As a teacher, October is one of my favorite months of the school year. Students have settled into their classroom routines, cooler temps let us learn outside, and the bright colors of fall bring new inspiration for all of us.
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The autumn backdrop and, of course, Halloween give ELA teachers plenty of alternative options for lesson planning. It is a great time to add differentiation to your reading and writing lessons and assess how each student learns best. If you are looking for some fresh activities, I’ve created several language arts resources for October and Halloween to try with middle school students.
Halloween Reader’s Theater Scripts
Practice fluency and reading comprehension in a fun way with reader’s theater! The Happy Halloween That Almost Wasn’t is the perfect reader’s theater and reading literature toolkit for this festive time of year. Your students will love reading about the characters of Parkersburg Elementary School and how their Halloween traditions and celebrations were canceled, then reconsidered due to some thoughtful 6th-grade brainpower.
See full description on TPT.
If you are looking to tie more classical literature into your Halloween activities, The Tell-Tale Heart is an excellent choice. This reader’s theater adaptation of this scary tale will get your students thinking more deeply as they take on the roles of the narrator, the old man, and the police officer.
October Close Reading Passages
Do your students need more work with close reading to enhance their comprehension of reading passages? These October Close Reading Passages are an ideal reading tool for your students this fall. Use them for weekly reading homework, center work, read-to-self, read-to-someone, whole-class strategy work, small-group work, or one-on-one intervention.
See full description on TPT.
Halloween Novel Study Units
The Best Halloween Ever may be the most FUN book for October! This realistic fiction novel follows a group of students at Woodrow Wilson School who can’t participate in Halloween festivities around town because of poor choices by some of their peers. The school decides to hold an alternative event, which leads to more potential mischief. Your students will love reading about how the plot unfolds.
See full description on TPT.
Pleasing the Ghost is about Dennis, a boy who can see and communicate with ghosts. He gets a special visit from the ghost of Uncle Arvie, who has “three pleases” he wants Dennis to help him with. You can read this book in no time, but it also works well as a small-group novel to tackle with 3rd and 4th grade on-level readers as well as 5th and 6th grade intervention readers.
See full description on TPT.
October ELA Free PDF Download!
The Harvest Moon is a concept your students may have heard of but may not know much about. In this 2-page, 6-character realistic fiction script, your students will learn a bit about this autumnal event. If you are looking for a quick script to enhance student comprehension, fluency, writing, and word work, this is the perfect “Fun Friday” resource.
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