As a teacher, October is one of my favorite months of the school year. Students have settled into their classroom routines, cooler temps mean learning can take place outside, and the bright colors of fall bring new sources of inspiration for all of us.
The autumn backdrop and, of course, Halloween give ELA teachers a lot of fun options for lesson planning. It is a great time to add differentiation to your reading and writing lessons and assess how each of your students 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 cancelled, then reconsidered due to some thoughtful 6th grade brain power.
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If you are looking to tie more classical literature into your Halloween activities, The Tell-Tale Heart is a great option. 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 offer an ideal reading tool for your students during this fall-filled time of year. Use for weekly reading homework, center work, read-to-self, read-to-someone, whole-class strategy work, small group, or one-on-one intervention.
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Halloween Novel Study Units
The Best Halloween Ever may be the most FUN book for October! It is a realistic fiction novel about a group of students that attend Woodrow Wilson School and will not be able to participate in Halloween festivities around town due to some 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.
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Pleasing the Ghost is about a boy, Dennis, who is able to 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 is a great 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 have no idea what it is all about. In this 2-page realistic fiction, 6-character script, your students will learn a bit of information 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.
Click Here to Download Freebie!
