A Spooktacular Halloween

To get the imaginative juices flowing when it comes to children’s writing and help them to research about a topic, especially in October, the children can research about bats. They then can write about what they learned or do some creative writing based off of what they read and make a story about their bats.

(http://www.lessonplandiva.com/2011/10/so-today-we-read-non-fiction-book-on.html)

When children are done with their rough drafts and have made all of their corrections they can then have the final paper which would look like the one featured. For those students who finish early they can decorate their work with the bat or they can create and color the ones that they draw.

Another creative way to get children to write and have fun creating and coloring something would be with this activity. The children use a dice and roll to what their monster would look like then they would have to recreate them. In order to spice up this activity it would be best to have children write about the average day of a monster or what their monster likes to do. 

(http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/My-Monster-An-Informative-Writing-Project-Craftivity-829443)

A worksheet to go with the monster activity or any other Halloween story would be like the one below. 

(http://www.uniqueteachingresources.com/Halloween-English-Teaching-Resources.html)

This worksheet can be used for students during the revision phase of their stories, or once they are done and they can share them with other students in the class. The worksheet shows the basic outline to follow through a story, not only that but for the children it gives them a guideline and keeps their story from going off track, because we all know children can go on and on and have their stories go in all sorts of directions!

A different activity to do with the children would be to help decorate a door or a bulletin board in the class like the one below.

(http://afaithfulattempt.blogspot.com/search/label/door%20decorating)

Having children make scared faces or faces that they think go with a haunted house can be an activity that leads to a creative writing activity as follows: 

(http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Do-You-Like-Haunted-Houses-An-Opinion-Writing-947076) 

They not only have to focus on the features of a haunted house, but they can create a story describing a haunted house that they visited or their characters visited or if they like them or not. The last worksheet can help students compare their writing and make sure they have the important elements of a haunted house like spider webs, and creaky floors!

For the younger students an activity to help group words together, with the use of a spider, can be done in the classroom or sent home for students to work on at home for their weekly word list. 

(http://www.lessonplandiva.com/2011/10/what-we-are-working-on-this-week.html)

Even though spiders are typically only thought about during Halloween, this activity can be useful throughout any part of the year. It helps students recognize the pattern and helps with grouping and spelling.

Most of these activities can be displayed throughout the classroom or on a bulletin board. These activities can make a classroom very decorative and festive!