Halloween lesson plan

“Happy Halloween!”

Special lesson Level 1 Age 3-5

Lesson plans for ESL kids teachers

Special lesson

Halloween

In this lesson, students are introduced to some well-known Halloween characters, learn a Halloween song, read a story about Halloween, make a Halloween mask and play lots of fun Halloween games.

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Age: 3-5 years
Time: 40 mins – 1 hour
Objectives: Recognize and identify 8 Halloween words and sing a Halloween song.
Structures: “Happy Halloween!“, “What’s this?”, “What noise does it make?”.
New vocabulary: Halloween, mask, ghost, monster, witch, black cat, wizard, mummy, bat, zombie.

Lesson materials

Flashcards:

Halloween flashcards: ghost, monster, witch, black cat, wizard, mummy, bat, zombie

Printables:

Happy Halloween reader worksheet
Halloween match-up worksheet

Songs:

Hello song
Goodbye song
10 Little witches

Readers:

Happy Halloween

Supplies:

name tags for each student
a glove puppet
[hide_on_uk]colored[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]coloured[/hide_on_us] crayons / pencils
Halloween decorations
paper plates with elastic straps (for masks)
mask decorations (e.g. glitter, felt, wool, stickers, colored card, tape, glue, etc.)
cushions (1 per student)
device to play the songs on

Notes:

In this lesson, students are introduced to some well-known Halloween characters, learn a Halloween song, read a story about Halloween, make a Halloween mask and play lots of fun Halloween games.

There is a craft and some activities that require some pre-class preparation (see these sections below: Set the atmosphere, Do “Halloween paper plate mask craft” and End with some fun Halloween activities).

Lesson procedure:

Warm up and maintenance:

1. Set the atmosphere and greetings
Let’s get the atmosphere of Halloween started right from the beginning of class.

Note:

Not too scary! Some of the activities in this lesson could be a little scary for younger students so make sure you get the right tone – fun and safe!

Before class, think about how you can make the room and lesson come to life. This all depends on your resources, but some ideas can be:

lights – turn off some lights and close curtains to make the room darker. Place some jack-o-lanterns around the room.
get some glow-in-the-dark stars and shapes and stick them around the walls
rearrange the furniture
have some eerie music playing in the background
hang decorations around the classroom, such as bats and ghost crafts (if you have other classes you can build up the decorations as you do crafts each lesson)
dress up as a Halloween character (if possible, one of the characters you are teaching in this lesson).
in a previous lesson ask your students (or their parents) to come to this lesson in Halloween fancy dress. This is great fun and you can have a fancy dress party during the lesson with prizes for best, scariest, funniest, etc.

Have everyone wait outside the classroom until it is time to go in. Stand at the door and as each student enters greet them by name and say, “Happy Halloween!” and have them reply “Happy Halloween”. Have everyone sit down, ready for the lesson to start.

2. Name tags
Before class, prepare some blank name tags (stickers or pin-on tags) and some cards, each with a student’s name written on clearly – students will use them to copy their names onto their name tags. Sit down with your students and lay out the name cards in front of you. Pick up each card and encourage the student to recognize his/her name. Do this for everyone.

Finally, have everyone take out a crayon or pencil and copy their name on their tags and stick them on.

Introduce glove puppet - greetings and introductions activity

3. Glove puppet greetings
Bring out your glove puppet bag and have everyone shout “Hello!“ into the bag until he wakes up and jumps out of the bag. Then model talking to the glove puppet …

Teacher: “Hello”, What’s your name?”
Puppet: “My name is…”.
Puppet: “How are you?”
Teacher: “I’m fine, thank you”.

… and then have the puppet say hello to each student and ask them the same questions. Then have the puppet ask any other questions practiced in previous lessons. Finally, go around saying “Goodbye” and “See you” before going back into the bag and back to sleep.

4. Sing the “Hello song”
Sit in a circle and sing the song (clap along or pat knees).

Lyrics for the “Hello song”

Hello, hello,
How are you today?
Hello, hello,
How are you today?

I’m fine, thank you,
I’m fine, thank you,
I’m fine, thank you,
And how about you?

Hello, hello,
How are you today?
I’m fine, thank you,
And how about you?

Gestures for the “Hello song”

These are quite straight forward. First time you play the song do the gestures and encourage everyone to do them with you.

Wave as you sing the “Hello, hello” parts.
Gesture to others as you sing, “How are you today?”
Point to yourself as you sing, “I’m fine, thank you”
Hand gesture towards another student as you sing, “And how about you?”.

[hide_on_uk]Short sample (members get full-length song):
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[hide_on_us]Short sample (members get full-length song):
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5. Homework check
Check each student’s homework that you set in the last lesson. Ask each student some questions about their homework worksheet (e.g. “What’s this?”, etc.), give lots of praise, and then put some kind of mark on the homework sheet (e.g. a sticker, a stamp or draw a smiley face).

Finally, tell your students to put their homework back into their bags.

6. Do “Exercise routine” activity
Say the following and have the students follow your lead:

“Stand up” (Teacher stands and so does everyone else)
“Hands up / hands down” (do 4 or 5 times)
“Jump” (4 or 5 times)
“Kick” (4 or 5 times)
“Run! / Stop!” (4 or 5 times)
“Turn around! / Stop!” (4 or 5 times)
“Wiggle” (a few seconds)
finally “Sit down”.

New learning and practice:

1. Teach new vocabulary: Halloween picture gallery
Before class, print out the flashcards for the Halloween characters you are going to teach: monster, witch, black cat, wizard, mummy, bat, zombie. Pin them around your classroom at your students’ eye level.

Have everyone walk around the classroom looking at each of the pictures – each time ask, “What’s this?”, chorus the vocab x3 and do actions and sounds with everyone (ask, “What noise does it make?”), as follows:

Do the Halloween picture gallery activity

ghost (Whooooooooo!)
monster (Rhhaaaaaa!)
witch (Cackle cackle!)
black cat (Meoooowwww!)
wizard (Ho ho hoooo!)
mummy (Grrrrrrrrrr!)
bat (Eeekk! Eeekk!)
zombie (Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!)

When finished, have everyone stand in the middle of the classroom and play “Picture touch”: shout out one of the vocabulary items and everyone has to run and touch the corresponding flashcard on the wall.

2. Do “Halloween paper plate mask craft”
Before class prepare enough paper plates for each student. They are going to make masks and wear them so you will also need elastic to keep the masks on.

Also prepare things for making the masks – [hide_on_uk]colored[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]coloured[/hide_on_us] pens, glitter, felt, wool, stickers, [hide_on_uk]colored[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]coloured[/hide_on_us] card, tape, glue, etc.

Put the class into groups and each group sits together. Give each group a different Halloween character flashcard (e.g. witch, zombie, etc.) and have them make a mask for that character.

3. Play “Halloween walk”
Everyone is going to play a game wearing their masks. First get the “ghosts” to stand up and show you how ghosts move around (saying “Whooooooo!”). Next get the monsters to stumble around going “Rhaaaaa!”, and so on.

Finally, get everyone to stand up and shout out instructions (e.g. “Move like a zombie!”) to get everyone to move around making the sound. Here are the sounds for each character:

ghost (Whooooooooo!)
monster (Rhhaaaaaa!)
witch (Cackle cackle!)
black cat (Meoooowwww!)
wizard (Ho ho hoooo!)
mummy (Grrrrrrrrrr!)
bat (Eeekk! Eeekk!)
zombie (Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!)

4. 5-minute play time
This is an optional segment that can be part of all your lessons at this level. Allow your students to play with any games or toys you have. If possible, use large tubs or boxes to hold the toys and bring them out for a few minutes each lesson. Tubs filled with animals, plastic fruit, building blocks, kitchen sets, plastic food, cars & vehicles, Mr. Potato Head dolls and so on.

Encourage your students to ask you for the toy they want to play with, circulate during the play time and ask students about their toys. It’s also a good opportunity for a quick rest room break!

5. Sing the “10 Little witches” song
This is a nice and simple song about witches for our students enjoy. It’s also a great review if you have covered counting up to 10 in previous lessons – if not, no need to worry, your students will enjoy dancing to the song!

Get everybody to stand up and tell them they are going to sing a Halloween song. First play the song and show everyone the finger actions – have them all try and follow along with you as you do the actions.

Then play again and get everyone to join in. It’s a very short song, so feel free to play multiple times if your students are enjoying it.

Lyrics for “10 little witches”

Verse 1:
1 little, 2 little, 3 little witches
4 little, 5 little, 6 little witches
7 little, 8 little, 9 little witches
10 little witches in a row.

Verse 2:
10 little, 9 little, 8 little witches
7 little, 6 little, 5 little witches
4 little, 3 little, 2 little witches
1 little witch on her own.

Gestures for “10 little witches”

This is very simple – have everyone stand up and hold their hands out with their fists clenched.
As the song counts up to 10 (verse 1) everyone holds up a finger for each witch – by the end of the verse all 10 fingers will be raised.
As the song counts down (verse 2) everyone closes their fingers until just one finger is left up.

[hide_on_uk]Short sample (members get full-length song):
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[hide_on_us]Short sample (members get full-length song):
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6. Read classroom reader “Happy Halloween!”
Before class, download and print off the reader “Happy Halloween!”. As you go through each page, point to the key vocabulary in each picture and elicit the Halloween characters and the sounds that each one makes. Encourage your students to get up and act out each of the characters that come up in the story, for example:

Teacher: (pointing at the ghost on page 2) What’s this?
Students: Ghost!
Teacher: Yes, that’s right … (reading) … “Suddenly, a ghost appeared!”. And what sound does a ghost make?
Students: Whooooooo!
Teacher: Oh yes, very scary! Emi, can you show us your ghost? … (Emi gets up and starts doing her ghost impression)… Brilliant! Now, everyone show me your ghost! … (everyone get up and does their ghost impressions)
etc.

Continue through the story, asking what all the characters are. Get the students really involved in the story by asking lots of questions (e.g. about the [hide_on_uk]colors[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colours[/hide_on_us], clothes and other objects in the pictures) and even ask yes/no questions about what each character is, for example:

Teacher: (pointing at the monster on page 3) Is this a mummy?
Students: No! It’s a monster!
Teacher: Oh Yes, that’s right! And does it go “Meoowwww!”?
Students: No! “Rhaaaa!”
etc.

After reading the story, give out a reader worksheet to each student and have everyone identify the Halloween characters that were in the story. Then go through the answers as a class.

Alternatively, watch our video version of the reader (Internet connection required).

7. End with some fun Halloween activities
End the class with some fun Halloween games and actives – choose from the list below:

Melt the witch game: Materials: A moveable chalkboard, [hide_on_uk]colored[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]coloured[/hide_on_us] chalk, sponges, bucket of water. Directions: Draw a witch’s head, or whole body on the chalkboard. Fill the bucket with water and sponges. Have children stand close enough to the board to be able to hit it accurately with a wet sponge. Place water bucket and sponges near this spot. Tell the children to take turns throwing wet sponges at the witch to try and “melt” her away. As the witch becomes wet and water drips down the board, it will appear as if she is melting. Be sure the children are squeezing out to the sponges before throwing.

Pass the pumpkin: Students sit in a circle. Provide a plastic pumpkin for children to pass while the teacher plays some music. Children pass the pumpkin to the tempo of the music. Alternate between fast and slow. When the music stops the child who has the pumpkin stands and takes a bow. Continue.
Pin the tail on the black cat: This is a take on ‘pin the tail on the donkey’. Put a picture of a tailless-less black cat on the wall, blindfold the students, spin them around and see if they can pin the tail in the right place. The nearest wins a prize/points.
Play-doh fun: make jack-o-lanterns, witches, other characters, etc.

Wrap up:

1. Assign homework: “Halloween match-up” worksheet
Hold up the homework worksheet – this is a fun matching activity. Model by pointing at the tail and then drawing a line to the werewolf.

Give out the worksheets and say, “Put your homework in your bags” and help them to do so – this is important as they will probably want to start working on them right away.

2. Say goodbye to the glove puppet
Take out the bag again and get everyone to wake up the glove puppet by shouting its name into the bag (e.g. “Cookie Monster!”). Bring out the puppet and go through the same routine – go to each student and say hello, ask their name and the say goodbye / see you. Then put the puppet back in the bag (back to sleep).

3. Sing the “Goodbye song”
Sit together in a circle and sing and clap along.

Lyrics for the “Goodbye song”

Goodbye, goodbye,
See you again.
Goodbye, goodbye,
See you again.

It’s time to go,
It’s time to go,
It’s time to go,
See you next time.

Goodbye, goodbye,
See you again.
It’s time to go,
See you next time.

Gestures for the “Goodbye song”

These are quite straight forward. First time you play the song do the gestures and encourage everyone to do them with you.

Wave as you sing the “Goodbye, goodbye” parts.
Hold your hand above your eyes (as you would when you are looking into the distance and keeping the sun out of your eyes) and look at another student as you sing, “See you again”.
Tap watch (or imaginary watch) and then point to the door as you sing, “It’s time to go”.
Point towards another student as you sing, “See you next time”.

[hide_on_uk]Short sample (members get full-length song):
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[hide_on_us]Short sample (members get full-length song):
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4. Do “Quick check” and say goodbye
Time to leave the class. Make sure everything is put away and the students have gathered their belongings. Have them line up at the door and place yourself between the door and the students.

For each student hold up a Halloween flashcard and ask, “What’s this?” and “What noise does it make?”.

When each student responds correctly let them leave. If they make a mistake, have them go back to the end of the line – they will have to try again once they reach the front!