Halloween LA Activities

I began teaching mid-year, in October. My 6th graders had been through several subs and one teacher at that point, and they thought Language Arts = Wrestling 101. (The walls of my trailer were filled with holes from kicks, punches, and body slams.) So, I used creepy, hopefully engaging Halloween activities to try to compete with the previous weeks' "lessons."

The first activity I'd like to share is: Monster Exchange.

I found this activity online. There is a reading and a writing aspect. Classrooms partner with other classrooms at the website. Then each student draws a picture and writes a description of his or her monster. The written description must be very detailed, so that the partnering class will be able to draw the monster from the description.

Descriptions are exchanged between classes. Then, your students read the partnering class' monster descriptions and try to draw their monsters.

Original drawings and redrawn monsters are scanned and swapped between classes.

This is a great way for kids to see if they are describing in the best way possible for their audience. It's nice for students to have a different, online audience. And students practice following directions skills when they try to reproduce monsters from written descriptions.

Variations

• Don't want to partner with a class online? You can always swap monster descriptions between the classes you teach -- or between your class and another teacher's class in your school.
• Just want to focus on the reading part for now? You can write a monster description yourself. Then have students draw the monster from your description. They can work alone or in groups.
• And if you are more interested in practicing listening skills, read the monster description out loud slowly. Kids can draw from what they hear.