Halloween CVC Words: Free Word Family Crafts (PDFs)

These Halloween CVC words hide behind doors. A pumpkin, a castle, an owl, a bat and a ghost all fold open. Behind those doors sit four CVC words from one word family, to read, write and color. They are free Halloween phonics worksheets for kindergarten and 1st grade, turned into a craft your child wants to finish. A pink monster brings a writing craft with three sentences. Give the head a pull and the monster grows.

Open the pumpkin’s doors and this is what your child finds.

Read cat. Write cat. Color the cat.

All six crafts are free PDFs in the box at the top of this post. Five are word family crafts, and one is the monster. No signup, no email.

Jump to: the word list · the pumpkin · how to make it · castle, owl, bat and ghost · the monster · tips · FAQ

Halloween CVC words list

These are the CVC words inside our five Halloween crafts. Each craft holds one word family.

Craft	Word family	CVC words
Pumpkin	-at	rat, cat, hat, bat
Castle	-en	hen, pen, ten, men
Owl	-ug	bug, mug, rug, hug
Bat	-et	net, jet, vet, wet
Ghost	-ip	lip, zip, sip, dip

Want more for a Halloween week? Web, mud, fog, wig, pot and den are CVC words with a spooky feel too.

What is inside my pumpkin? A word family craft

The pumpkin word family craft is a free 3-page PDF. Page 2 is a wide sheet with a door on each side. The middle asks “What is inside my pumpkin?” A table under it has three columns, Read, Write and Color.

The four words are rat, cat, hat and bat. All four sit in the -at word family, so only the first sound changes. Each word is printed big, with a dot under each sound and an arrow under the whole word. Your child touches each dot and says the sound, /k/ /a/ /t/. Then they slide a finger along the arrow and say the word, cat. That is blending sounds.

Your child writes the word on the line beside it. Coloring is next. Each row has three pictures, and your child colors the one that matches.

rat sits with a ghost, a rat and a moon.
cat sits with a cat, a pumpkin and a star.
hat sits with an owl, a piece of candy and a witch hat.
bat sits with a broom, a bat and a spider.

The left door says “Read the word. Write it.” The right door says “Color the picture that matches.”

The front lives on its own page. It’s a bright orange pumpkin with big eyes, a smile and a “Name” box, good practice for writing their name. Page 1 has it in color and page 3 in black and white.

The pumpkin with both doors open. Each -at word is read, written and colored.

How to make this cut and paste craft at home

You print two sheets, page 2 and one front (page 1 or 3). Print one-sided, at 100%.

Read, write and color first, while page 2 is still flat. Writing behind a door is much harder.
Color the front if you printed the black and white one.
Cut out the pumpkin on the solid line. At each end of a fold, the line dips into a little V. Cut right into it, up to the dot. A grown-up can help with those four spots.
Fold both doors in on the dashed lines.
Cut out the front, then cut it in half down the middle line. Close both doors. Glue a half on each closed door.

One-sided printing is how the face meets in the middle every time. The front is its own piece that you glue on. Two-sided printing on a home printer rarely lines up that well.

Plain printer paper is fine, and cardstock makes a sturdier front. The curves are good scissor practice, one of the fine motor skills that grow a lot at this age.

For teachers, print two sheets per child. The black and white front saves ink on a class set.

Four more Halloween CVC word family crafts

The castle, the owl, the bat and the ghost follow the same steps as the pumpkin. Each is its own free 3-page PDF, with the front in color first, then the door sheet, then the front in black and white. Each one teaches a new word family. With the pumpkin, they cover short a, e, i and u.

The castle, owl, bat and ghost crafts with their doors open.

The castle, for -en words

The castle word family craft asks “What is inside my castle?” The words are hen, pen, ten and men. Your child colors the hen next to a crown and a drum, and the 10 next to a shield and a horse. With the doors shut, it is a bright purple haunted castle. Its glowing windows are eyes that look right at you, a ghost peeks out of the tower and bats fly past the moon. More -en and -et words are in our short e words.

The owl, for -ug words

The owl word family craft has bug, mug, rug and hug. The hug picture is two friends hugging. A pinecone, an acorn and a nest fill the other boxes, from the owl’s woods. With the doors shut, the owl is bright turquoise, with big happy eyes, a laughing smile and a wing on each door. More words like these are in our short u words.

The bat, for -et words

The bat word family craft has net, jet, vet and wet. Vet is a fun one. The picture is a vet holding a puppy, next to a lamp and a kite. With the doors shut, the bat is night purple, with big round yellow eyes, sharp fangs and folded wings.

The ghost, for -ip words

The ghost word family craft has lip, zip, sip and dip. The zip is a zipper. Sip is a child sipping a drink, and dip is a cookie dipped in milk. With the doors shut, it is a friendly Halloween ghost with a big smile, pink cheeks and raised arms. Our short i words list has the rest of the family.

Closed, each craft is a Halloween character with a seam where the doors meet.

Any order works. Together they make five word families in one Halloween week, and all of them are in our CVC word lists.

Bonus: My Monster Grows! writing craft

The My Monster Grows! writing craft is a free 2-page PDF. It’s a pink monster with turquoise spots and purple horns. Its tummy holds three sentence frames.

My monster is ___. The hints are red, pink and blue.
It can ___. The hints are jump, fly and swim.
It likes ___. The hints are bats, cats and bugs.

Each frame ends in a printed period, and the feet have a “by ___” line for a name.

The fold does the trick. The tummy goes back and forth like a paper fan. Flatten the monster and it hides. Pull the head and it grows! Then your child reads the story aloud, from head to feet.

The monster stands up when its tummy is folded like a fan.

Build it like this.

Your child writes three sentences and colors the monster.
A grown-up cuts on the solid line.
Fold back and forth on the fold lines. The purple dashed lines fold up. The orange dash-dot lines fold back.
Fold the feet forward, stand it up and pull the head.

Page 2 is the same monster in black and white. Cardstock stands best.

Tips for kindergarten and 1st grade

For kindergarten, keep working the dots. Touch each one, say the sound, then sweep the arrow. If writing is still hard, write the word lightly and let your child trace it. On the monster, read each frame together. The hints have little pictures, so a new reader can pick one alone.

For 1st grade, ask your child to cover the printed word and spell it from the sounds. Then try a word chain. Change one sound at a time, rat to cat to hat to bat. On the monster, push past the hints. My monster is green. It can hop. It likes mud. Sound-it-out spelling is fine.

My, is, it and can in the monster frames are on the Dolch sight words list, and so are red, blue and jump. Read them together the first time.

For both, check the capital letter at the start and the period at the end.

The takeaways

Read, write, color, then fold. Do the work while the sheet is flat.
Touch the dots, sweep the arrow. That is how a CVC word gets blended.
One family per craft. Only the first sound changes, so the pattern sticks.
Print one-sided at 100%. The front is glued on, so the face always lines up.

FAQ

What are some Halloween CVC words?

Bat, cat, hat, rat, web, bug and mud all fit a Halloween week. The list at the top of this post has all 20 words in our crafts, sorted by word family.

Are these Halloween CVC worksheets?

Yes. Each craft is a Halloween CVC worksheet that folds into a character. Your child reads each word, writes it and colors the picture that matches.

What’s inside a pumpkin craft?

Many pumpkin crafts show the seeds and the pulp. This one opens onto four -at words, rat, cat, hat and bat, to read, write and color.

Do I need to print two-sided?

No. Every page prints one-sided, at 100%. The front is a separate piece that you glue on.

Can kindergarteners do this?

Yes. The words have sound dots to tap, and every word has a picture to color. A grown-up helps with the cutting.

Are these Halloween worksheets for kindergarten and 1st graders?

Yes. The word family crafts work as Halloween phonics worksheets and the monster as a writing worksheet. All of them print fine in black and white.

Can I use them after Halloween?

Yes. The pumpkin and the owl fit all of fall, and the word families work any month of the year.

Sources

Reading Rockets. Looking at Writing: First Grade.
Reading Rockets. Goals for First Grade: Early Reading and Writing.
Wylie, R. E. and Durrell, D. D. (1970). Teaching vowels through phonograms. Elementary English 47, 787-791. ERIC EJ024641.
Ehri, L. C. and Robbins, C. (1992). Beginners need some decoding skill to read words by analogy. Reading Research Quarterly 27(1), 12-26. ERIC EJ437489.
Common Core State Standards Initiative. English Language Arts, grade 1 Foundational Skills and Writing.