Its officially Halloween month, you can’t go anywhere without bumping into scary skeletons and creepy costumes donning each and every shop you visit.
As the colder weather seeps in, it is impossible to avoid the festivities that have become so popular, especially in more recent years. Instead of fighting it, why not embrace it and involve your class in some freakishly fun learning?
1. Halloween based writing in English
If you teach English, why not encourage your class to write their very own original Halloween stories. Get them in the spirit, the creepier, the better but obviously make it age appropriate, we don’t want you primary school class having nightmares!
Get them all to really think about things like building atmosphere and tension in their writing and give points for spooky descriptive language, metaphors and similes.
To start off the class, why not read some extracts from some classic creepy novels like Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’, Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’ or even use some newer examples like Stephen King’s ‘IT’ or ‘Pet Semetary’.
Again, for younger classes, it might be a good idea to pick some more lighthearted Halloween-themed children’s books and encourage them to think about humour and the importance of it in the stories. Pick your favourites and share them with your students to give them some inspiration.
Get a conversation going about what they think makes the particular books or extracts scary and eerie and get the students to discuss amongst themselves before trying their hand at penning something themselves.
2. Creepy drawings and pumpkin carving fun in Art
Teach art? Easy-peasy-pumpkin-squeasy, literally! Get your class to carve their own pumpkins but with a ‘terrifying’ twist. No standard pumpkins designs allowed, the most creative one wins and double points if they manage to incorporate a style of a famous artist into their masterpieces.
Get them to make their pumpkin designs contemporary, pop art, art deco or expressionism themed. Or if they want to focus on recreating a famous work of art, why not try a carving of The Scream Edvard Munch, if they want to go a little more modern why not get carving a freaky fiend like Jason, Freddy or Pennywise?
If you teach smaller children then maybe pumpkin carving is not such a good idea, but you can get them to do their own creepy drawings of haunted houses, bats, pumpkins and ghostly ghouls. More points for colour and detail and links to what you are studying within art that term or lesson.
3. Make some scary-looking experiments in Science
Everyone likes making potions, if you’re teaching a science class and are looking to make it a little more halloween-ified then get your students to (safely!) mix (again safe!) ingredients to make the creepiest looking potion or concoction. Try and get the mixture to look as spooky as possible and teach the class how to get the liquid to separate so its all different colours. The brighter and radioactive looking, the better, but obviously use safe ingredients like juice or food colouring, and nothing that will cause any real life halloween horror situations.
4. Teach about eeiry urban legends in History
Take a break from the norms of history teaching to incorporate the very scariest or creepiest urban legends into your lesson. Do some research on famous but also little known creepy goings on and create a debate afterwards about if the class think that the legends are true and how you can differentiate between factual things that have happened and things that are built on partial fiction.
Ask for your student’s own urban legends and input. You could also go way back to the start of halloween as a ‘holiday’ and teach your children about where the idea came about, why, and how different cultures celebrate in different ways. Some people don’t know the origin of the spookiest holiday so do some research yourself and revolve your class around this.
5. Act out favourite horror scene from a classic in Drama
Drama is perfect for bringing the scariest stories to life. Get your class to get into small groups and act out their favourite horror scene from a horror movie or book. Extra points for their own twists and interpretations of the scene. Get each group to perform to the rest of the class at the end of the lesson and vote on which one you all love the best.
So, there you have it, some super spooky ideas for your class to enjoy this halloween. Hope you can find something that can appeal to both you and your class.
