If you're looking for some spooky, engaging, and educational Halloween activities for your ELA classroom, the Secondary English Coffee Shop has you covered!
Halloween Writing Prompts
If there's one thing Addie Williams loves it's Halloween! She loves the fun of dressing up and the creativity that the holiday allows. One of the ways she incorporates Halloween into her ELA classes is through Halloween Writing Prompts - they're quick and easy to use as a bell ringer, as a longer writing piece, for collaborative writing, poetry, and more! She likes to dim the lights, use battery-powered tealights, and spooky music to set the scene when students write.
Spooky Short Stories
Presto Plans loves teaching spooky and scary short stories. The suspense, the twists and turns in the plot lines, and the sinister characters always seem to draw students in. Whether you are inside the mind of a demented protagonist in the Tell-Tal Heart, avoiding a dinosaur attack in A Sound of Thunder, or suffering the consequences of wishes gone wrong in The Monkey's Paw, these plot lines and characters are sure to hold your students' attention. She's bundled all her favorites together in her Spooky Short Story Unit.
Halloween Symbolism
One of the ways Nouvelle ELA works a little Halloween into her class is by reading Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe and teaching about symbolism using Tootsie Roll Pops. It's pretty much the best lesson of the year when you give students candy and tell them it's time to ANALYZE it.
Halloween Career Project
The Classroom Sparrow created this Halloween Career Project as a fun way for students to learn basic skills and requirements for a job or career. This is also a great way to bring the Halloween spirit into a class while completing the course requirements creatively. Students will randomly select a Halloween-related career, then complete activities highlighting skills for their chosen Halloween job.
Halloween Coloring Pages
In today's stressful world, a calming activity like coloring can be very effective in class--especially for teenagers. Studies have shown that students who are given a chance to color and doodle during classroom teaching time or while listening to audiobooks are more academically motivated. Tracee Orman loves having holiday-themed coloring pages readily available for students for those moments in class when they need a stress reliever or brain break. Check out her Halloween Coloring Pages for a fun way to eliminate stress for students.
