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Halloween Tricks ‘n Treats for Training

Use your Halloween candy for training adults or teaching kids. Try these Halloween-inspired facilitation tricks and treats and make the most of the Halloween season in your training sessions:

Icebreakers

Favorites?

Ask your group what their favorite Halloween candy is.  Let them know that even though yours is “Candy Corn” you’ll try hard not to make any more “corny” jokes.

Memory Test

Ask your teams how many different types of Halloween candy they can remember. For the team that thinks up the most unique entries (that no other teams got), toss them a piece of candy.

• Chocolatey Treats: 100 Grand, 3 Musketeers Bars,  Almond Joy, Baby Ruth Bars, and, Bit-o-honey, Butterfinger Bars,  Charleston Chew, Chunky Bar, Clark Bars, CowTales, Fireballs, Junior Mints, Kit Kat, Krackle – Hershey, Life Saver, M&Ms, Malted Milk balls, Mars, Mentos, Mike & Ikes, Milky Way Bars,  Milky Way Midnight Bars, Mounds, Mr. Goodbar – Hershey, Nestle Crunch, Oh Henry, PayDay, Reeses, Rolos,  Snickers, Snickers Bars,  Sugar Babies,  Tootsie Rolls, Twix Bars, York Peppermint Patties.
• Fruity favorites: Air Heads, Blow pops, Bottle Caps, Gummi Bears, Jolly Rancher, Jujy Fruits, Laffy Taffy, Lemon Heads, Nerds, Now & Later, Skittles, Pez, Pop Rocks, Razzles, Sour Patch kids, Spree, Star Burst, Swedish Fish, Sweet Tarts, Tootsie Pops.

Candy Slogans

The website sporcle.com has a bunch of trivia-type games that challenge individuals or groups to come up with a series of answers to a category challenge. In this example, teams must look at the “Slogan” below and come up with the Candy it advertises.

• • Melts in your mouth, not in your hand  (M&M’s)
  • Taste the rainbow (Skittles)
  • Makes mouths happy  (Twizzlers)
  • Two for me, none for you (Twix)
  • Hungry? Why wait? (Snickers)
  • Sometimes you feel like a nut. Sometimes you don’t  (Mounds and Almond Joy)
  • Crispety, crunchety, peanut-buttery  (Butterfinger)
  • A lighter way to enjoy chocolate (3 Musketeers)
  • Get the sensation  (York Peppermint Patty)
  • It’s more than a mouthful… (Whatchamacallit)
  • Gimme a break (Kit-Kat)
  • Share Something Juicy (Starburst)
  • Comfort in every bar (Milky Way)
  • For the Kid in You (Nestlé Crunch)
  • That’s Rich! (100 Grand)
  • Perfect (Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups)
  • The Great American Chocolate Bar (Hershey Bar)
  • How many licks does it take to get to the center of…  (Tootsie Pop)
  • Curiously strong … (Altoids)
  • Stay fresh (Mentos)
  • Thicker-er (Chunky by Nestle)
  • Double your pleasure, double your fun (Doublemint gum)
  • Smoking prohibited, PEZing allowed (Pez)

Participation Hacks

• Candy Treats: Perhaps one of the easiest ways to use Halloween candy for training is to toss a miniature candy bar to the first participants to answer a question or share an idea. You’ll be sure to get lots of people raising their hands to contribute when they see the enticement!
• Non-Candy Treats: Of course, sweet treats are most popular at this time of year. However, for the calorie-conscious, try creating your own Scratch Tickets,and write in your own fun treats.
• Pipe-cleaners: Learning is inherently a creative process as our brains reform to absorb new information. Stimulate your learners’ creativity with Pipe Cleaners. They can either fiddle with the pipe cleaners during the learning event, or work with table-mates to form a topic-relevant structure.

Develop Metaphors for Learning Points

Okay, I realize some of these are a push, but maybe it will push all of us to think creatively!

• Now & Laters: For project and time management. And for encouraging people to get things done right away, rather than procrastinating.
• Good & Plenty: For strategic planning as well as hopeful thinking for the months and years to come.
• Smarties: For superlative learning and drawing the smarts out of every good brain in the room.
• Butterfingers: For excellent handiwork, fast fingers, and gracefully dealing with problems that arise.
• Charms: Charms lollipops, for mind-blowing customer service.
• $100,000 Bar: Identify winning actions and behaviors that yield results.
• M&Ms: What it takes to succeed is Methodology and Mastery.
• Snickers:  The ability to laugh at oneself (and not laugh at others is key).

Halloween-inspired Debriefs

Fill an UNZIP-it! pocket with favorite Halloween candies. Then ask your group to share accordingly:

• Starburst – a big idea you learned
• Smarties – a smart way you’ll apply your learning
• M&Ms – a Memory that will lead to Mastery
• Dum Dum – ask a dum or not-so-dumb question
• 1,000,000 Bar – your one-in-a-million idea
• Almond JOY – a joyful learning moment
• Reeses – two ideas that came together for you
• Milky Way – an idea that expanded your thinking
• Snickers – something that makes you laugh
• Dots – a way you’ve “connected the dots”
• Twizzler – something that still twists your mind
• Bottle Caps: Don’t bottle up your potential. Discuss what you’ll share
• Snickers: Just for fun, tell a stupid joke and have a laugh
• Lifesavers: Share some “life-saving” info
• Whoppers: Identify huge learning moments

Creative Kudos for Learning

Get creative in sharing your appreciation and kudos. Jot a note and leave the treat at a colleague’s or learner’s workstation:

• Almond JOY – you put JOY into our day
• Baby Ruth – you “hit it out of the park”
• Milky Way – your work is outta this world!
• Kit Kat – you deserve a break today
• Mr. Goodbar – your GOOD work raises the BAR!
• Mounds – you deserve MOUNDS of appreciation
• Whoppers – you did a WHOPPER of a job!
• Junior Mints – celebrate Learning Mo-MINTS
• Reeses – you brought two new concepts together
• M&Ms – magnificent & marvelous accomplishments
• Skittles – you made our day colorful
• Swedish Fish – O-FISH-ally accomplished!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN AND HAPPY TRAINING!

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