5 spooky ideas for your primary classes this Halloween

Joanna Wiseman
Children in halloween costumes stood in a hallway with a adult

It¡¯s almost Halloween, and the ghosts and vampires will soon be coming out to play. Did you know that although we often associate Halloween with pumpkin carving and eating candy, the festival has much older origins??

is an ancient Gaelic festival that celebrates the end of the harvest and the start of winter. This is why people often associate the colors of orange and black with Halloween: orange is the color many leaves turn in autumn and black is the color of the darker winter months.

People used to believe that spirits walked the Earth on the night of Samhain. The tradition of dressing up as ghosts and demons started as a way to hide from the spirits who walked the streets. Similarly, people used to leave treats outside their houses for the spirits and from this came the tradition of trick-or-treating.

So to help get your younger students in the Halloween spirit, here are five spooky ideas to try in your primary classes.?

1. ¡®Pumpkin¡¯ oranges

Pumpkin carving is fun - but it¡¯s also messy and pumpkins can be really heavy. Instead, bring in an orange for each student and give them a black marker pen. Get them to draw a scary face on their orange and then write a short text describing it.?

My pumpkin orange, Ghoulie, has two big eyes. He¡¯s got a small nose and a big mouth, with lots of teeth. This Halloween, he¡¯s going to sit outside my house. He¡¯s going to scare people but he doesn¡¯t scare me. I think he¡¯s very funny.

2. Bat fishing

This is a great way to practice questions and review language with your younger students. Have your students cut out bat shapes on card and tell them to write a question on the back of each one. They can write personal information questions, such as ¡®What do you eat for breakfast?¡¯ or questions related to topics you¡¯re studying at the moment, like ¡®How do you spell dinosaur?¡¯?

Attach a paper clip to each bat and put them on the floor, with the questions face down. Then attach a magnet to a piece of string.

Divide the class into teams and have students take turns to fish a bat from the floor. When they catch a bat using the magnet, a student from another team asks them the question written on the bat. If the team can answer correctly, they keep the bat. If they don¡¯t answer correctly, the bat goes back on the floor.

When all the bats have been fished, the team with the most wins.?

3. Haunted house dictation

This is a good activity to review prepositions of place and house vocabulary. Before you start, elicit some scary things from the students, such as ghost, spider, witch, zombie. If these words are new for your students, draw a picture dictionary on the board for them to refer to in the next stage.

Next, give students an outline of a house with the rooms labeled, but without any furniture. Then dictate a sentence to the students and have them draw what you say on their individual houses. For example, ¡®In the kitchen, there¡¯s a big cupboard. In the cupboard, there¡¯s a witch.¡¯ Or, ¡®In the living room, there¡¯s an old sofa. A zombie is sitting on the sofa.¡¯

You can then divide the class into pairs or small groups and have them take turns dictating sentences to each other. When they finish, they can compare their pictures and then write a short story about their haunted houses.?

4. Trick-or-treat board game

Draw a 7x5 grid on card and add Start and Finish squares. Number the other squares so the students know what direction to move in. Then, on some of the squares write Trick and on some of the other squares write Treat. Finally, prepare a set of ¡®trick¡¯ and ¡®treat¡¯ cards for each group. (There are some ideas for tricks and treats below).?

Before students play, teach them some phrases to use while playing the game. For example:

  • Whose turn is it?
  • It¡¯s my turn.
  • Roll the dice.
  • Who¡¯s winning?

Then divide the class into groups of four and give each group a board, a set of ¡®trick-or-treat¡¯ cards, a dice and a counter. Have them take turns to roll the dice and move. If they land on a Trick?or Treat square, they have to take a card and do what it says. Then they put the card at the bottom of the pile.?The winner is the first person to reach the Finish square.

Ideas for ¡®trick¡¯ cards

  • Go back 3 squares
  • Miss a turn
  • Go back to the start
  • Count down from 10 to 1 in English
  • Say the alphabet backwards (Z, Y, X¡­)
  • Laugh like a witch
  • Pretend to be a ghost

Ideas for ¡®treat¡¯ cards

  • Go forward two spaces
  • Roll again
  • Go forward five spaces
  • Choose someone to miss a turn

5. Spooky stories

Are your students bored of celebrating Halloween every year? Mix things up with stories or readers. Allowing their imagination to run wild. There are lots of you can use or get inspiration from, creating your own. If you want your pupils more involved you could also have them make or take part in your very own 'create your own adventure' spooky story.?

After reading the story, have your students create comic strips of different parts of the book and display them around the classroom. If your students prefer theatrics, get them to act out or sing parts of the story.?

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    Speakers: Approximately 1.5 billion

    Native speakers: Around 360 million

    Regions: Widely spoken in the Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia and Oceania.

    Highlights: English is the most widely spoken language worldwide when combining native and non-native speakers. It's the primary language in countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. English is the dominant language in international business, science and technology.

    2. Mandarin Chinese

    Speakers: Over 1.1 billion

    Native speakers: About 920 million

    Regions: Mainly in China, Taiwan and Singapore

    Highlights: Mandarin is the language with the largest number of native speakers. It's one of the six official languages of the United Nations and has a significant cultural and historical importance.

    3. Hindi

    Speakers: Around 600 million

    Native speakers: Approximately 341 million

    Regions: Predominantly in India and Nepal

    Highlights: Hindi is predominantly spoken in India and Nepal, with approximately 341 million native speakers. It is one of the official languages of India and is spoken by a large portion of the Indian population. It has numerous dialects and is written in the Devanagari script.

    4. Spanish

    Speakers: Approximately 560 million

    Native speakers: About 460 million

    Regions: Spain, Latin America and parts of the United States

    Highlights: Spanish is the official language in 21 countries and is widely spoken in the Americas. In many of these countries, Spanish serves as the national language, playing a crucial role in government, education and media. It¡¯s known for its rich literature and cultural heritage.

    5. French

    Speakers: Around 280 million

    Native speakers: About 77 million

    Regions: France, parts of Africa, Canada, Belgium and Switzerland

    Highlights: French is another of the six official languages of the United Nations. It's widely used in international diplomacy and has a significant number of speakers in Africa due to France's colonial history.

    6. Arabic

    Speakers: Approximately 270 million

    Native speakers: Around 310 million

    Regions: Middle East and North Africa

    Highlights: Arabic is a central Semitic language that is the liturgical language of Islam. It has many dialects, with Modern Standard Arabic being used in formal settings and media. Arabic has numerous spoken forms, with significant variations in dialects across different regions.

    7. Bengali

    Speakers: Around 265 million

    Native speakers: About 230 million

    Regions: Bangladesh and parts of India

    Highlights: Bengali is the official language of Bangladesh and the second most spoken language in India. Alongside other languages like Hindi and Urdu, Bengali plays a crucial role in the cultural and linguistic landscape of the region. It¡¯s known for its rich literary tradition.

    8. Portuguese

    Speakers: Approximately 220 million

    Native speakers: Around 220 million

    Regions: Brazil, Portugal and parts of Africa

    Highlights: Portuguese is mainly spoken in Brazil, which is the largest Portuguese-speaking country. It has a growing number of speakers in Africa.

    9. Russian

    Speakers: Around 258 million

    Native speakers: Approximately 154 million

    Regions: Russia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia

    Highlights: Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations and is widely spoken in the former Soviet Union countries.

    10. Japanese

    Speakers: Approximately 128 million

    Native speakers: Around 128 million

    Regions: Japan

    Highlights: Japanese is predominantly spoken in Japan and is known for its three writing systems¡ªHiragana, Katakana and Kanji. It has a rich cultural history and is influential in technology and entertainment.

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