Halloween Activities for Middle School Classes
Young Secondary Students Can Enjoy Halloween Without Dressing Up
Oct 19, 2008
Middle school students will push boundaries on dressing up for Halloween, so schools rarely allow costumes at school. Even if there was time for a class party, a teacher can't host parties in all day. Students would end up attending six different parties, eating junk food, and never break out a pencil. Instead of following the elementary lead of costumes and a short party, it is more appropriate for middle school teachers to use Halloween as a time to improve classroom dynamics. Students can have fun and do a little bit of learning, too.
Preparing Students for Halloween at the Middle School Level
Teachers need to stress the change in routine for middle school students. After years of dressing up and having parent-hosted parties, it may not occur to students that secondary schools follow handle holidays differently. Teachers should explain that they are in a larger school, and not all students are comfortable with the scary side of Halloween, but other students are bored of the childish side of Halloween.
Then, teachers should help students understand that middle school schedules are not designed to be as flexible as they are in elementary school. At this point, students will be desperate to hear a magical "however" so they can be assured of having a little fun on the first big holiday of the school year, and teachers should say, "However, we will still be doing something special because we are just finished with the first quarter of school."
Decorating Classrooms and Hallways with Student Work
Because of the number of students, teachers cannot hang up 120 Jack-O-Lanterns, but teachers can have small pumpkins, leaves, bats and other fall/Halloween symbols and use them to decorate classrooms. Doing a search for "Halloween coloring sheets" or "Halloween printables" will lead to usable results. Familyfun.com's Halloween printables is reliable source for Halloween patterns; Suite101 also offers ideas. Teachers can create bulletin boards or hallway signs that allow the images to be grouped and displayed.
Suggestions for Using Halloween Templates
Using the patterns, students simply write something they have learned about in class that fits the theme of the picture. For example, a teacher could create a bulletin board that says, "Ideas that Fly". Students could use bat, witch, or ghost pictures and write one thing they learned in class so far that they would want to learn more about. Here are additional ideas:
- Tombstones – Each student writes a cliche that will no longer be used in writing. This can become the Cliche Graveyard.
- Pumpkins – Each student writes about something they are curious about within the content area of the classroom. This can become the Growing Thoughts Pumpkin Patch.
- Leaves – Leaves can be used in a variety of ways. Teachers can make a play on the word "leave", or use a content area word and put the leaves together on a tree. If students write about "One thing I learned in this class is", teachers can create a subject-area tree. Language Arts work can be displayed on a Poet-Tree (Poetry). Math shapes can be displayed on a Geomet-tree (Geometry). Subjects can also become their own tree, and the display can be a Geography Tree or a Science Tree.
Allowing students to eat Halloween candy and share their work is fun, and students can hang their work in the hallway or classroom in the appropriate area. This helps activity will help students reflect on what they have learned thus far during the year, and also acknowledge that Halloween is a fun day in the lives of students.
Optional Halloween Classroom Activities
If there isn't time in the day to offer activities, teachers might want to offer some holiday-inspired fun sheets for students to use when they are done with assignments. Even though students are older, they still enjoy word-searches, crosswords, and other "fun-day" activities. Discoveryeducation.com allows teachers to make customizable printouts, and teachers can decorate the copies with Halloween decorations.
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