Happy Halloween

With Halloween approaching it´s always fun to do some SPOOKY, FUN activities in class.

I have included some of my favourites from over the years.

I hope you enjoy!

Halloween in the UK

For all primary levels, I think a great introduction to Halloween and how we celebrate it in the UK

can be found watching the following video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSsPTSMWoJE (this is Britain´s Halloween party at home)

This could be used to introduce Halloween vocabulary or used as a comprehension activity.

It can also be used to compare how you celebrate Halloween in your country. The children could

create a comic strip of the video or create one based on how they celebrate Halloween.

Activities

Is your house haunted? A1

A haunted house is always associated with Halloween and children love to make their own. The

activity includes some elements of art, speaking pair work, singing and can be extended to include

writing activities.

Download a haunted house from the following website.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-

Ky96QadX4q8/UIdB5z2gnDI/AAAAAAAACQU/FO751UElUQ8/s1600/haunted+house.jpg

Get your students to cut out the haunted house. Next, cut open the windows and the doors along

the dotted line. Now, fold along the solid line so they can open and close. Stick the haunted house

onto a sheet of A4 card. Behind the windows and door the students can draw Halloween characters

and can also decorate the outside and around the house.

As a class students can brainstorm Halloween vocabulary. The teacher can write these on the board.

Speaking activity - In pairs the students can ask each other questions regarding who is in their house

for example:

Where´s the vampire? Who is standing behind the door?

Point to the vampire. Who is behind the window upstairs?

Writing activity – As an extension the children can write sentences about their haunted house.

Teacher models a sentence. Revise the different prepositions ON, BEHIND, IN etc.

The witch is behind the door.

The zombie is in the garden. The ghost is on the roof.

To finish off the lesson ask a child to tell the class a Halloween character they have in their haunted

house. Ask them what noise that character makes. To the tune of the song (the wheel´s on the bus)

sing the song using the following example:

The ghosts in house go BOO BOO BOO, all day long

The cats in the house go MEOW MEOW MEOW, all day long etc.

Ask the children: What noise will the witch or Vampire make? Who in the class can do the best

impersonation?

Make a display of all the Haunted houses.

Not all monsters are bad! A2

This is a great activity to practice describing people. The twist is they will be describing monsters. It´s

great fun and the children get to watch a section from a movie! All explained at the following link:

http://moviesegmentstoassessgrammargoals.blogspot.com.es/2009/11/monsters-inc-describing-

people.html

The skeleton dance! A2

This is a great activity to get your students up dancing. You can focus on the science, art or English

element or all three.

Introduce the song and start dancing!

http://supersimplelearning.com/halloween/songs/

For the art activity you will need A5 or A4 black card, white paper, black pen and cotton buds

(bastoncillos de algodón). Get your students to cut out the skeleton´s head using the white paper (or

provide them with a template: http://coloringpages-printable.com/halloween-print-out/). They cut

up the cotton buds to make the skeleton. Ask them to make the skeleton doing something as this

will lead into a speaking or writing activity after. They could also label the different bones if you

wanted to focus of the science element.

See examples at: http://abcschoolart.blogspot.com.es/2011/10/straw-skeletons-3rd.html

The children can ask each other questions: What is your skeleton doing?

My skeleton is dancing.

She is jumping. He is playing football.

This can revise the use of the present continuous. Happy dancing!

Who is who? – All levels

This is a great art activity where children can add changes to their appearance so that they look like a

Halloween character. Take black and white photos of your students and print them on to A4 white

paper. The children then change their faces by adding features using oil pastels or coloured chalk.

The children can add a witch’s hat, can have a green face, add fangs etc. Display this outside your

classroom where children can try and guess who is who!

What am I? – A2 B1

Give each student a flashcard with a Halloween character on it. Each student has to describe what

flashcard they have without giving away the name. The harder they make it the better – so that the

other students don’t guess first time!

Example: Give the student a Flashcard Moon

I am very large, You see me at night, I am very far away, I am surrounded by stars – What am I? etc.

Acrostic Poems – B1 B2

This is a great activity to get your students thinking about the meaning of words.

Brainstorm lots of Halloween words in groups and feedback to the class. Choose a Halloween word

and then ask students to brainstorm words related to that word and that begin with the letters in

the word. Model the format of acrostic poems with your students. Work together as a class to write

a shared acrostic poem on the whiteboard. Ask students to create their own poems individually or in

groups. Once finished they can decorate them. Example:

S - Shadows dance across my neighbours’ gardens

P - Pumpkins wink at me everywhere I look

O - Owls hoot in the creepy, dark trees

O - October brings so much fun and excitement!

K - Kids smile through their masks at each other

Y - You can trick-or-treat all night long!

What makes a scary movie? B1 B2

Watch the following clip from Mr Bean watching a horror movie:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7U-J3NnHvJ4

In groups ask your students to brainstorm what kind of the movie they think Mr Bean was watching. Would it be a romantic movie? A scary movie? etc.

In groups ask your students to decide who would be in the movie. What Halloween characters will appear? What will they do? Decide on characters and start to write the script in groups. Tell the students that the movie could last 3 minutes so that is short and precise. Give them time to practice, dress up etc. Enjoy your Halloween class with popcorn and watching each of the short movies acted out to the rest of the class. They could even be recorded and watched back like a real cinema experience!

Thriller (could be too scary for some) B2

Watch the video clip of Michael Jackson´s Thriller:

Full clip – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOnqjkJTMaA

Short clip - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4V90AmXnguw

The idea of the activity is that the students write a story using the video clip as a starting point and as reference for their story. Depending on the level of the class, students can be left to decide their starting point to their story or as a class; a shared writing activity can be done in order to give students a starting point. For example:

After the cinema I wanted to get home as quick as possible because the movie was quite scary. I took my friend to the path that was a shortcut home. We walked about 20 minutes, and then, suddenly, I felt very strange. Something wasn’t right…….

From this point the students need to plan their story using the video clip as reference and write their story.

Once everyone has written their stories, teach your students the thriller dance! Also, check out www.lyricstraining.com to learn and test your students the words from the song.

From everyone at Cambridge English Spain and Portugal