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Halloween Trivia Questions for Kids and Families
Thirty not-too-spooky Halloween questions, from easy to hard, for a costume party, a classroom or a cozy night in, with answers. Then play our full Halloween category on the TV, with everyone answering on their phones.
Tap or click a question to see the answer.
Easy Halloween trivia questions for kids
1.In the Northern Hemisphere, Halloween falls in which season?
Autumn (fall). South of the equator, in the Southern Hemisphere, Halloween comes in spring.
2.What is a baby owl called?
An owlet. Hungry owlets can be noisy, calling out while they wait for their parents to bring food.
3.How many colored stripes does a classic piece of candy corn have?
Three: white, orange and yellow. Candy corn was first made in the 1880s.
4.What is a scarecrow used for?
To scare birds away from crops. Farmers around the world have used scarecrows for centuries.
5.Which big white owl nests on the Arctic tundra and often hunts during the day?
The snowy owl. When lemmings are plentiful, they can be almost all a snowy owl eats.
6.In the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz, what color are Dorothy's magic slippers?
Ruby red. In L. Frank Baum's book, the shoes were silver.
7.In the fairy tale Cinderella, what does the fairy godmother turn a pumpkin into?
A coach (a carriage). In Charles Perrault's version, six mice become horses and six lizards become footmen.
8.Which friendly Sesame Street vampire loves to count?
Count von Count (the Count). He first appeared on the show in 1972 and laughs 'Ah-ah-ah!' after each count.
9.In the book Charlotte's Web, what kind of animal is Charlotte's friend Wilbur?
A pig. To help save him, Charlotte the spider spins the words 'Some Pig' into her web.
10.In The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, what does the Scarecrow hope the Wizard will give him?
A brain. The Wizard gives him new brains made of bran mixed with pins and needles.
11.Many bats spend the cold winter in a long, deep sleep in caves. What is this winter sleep called?
Hibernation. A hibernating bat lives off the fat it stored up before winter.
12.In the movie The Nightmare Before Christmas, Jack Skellington is known as the what King of Halloween Town?
The Pumpkin King. His ghost dog, Zero, has a tiny jack-o'-lantern for a nose.
Medium Halloween trivia questions
13.Halloween grew out of Samhain, an ancient festival linked most closely with which country?
Ireland. Samhain marked the end of the harvest and the start of the dark half of the year.
14.Pumpkins were first grown by people in which part of the world?
North America (in what is now Mexico). The oldest pumpkin seeds found so far, dug up in Mexico, date back to between 7000 and 5500 BC.
15.What do most bats use to find their way and catch insects in the dark?
Echolocation. They make high-pitched calls and listen for the echoes that bounce back.
16.In which story does Ichabod Crane meet the Headless Horseman?
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Washington Irving published it in 1820.
17.What is the fear of spiders called?
Arachnophobia. Most spiders are harmless to people and eat lots of pesky insects.
18.What is a candy apple called in the United Kingdom?
A toffee apple. The apple is dipped in hot sugar syrup that hardens into a crunchy candy shell.
19.Trees that drop all their leaves every autumn are called what kind of trees?
Deciduous trees. Trees that keep their leaves all year are evergreens, but the needle-covered tamarack drops its needles every fall.
20.A teal-colored pumpkin on a porch at Halloween tells trick-or-treaters what?
Non-food treats are offered, for kids with food allergies. The idea began with one Tennessee family, and an allergy group took it nationwide in 2014.
21.What name is given to the full moon closest to the autumn equinox?
The Harvest Moon. Rising soon after sunset, it gave farmers extra light to finish their harvests.
22.What breed of dog is the cartoon mystery-solver Scooby-Doo?
A Great Dane. His first show, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, began in 1969.
Hard Halloween trivia questions for adults
23.Which Minnesota city calls itself the 'Halloween Capital of the World'?
Anoka. Its first big Halloween celebration, in 1920, was planned to keep kids busy instead of playing pranks.
24.Which Irish fruit bread is baked at Halloween with a ring or a coin hidden inside?
Barmbrack. Whoever finds the hidden treasure in their slice is said to be lucky.
25.What are the small organs at the back of a spider's body that spin out silk called?
Spinnerets. Most spiders have six of them, at the tip of the rear part of the body.
26.Bats belong to a group of animals called Chiroptera. What does that name mean in Greek?
Hand-wing. A bat's wing is a thin layer of skin joining four long fingers and a thumb.
27.Huge numbers of Mexican free-tailed bats fly out from under a downtown bridge at dusk in which Texas city?
Austin. The nightly bat flight draws more than 100,000 visitors a year.
28.In Scotland, what is the traditional name for going door to door in costume at Halloween?
Guising. Guisers earn their treats by telling a joke or singing a song first.
29.Which sparrow-sized owl often nests in old woodpecker holes in giant saguaro cactuses?
The elf owl. It eats mostly insects, plus spiders and even scorpions.
30.In Sweden, children dress up as little witches and go door to door for treats around which holiday?
Easter. Old folklore said witches flew off on brooms just before Easter.
Ways to use these Halloween questions
Call these out while the kids, already in costume, wait for trick-or-treating to start, or slip them between rounds of games at a Halloween party. Teachers can turn the bat, owl and spider questions into a quick science warm-up before a fall classroom party, and the easy ones work well around a pumpkin-carving table while hands are busy and sticky. On a hayride or a walk through a pumpkin patch, try the autumn questions about falling leaves and the Harvest Moon, and save the hard folklore ones, like Baba Yaga's walking hut and Sweden's Easter witches, for older kids and grown-ups.
Play Halloween trivia together
Room Trivia has a whole Halloween category with different questions: four answers to pick from, points for speed, and a scoreboard. Put it on a TV or laptop and everyone answers on their own phone. Free, with no app and no account.