October is a great time to bring poetry in class with engaging Halloween writing prompts. These prompts will direct your students’ excess energy into spooky or funny poetry about life. Halloween is all about spooky fun so it makes sense to assign Halloween writing projects that are going to be spooky, fun, and funny.
Embracing Student Energy with Halloween Topics for Writing Poetry
During the week of Halloween, the excitement is building as students talk about costumes, tick-or-treating, and parties. It’s hard to get my class to focus on anything academic as the excitement builds. Instead of ignoring the holiday, I decided to embrace it by making as many lessons as I can Halloween-themed and fun. What a difference it makes to my classroom management to have them engaging in a topic they are currently obsessed with.
Do You Embrace Halloween Writing or Push Past the Craziness?
Every teacher has experienced the excitement of Halloween, and if it’s your first year you’ll join the club soon. It’s especially hard to teach through it because kids are in school the day of Halloween counting down the hours until trick-or-treating. We also get to have them in school the day after Halloween when they’ve been up late consuming piles of sugar. Poetry is a great way to get your students to pour their Halloween energy into academic Halloween writing. The assignments are short enough that your students can focus on them, despite their exploding energy.
What Academic Skills Can I Teach with Halloween Poetry for Kids?
I know there are so many standards that need to be taught each school year. With a laundry list of skills, you need to teach your students, the last thing you want to do is add more pressure to yourself by taking time to teach Halloween poetry for kids. The good news is there are plenty of writing skills you can teach while embracing Halloween poetry.
Think about what writing skill you’d like to teach and then you can find the poetry lesson that matches. Or you can slightly alter an assignment so the academic skill you want to teach is the focus. Poetry is especially good at teaching some of those language standards that sometimes get forgotten.
Mentor Halloween Poetry
I am a big believer in having examples ready for your students. All of my poetry lessons come with examples. Reading lots of Halloween poetry can help your students get ready to write their own. I love seeing them get excited as we read poems and examples of what they will write as a class. Here are some great ones you can use.
The Only Poetry Halloween Writing Prompts You’ll Need
I have 8 great Halloween poetry ideas. You can take the Halloween writing prompt that teaches the skill you want your students to learn and create an assignment for them or you can simply purchase it in my TpT store. After reading this article you will be ready to implement Halloween writing prompts with your class.
- Halloween Acrostic Poetry
Acrostic poetry is when you write a base word, like Halloween, down the side of the page. Each line starts with a letter from the base word. It’s one of the most common types of poetry students learn in school.
I have a love-hate relationship with acrostic poetry. Here’s why. Most acrostic poetry taught in schools is just one or two words per line. I think that’s great in first or second grade, but by the time students get to the third grade and definitely fourth grade, they are ready for a more mature version of acrostic poetry.
If you’d like a more mature acrostic poem for your students check out my Halloween Acrostic Poetry lesson. Your students will practice the writing process and learn about acrostic poetry.
- Grammar Happy Halloween Poems
Do your students ever struggle to understand the parts of speech or subject and predicate? That’s why I love this super simple Grammar Happy Halloween Poem. It’s not news to you that subject and predicate are related to nouns and verbs. By having your students write this simple poem they will start to understand both the subject and predicate relationship and how nouns and verbs work together.
- Magnetizing Kid Halloween Poems
Did you ever have a magnetic poetry set as a kid? My sister did and I was so jealous. Of course, as soon as I used it I lost pieces and none of the words were Halloween-themed. It was so much fun to take the like rectangles and try to make a poem or story out of them. I have spent hours creating these awesome Magnetizing Kid Halloween Poems inspired by my childhood magnetic poetry. It’s great as a digital activity but works as a printed resource too.
Students must use the words that they are giving to write a Halloween poem. It takes a lot of creativity and revising to create the poem you are thinking of with the word choices that are given. There are options for backgrounds and fonts. Students can use the digital “magnets” to write their poem or use the printable version, by cutting and pasting their poem. Each student will end up with a display-worthy Halloween poem.
- Halloween Poems That Rhyme
Picking a Halloween costume is a big decision for little kids. It’s so hard to pick just one costume and commit to it long enough for Halloween to come. So many kids switch the Halloween costume they want every couple of days. Their poor parents are trying to get everything ready on time and every time the costume is set to go their sweet child changes their mind. This debacle makes for a great rhyming poem. You can grab your own copy of Halloween Poems that Rhyme to make planning easy and Halloween fun.
- Onomatopeia Spooky Halloween Poetry
Spooky is part of the fun of Halloween and there is nothing spookier than the creaking sounds or the howl of the wind late at night on Halloween. In this Spooky Halloween Poetry students will embrace the sounds that scare them by incorporating them into poetry. Students will learn about Onomatopeia as required by state standards and enjoy writing this Spooky Halloween Poetry.
- Blackout Fun Halloween Poems
Blackout poetry has been trending the last few years. The title blackout just screams Halloween to me. Blackout poetry is when you take a page from an old book and blackout some of the words. The words that are left are your poem. It takes some planning before they use the sharpies and there will probably be a lot of terrible poems along the way, but what a challenge this could be for your class. Grab your ready-to-assign lesson of Blackout Fun Halloween Poems.
- Halloween Haiku Poems
Haiku poetry is from Japan originally. Traditionally haikus are about small moments in nature. Haikus are characterized by their three lines and syllable pattern 5-7-5. I always had trouble counting syllables and I’m sure some of your students do too. They can practice syllable work while writing descriptive Halloween Haiku Poems. Try to have them focus on a small moment from their Halloween night. They can even focus on the nature part of it if you want.
- Concrete Shape Halloween Night Poems
Concrete poetry or shape poetry is when the poet fits their poem in a specific shape. It doesn’t have to rhyme, follow syllables, or anything. It can simply be the shape filled with a repeating word. This doesn’t mean that you can’t create more requirements for your students to learn a writing skill, but you don’t have to. If there is a writing skill you have in mind that you’d like to teach but haven’t found it in the other Halloween Writing Prompts, then this is the lesson for you. Concrete or shape poetry has the flexibility to allow you to teaching writing and language skills while embracing Halloween.
Engaging Poetry Halloween Writing Prompts
There is such a variety of poetry Halloween writing prompts to choose from. Once you decide what writing skill you want to teach it’s easy to pick the prompt that’s right for you. You can embrace the crazy fun of Halloween and skill teach some academic skills.
More Halloween Writing Tips
If you are looking for Halloween story prompts or writing tips I’ve got some links that I’ve picked out just for you.
- 20 Halloween Writing Prompts for Kids
- What’s the Best Process and Prompts for Writing Poetry in the Classroom? will walk you through how to bring your poetry lesson idea into a ready to teach prompt in three easy steps.
Here is Your FREE Prompt for Writing Poetry
Halloween is just one day of the year and your writing projects are probably only for the week or two before. Here is a poetry writing lesson for FREE to help you kickstart poetry in your classroom. My Our School Poem guides students through using sensory language to describe their school. The step-by-step directions guide your class through the writing process with all the necessary worksheets make this the perfect lesson for your classroom.