Halloween is an exciting time of year for your students and one of the bigger holidays at the beginning of the school year. Your students are likely going trick-or-treating, getting dressed up, and maybe going to a party. Excitement should be expected. However, in most schools teachers are still expected to teach academic lessons. How do we accomplish both embracing a holiday most of our students love and teaching what needs to be taught? Turn them into Halloween writers.
Do All Schools Want Halloween Writers?
I have worked in several schools during my career. We don’t have a teacher shortage in my area of the US, a long-term teaching job is hard to come by. Some schools I’ve worked at have an antibias policy, meaning they don’t celebrate any holidays so they don’t exclude people. Other schools I’ve been at have had Halloween parades so the kids get to share their costumes. The last school I worked at had a whole school Halloween party. The high schoolers would organize games for the younger kids. The kids would travel with their groups to each activity. The groups were a mix of different grades. The kids loved this party.
Halloween Writers in Your Classroom
Different schools have different levels of celebration. It’s hard to know which holidays to celebrate and which ones to ignore. It’s all about knowing who your students are. There are ways to celebrate a holiday without fully engaging in it. For example, you could read some thriller or suspenseful stories as a genre study and it could have nothing to do with Halloween. If your whole class celebrates Halloween then you should embrace the holiday as much as the school will let you, but if you have students who don’t celebrate then try to get creative so that no one is excluded.
What are Halloween Writers?
Halloween writers are anyone who writes about Halloween. They can write Halloween stories or poetry. Halloween writers can answer writing prompts or write what they imagine. Halloween writers may also decide to write in the horror, thriller, mystery, or suspense genre rather than writing a story directly related to the holiday. Halloween writers produce high-quality pieces of writing that help them celebrate this holiday.
More Halloween Writer Tips
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How to Create Halloween Writers in Your Classroom
Our students can become stupendous Halloween writers with a little guidance from us. Halloween writing is fun by nature because Halloween is intended to be a fun holiday. Our students are excited about so many things and we can encourage them to put those strong feelings into their writing.
These are a few Halloween lessons that you can teach before Halloween. These are great assignments because you can still teach writing and allow your students to channel their Halloween energy into their writing. Writing about the holiday they are excited about is how we create Halloween Writers.
- Blackout Fun Halloween Poems for Halloween Writers
Have you heard of blackout poetry? Blackout poetry is when the writer takes the work of another writer and blacks out a lot of words. The words that are left are the new poem. I love the challenge of using another writer’s vocabulary to write something new.
In this lesson, students use the works and words of Edgar Allen Poe to create blackout poetry. There are several story options that your students can pick from to turn themselves into Halloween writers. It will be a hard, interesting, and fun challenge to write a blackout poem for Halloween. These also look awesome when put on display.
- Halloween Haiku Poems for Halloween Writers
Haiku poetry originated in Japan. These poems focused on small moments in time about nature, such as a leaf falling from a tree. They are three lines long, that’s it. Haikus are most famous for their syllable count of 5-7-5. Writers must use descriptive language and conciseness in haiku poetry.
In our modern world haiku poetry can be about any topic. They are great for teaching syllables, descriptive language, small moments, and conciseness. Turn your students into Halloween writers through haiku poetry. You will be able to teach academic skills while embracing the holiday.
- Halloween Rhyming Poem for Halloween Writers
Rhyming poetry usually comes out pretty funny, which is why it’s one of my favorite forms of poetry to write with kids. Kids love engaging in silly assignments. It’s nice to take a break from writing serious pieces and think about the silly things that happen during Halloween. Let students take silly Halloween moments or make up a Halloween story to tell through poetry.
In Halloween Rhyming Poem students will practice rhyming patterns, which challenges them to use their vocabulary differently. They will get to celebrate a favorite holiday while practicing their writing.
- Acrostic Halloween Poems for Halloween Writers
Acrostic poems are the most common type of poem I see teachers write with their students. They are easy to plan and fast to complete, which makes them a great choice for the busy teacher. Acrostic poems are when there is a base word (usually written down the left side of the paper) and each line starts with a letter from the base word. It can be as simple as one word on each line.
Once students hit 4th grade I like to challenge what they’ve been taught about acrostic poetry. I trade in the simple acrostic for a more mature version of an acrostic poem. I ask my students to write full sentences instead of just one or two words. I also allow them to have their sentences go over several lines of the poem. The result is a more mature acrostic. Sometimes they are simply descriptive, while other times students tell stories.
In this Acrostic Halloween Poem, students write an acrostic about Halloween. I usually ask them to think about their experiences during Halloween to help them shape their poem. My lesson walks students through the writing process so they are practicing each step, even in a short poem.
- Spooky Halloween Poems for Halloween Writers
When I go for a walk at night and hear a noise I wonder what it is. I look around trying to figure it out in the dark. It spooks me and sounds have the power to do that. This poem is built on Halloween sounds.
Spooky Halloween Poems is a great way to review what onomatopoeias are with your students and use them in poetry. Students will have to focus in on the sense of sound to write about the funny or scary Halloween sounds they think of.
- Spooky Halloween Poems for Halloween Writers
When I go for a walk at night and hear a noise I wonder what it is. I look around trying to figure it out in the dark. It spooks me and sounds have the power to do that. This poem is built on Halloween sounds.
Spooky Halloween Poems is a great way to review what onomatopoeias are with your students and use them in poetry. Students will have to focus in on the sense of sound to write about the funny or scary Halloween sounds they think of.
- Kids Halloween Poems for Halloween Writers
Did you have a magnetic poetry kit as a kid? It was so much fun to move the words around to try to create sentences and poems. It’s interesting to write with a given vocabulary, rather than what we create.
This Halloween magnetic poetry project is sure to make your students Halloween writers. It’s so cool to have them create magnetic poetry all about Halloween. Your students can write digitally or by hand in this assignment. I love the final project that teachers can hang in the hallway so everyone can see these magnetic poems.
- Happy Halloween Poems for Halloween Writers
Short and simple is always great. These grammar poems are short and simple but they also help students practice valuable writing skills. Students practice putting together subjects and predicates to help the reader imagine a story. As students get better at these poems they might see that even with two words on a line they can tell a story.
Happy Halloween poems practice subject, predicate, and conciseness. It’s also nice to have students complete a short writing project for a grade. It helps their scores and reduces your grading load. Help them celebrate Halloween by making it the topic of their grammar poems.
- What is History of Halloween? for Halloween Writers
Do you know how Halloween came to be a holiday? You probably have some ideas, but it’s doubtful that you or your students know the origins of Halloween. If it’s a holiday that we celebrate then we should know where it came from and how it transformed into the modern version we participate in.
This is a short history-based research project. It’s great for older students to learn how Halloween started. This research project walks your students through the writing process from step one.
- Halloween Writing Prompt for Halloween Writers
My fourth-grade students loved writing about the Halloween class party. You give your students an invitation to the Halloween Class Party. The catch is it is at the haunted graveyard at midnight on Halloween. Let their imaginations run wild. Students can write a realistic party or a wild one.
Some students are very literal and sensitive. Be sure to tell your students that this is a writing assignment and just pretend. They are not going to a haunted graveyard on Halloween.
- Activity for Halloween for Halloween Writers
Fun bell ringer or early finisher activities are great for Halloween, and I’ve got an awesome one for you. This activity is similar to a crossword puzzle. Students are given one word and have to fill in the rest of the words that are built off of it. It’s easier than the usual crossword puzzle so it’s great practice for them to learn crossword wordplay. There are several puzzles that are different in difficulty. It’s the perfect activity for Halloween day or a few days before.
Final Help for Creating Halloween Writers
All of my lessons layout the writing process so students can practice and become familiar with it. Too often we do the steps for them, so I try to introduce them to the steps in every lesson so learn and start to internalize the process.
All of these lesson ideas are already done for you if you’d rather head over to my TpT store and pick out your favorite. Most of these lessons are offered in digital or printable versions.
Here is Your FREE Prompt for Writing Poetry
I know that you needed a prompt to help kickstart your students’ writing. Here is an entire lesson for FREE. 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 making this the perfect lesson for your classroom.