Needing a Halloween writing lesson that builds important ELA skills? Here is a haunted house writing lesson for you!
Halloween Writing Kids Will Scream About
This Halloween writing lesson, ‘In the Haunted House,’ helps students build their vocabulary, use their senses, and practice their writing skills.
Prewriting
We started the Halloween haunted house writing lesson by using our imaginations and brainstorming Halloween words that we would see in a haunted house. We devise a list of things we see, hear, and feel on that spooky October 31st night. I record our ideas on this anchor chart I created to look like a haunted house. The original anchor chart is from Fabulous in First.
This anchor chart helps students when it is time to write their sentences for their Halloween haunted house writing. We use this Halloween vocabulary list as a reference.
Process
We create our Halloween sentences on this writing template that starts each sentence with “In the Haunted House, I saw a …” For the first four sentences, they have to fill in a word or two from our vocabulary poster. For example, “In the Haunted House, I saw a cat on the roof.”
We also practice and build their knowledge of positional words. For each sentence we complete, we must illustrate its position in the haunted house.
There are also two complete sentences to write, including their Halloween vocabulary and positional words.
This is a valuable writing activity, even if it is a Halloween writing piece in my class, because students choose their words from the ready-made list and feel successful at it. We also make sure to end our sentences with periods.
They also like being able to add the gruesome and spooky creatures and characters that kids love to their writing and pictures.
Once their sentences and pictures are complete, they can colour their haunted house Halloween pictures. We usually hang our writing with some Halloween crafts and decor in the classroom.
FREE Halloween Writing: Haunted House
Interested in completing this Halloween writing activity in your classroom? You can download a FREE ‘In the Haunted House’ writing template pack HERE.
Halloween Activities Pack
Are you seeking engaging, educational activities like this Halloween writing to add to your October lesson plans? This Halloween Fun Pack is filled with no-prep worksheets, classroom group games, math activities, literacy, reading, and poetry activities, a science experiment, and two crafts to be used all month.
Make incorporating engaging, standard-based Halloween activities a breeze with this ready-to-use thematic resource.
More Halloween Learning Activities
Halloween Classroom Activities
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I can’t access the first haunted house activity shown here. It’s not in the pdf.
The pdf contains a variation of the template seen above.
I home school, I love this idea so much. I know it’s similar to what teachers usually do but I think what made it click for me is the conjunction with sentences, and that the kids feel confident using vocabulary they decided on. Truly appreciate this post and the template.
You are so welcome! Happy Halloween!