Halloween in a middle school classroom is a battle against attention spans that vanish before lunch. After many years of teaching ELA, I’ve found the trick is to embrace the holiday! I lean in with a Halloween reader’s theater script that keeps students reading, talking, and thinking, and still counts as REAL instruction.
Emergency ELA Sub Plans
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If you are looking for an engaging Halloween activity for middle school students, check out my Halloween reader’s theater script and toolkit. Depending on your readers’ level, this script works for grades 4 through 8. It offers an easy way to incorporate Common Core standards while also enjoying some Halloween fun!
The Happy Halloween That Almost Wasn’t
The Happy Halloween That Almost Wasn’t tells the story of the characters at Parkersburg Elementary School and how their Halloween celebration was canceled, then reconsidered thanks to some thoughtful 6th-grade brainpower!
In addition to the 5-page, 11-character story script, the lesson plans include reader response questions with prompts to cite evidence from the text. It has a context clue worksheet for vocabulary words in the text and journal prompts you can use for writing or classroom discussions. You can utilize this as a whole-class activity or break your students into smaller groups and assign them separate spaces to perform concurrently.
What’s Included in the Halloween Reader’s Theater Toolkit
- 5 1/2-page script with 11 speaking parts
- Reader response questions that ask students to cite evidence from the text
- Context clue word work for vocabulary
- Storyline summary organizer
- 3 post-reading journal prompts
- Bonus pumpkin close reading passage
- Answer key
If you haven’t tried reader’s theater with your middle school students, this is the perfect resource to try! Halloween themes are usually “easy wins” with big kids, and this resource will help you tie some seasonal fun back to purposeful reading and writing work.
3 Ways to Use This Halloween ELA Activity
Whole class: Assign the 11 parts and perform it together, then move into the questions and word work.
Two casts: Split your crew into two groups so EVERY student gets a part, and let them perform in separate spaces at the same time. One teacher review mentioned: “I could divide the class into two groups, and everyone had a part to play.”
Teachers love my scripts and toolkits for how flexible they are. You won’t need any additional books or resources. Everything required for the lesson is included in a single printable PDF download. You don’t even need to read these scripts aloud as a group. Use them as emergency sub plans and simply have your students read the story and complete the comprehension questions.
Bonus: A Halloween T-Shirt Craftivity
As a bonus, I included a short, close-reading passage about pumpkins, along with reader-response questions and a context-clue worksheet that uses vocabulary from the reading passages.
Finally, if you are looking to connect the story to a craft activity, the lesson plans include a Halloween T-Shirt Making Craftivity and a recipe for a “Spooky Snack Sack.” This craftivity came from the story, where the characters come up with an alternative to buying expensive costumes. They decide that repurposing old T-shirts into Halloween wear is a better alternative.
Using an old pajama shirt, fabric scraps, ribbon, and steam-a-seam, I came up with what I think looks like a fairly recognizable Frankenstein.
If you are looking for a fun way to celebrate Halloween while also staying on task, this reader’s theater fun pack is the way to go! Your week of instruction will be planned, and students will have a blast working on this together.
More Halloween Ideas for Big Kids
You can find more of my favorite October activities to use with middle school students in this post: October ELA Favorites for Middle School
Need a few more no-prep shorter options for the week? Grab my free Halloween ELA printables for middle school.
