Spook-tacular Halloween Literacy Activities for Upper Elementary: Supporting IB PYP ATL Skills
There isn't much as scary as Halloween in the elementary classroom! You either love it or hate it! π Whatever your feelings about Halloween, brace yourself and keep the inquiry flowing with these skills-based learning tools I have for you. And all perfectly aligned for your upper elementary IB PYP classroom.
Thinking & Communication Skills through Literacy
Halloween is the perfect time to bring a little magic to your classroom and engage students with creative, spooky literacy activities. By integrating Halloween-themed tasks into your learning environment, you can provide meaningful experiences that foster critical Approaches to Learning (ATL) skills, such as thinking, communication and social skills; key elements of our IB PYP framework. Below, we explore some eerie-sistible πHalloween literacy activities that will make your planning easier.
1.Spooky Story Starters for Creative Writing _Thinking & Communication Skills
Get your students’ imaginations howling with a Halloween-themed creative writing activity using spooky story starters! You can create a list of prompts, like:
- “The old, abandoned house at the end of the street has been empty for years, but on Halloween night, strange lights begin to flicker in the windows…
- “Late one Halloween night, you hear a faint whisper from the shadows, calling your name…”
- “You and your friends dared each other to enter the haunted forest, but once inside, you realize you are not alone…”
Story Elements: Your students can use these prompts to craft their own spooky tales. To strengthen creative thinking skills, guide students to map out their stories using a graphic organiser, focusing on characters, plot, and setting. As they build suspense and create rich, descriptive scenes, they’ll practice:
- analysing and synthesizing information
- sequencing
- developing main idea & supporting details
- developing plot & structure
- creative thinking
Communication & Social Skills: Encourage students to share their finished stories by reading them aloud to their peers, practicing communication skills such as speaking with expression and active listening. To take this a step further, pair students up to provide constructive feedback on each other’s work. This reinforces collaboration and reflective feedback as they work together to improve their stories.
Build A Story: For a ready-to-go resource, check out Halloween Build-A Story for Creative Writing This activity is packed with prompts and ideas that will fire up your students' creativity!
2. Halloween Drama Circle & Reader’s Theatre: Collaboration & Social Skills
Drama circles and Reader’s Theatre is a great way to boost reading fluency, expression, and collaboration. And it is SO much fun! My Readers' Theatre with props collection adds to the engagement as the children create their own props to add to their drama. By using a Halloween-themed script, you’ll captivate your students and keep them engaged while they develop their reading skills in addition to social and communication skills. You can find spooky scripts or ask students to transform their own ghost stories into plays. The Teddy Bears' Halloween Picnic is a hilarious option I created for my grade 4s.
As students work together in small groups, they’ll practice so many skills:
- creative thinking
- collaboration
- taking on different roles
- rehearsing
- speaking & listening
- giving each other feedback.
Encourage students to reflect on their social skills, such as being respectful and supportive during rehearsals.
The dramatic format will also help students enhance their verbal expression and again build their communication skills. Consider staging a Halloween Theatre with spooky lighting and sound effects to make it extra fun!
3.Spooky Vocabulary Challenge: Communication & Thinking Skills
Vocabulary is a critical part of literacy, and what better way to expand it than with spooky Halloween words? Create a vocabulary list featuring Halloween-themed words like eerie, sinister, phantom, ghastly, and crypt. Use these words to play fun, competitive games like:
Spooky Word Scavenger Hunt: Students search for the words in Halloween stories, poems, or their writing. They write down the definitions and use each word in a sentence. This text analysis supports the ATL Thinking skills - critical thinking.
Bury Those Boring Words
For a ready-to-go spooky literacy challenge, bury the boring words and put them to rest! This is a fun learning experience that includes engaging games and craftivities to build upon the skills of improving vocabulary and identifying synonyms.
4. Getting Creative with Grammarπ
Grammar can be tricky to integrate. We want to focus on the concepts of function, form & connection and then find creative ways to apply these important literacy skills such as identifying cause and effect within text.
Ghoulish Games of Cause & Effect π»
These literacy games are designed for collaborative thinking and are differentiated to allow you to accommodate your class needs. The interactive notebook activities increase the rigor when the children have to create their own cause for a stated effect and their own effects for specified causes. Making literacy fun, these can be a great addition to your centers or guided reading groups.
Take a look at these popular tools: π
5. Spine-Chilling Book Clubs: Social & Research Skills
Book clubs are a fun way to encourage collaborative learning around Halloween-themed stories. Choose spooky books like Coraline by Neil Gaiman or The Graveyard Book and get students talking about the plot, characters, and setting. Literature circles are a great way to bring these mini book clubs to life and to encourage collaborative conversations. I learned about this effective strategy from the great Stephanie Harvey. You can watch this video for ideas for getting literature circles started in your classroom.
Going further: To deepen the inquiry, have students research the author or the genre, exploring what makes the stories so suspenseful. This promotes research skills as students investigate and discuss their findings.
Inquiry-Based Maths Projects: Design a Haunted House
For an inquiry-based math project that ties into the Halloween theme, challenge students to design their own haunted house! This is a fun and challenging project for grades 4 & 5. Using research skills and their knowledge of geometry, area, and measurement, students plan where in the world their house will be and then can create a floor plan of a spooky mansion, calculating the size of each room and ensuring everything fits together.
Add an extra layer of complexity by having students budget for Halloween decorations or haunted house props, fostering financial literacy. This activity promotes:
- problem-solving
- creative thinking
- critical analysis
- perseverance
- presentation skills
as students design and present their haunted house plans.
Skulls, Skeletons & Skills Maths Inquiry: Thinking & Research Skillsβ οΈ
Another high-engagement maths inquiry: This project is perfect for a grades 3-5 measure project and inquiry into the human body or even for Halloween. This week long inquiry based math project focuses on the form and function of the human skeletal system and how it compares with the skeletons of other organisms. It offers collaborative learning and hands on inquiry requiring the children to solve problems, think critically and apply their knowledge of measure with hands on application. 
Halloween-themed activities don’t just add fun to your classroom; they support the development of essential ATL skills. From creative writing and poetry to collaborative research based maths projects, these activities help students grow as thinkers, communicators, and inquirers—all while embracing the spooky spirit of the season!
Embrace the momentary madness and enjoy the season! Good luck to you!π
P.S. YOU CAN FIND THE ENTIRE HALLOWEEN COLLECTION IN MY TPT STORE.
