The Ultimate Halloween Lesson Plan
Spooky season is here! Halloween is creeping up on us and we’re ready for some chiling content. We’re doing things a little differently in this blog, and giving you an entire Halloween lesson plan! From ice breaker to finisher, we’ve covered everything so you can bring the spooky to your session.
Lesson: Halloween in the Classroom
Objective: To expose and familiarise students with Halloween related vocabulary while practicing listening and writing skills.
Level: Pre-intermediate
Length: 60 minutes
Activity 1: Introduce the topic (s-t);
10 mins. Write the word Halloween on the board. You could also put a few Halloween related images on the board. Go round the room and ask students what they know about Halloween, what it is, and if they know of any Halloween traditions. As a warm up activity, ask students to find as many words as they can within the word Halloween - lean, hello, hole, wean, etc. Feedback as a class.
Activity 2 -A Halloween Story (s, s-t):
20-25 mins. As a class, watch a video of a spooky Halloween story (make sure to consider the age of your students). Think of some questions related to the video and put them on a worksheet. Have students watch the video to find the answers. You can play the video multiple times. Feedback as a class. This is a good example of a video, but a simple search for “Halloween ESL video” on YouTube should bring up lots of results. Questions could be:
Which of Boo’s friends was stirring a spell?
Which character turns into a Bat at night?
Activity 3 - My Halloween Costume (s):
25 mins. Put some pictures of Halloween costumes on the board (bats, cats, witches, ghosts, pumpkins, zombies, etc.) Have a brief discussion with students about which is their favourite and why. Give each student a piece of A3 card, some colouring pens/pencils, and some other craft materials if they’re available. Have students design their own Halloween costume. They can design anything they like, but they must annotate on the design of each element and why they’ve chosen it. They should describe it, including its colours, texture and size.
Consolidation - Mind Map (s):
5 mins. Give each student a piece of paper with the word Halloween in the middle. Have them write down as much Halloween related vocabulary as they can and feedback.
Extension - Halloween word search (s):
10 mins. If you find you have extra time at the end of the lesson, give students a Halloween word search. They must find all of the Halloween related vocabulary.
We hope you found this lesson plan useful. You can find the resources for this lesson plan, another full lesson plan and lots of great information about Halloween in the ESL classroom in our Ultimate Halloween Teaching Pack.
