5 Non-Spooky Halloween Activies for Middle School ELA
Halloween can be a tricky time for teachers. Many kids love the macabre and the spookiness of the season, while other students are genuinely uncomfortable, either for personal or religious reasons. Thankfully, there are ways to have Halloween fun in the classroom that everyone can enjoy — no death required.
Literary Archetype Costume Party
This is one of my favorite activities to do with students. First, I assign each student a different literary archetype (such as the tragic hero, the mad scientist, or the gentleman thief). Then I give them time to plan the perfect costume for that archetype, and I even let them choose a theme song. On the day of the costume party, we have a fashion show, and I play their theme songs as they walk down the “runway.” We have so much fun with this!
Poetry Trick or Treat
Instead of collecting candy, let students collect poems! Each student can bring copies of their favorite poem and place them on their desk. Then students can walk through the room, picking up one copy of each poem. You can even provide fun little pumpkin bags for collecting the poems. At the end, students can take turns drawing poems form their bags and sharing them with the class. (And let’s be honest — this activity will be an even bigger hit if you add a candy station too.)
Character Analysis Pumpkin Carving
When is the last time your students thought about their characters’ biggest fears or greatest struggles? Give your students pumpkin templates and let them “carve” designs on the pumpkins to represent their characters’ fears! I put together a pumpkin-carving activity with a scaffolded guide to help students support their answers with textual evidence, and you can get a hold of it HERE!
4. Mood Music
Halloween is an excellent time to discuss literary mood with your students because Halloween is one of the moodiest times of the year! To introduce mood, play a variety of instrumental music for your students. (YouTube has a free library of music you can use in their Creator Studio.) For each music clip, have students write down what mood they feel as they listen to the music. Throw in plenty of halloween-ish organ to fit the season! After this activity, you can easily segue into conversations about mood in literature.
5. Book Twinning
You probably already know that I absolutely LOVE matching my clothes to our read-aloud every Friday. It’s one of the highlights of my week, and while it has almost no educational value, it brings me so much joy! At the same time, it truly does pique my students’ interest in the book we will be reading that day, so it’s not totally pointless. For Halloween, you can bring your kids in on the action and let them design costumes to match the covers of the books they are reading. Alternatively, they can choose books they want YOU to read to the class and draw out potential costumes for you to wear. Any kind of dress-up is a big hit with my middle-schoolers. Try it and see what you think!
I hope you enjoy this spooky (or not so spooky) season with your students! If you try these activities in your classroom, tag #notsospookyela and @distinguishedenglish so I can see your posts!