf. It’s not a perfect system.
But the morning after Halloween isn’t quite as rough anymore. The hiccuping girl still had too much candy from her own neighborhood haul, but my classroom wasn’t making it worse. Elijah still carries a glow bracelet in his backpack, just in case. And I’m still figuring out which items work best, one year and one bag of plastic rings at a time.
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