Halloween can be a hard holiday to address. Scary, fun, imaginative... it's hard to know what's appropriate for schools. Here are some of our favorite activities for elementary.
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"Too Many Pumpkins" by Linda White is a fantastic book about a woman who HATES pumpkins but ends up with a LOT. There are some jack-o'-lanterns in the book, but none of them are scary. There are themes about all kinds of ways to use pumpkins, neighbors, and sharing. My students love the language in the book, the pictures of the cat, and the secret at the end.
Pumpkins: Fact and Opinion (left in the picture) addresses difficult language concepts plus more. My artic students can work on speech sounds in words and reading aloud, and my fluency students can practice their strategies while reading.
Pumpkin Patch Spatial Concepts (right) is a great way to incorporate movement while listening for directions and prepositions. Just put the cards on a ring for easy flipping and storage. Students love pretending to put pumpkins on their heads and jumping into leaves!
Of course, the
"The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything" makes the list. I bought it
out of desperation on impulse in the early 1990's in a small bookstore in the mall. I've had to buy several copies since because the book is so well-loved and used by students - and me! The language is fun and patterned, and students laugh at the ending.
"Mouse, Look Out!" was a gift from my sister to my son. I'm borrowing it for a while. The setting is an abandoned house - nothing haunted here - and the illustrations are gorgeous. A cat hunts an unsuspecting mouse but gets his own surprise at the end! Once students find the ending, we go back through the pictures to find the clues. This is one book that I always find something new in EVERY time I read it. The book is no longer in print, which makes it a little more costly than most books.
Creepy crawlies in nonfiction activities are great for speech and language therapy. A lot of classrooms have Bat Week, so learning about bats ties into curriculum. My favorite bat book is
"Stellaluna", and
Bats: Fact and Opinion is great for following up with mixed groups.
Because I have to rotate Bat Week, my sister Amy also made some fact and opinion packs for
spiders and (
shivers)
snakes.
Use suspenseful, fun, or nonfiction activities to address Halloween in your school.
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