Guess which spooky yet popular holiday in October is synonymous with ghosts, bats, spiders, candy corns, and pumpkins? That’s right, it is HALLOWEEN! Wearing scary costumes and Trick-or-Treating are the main attractions of this particular holiday. However, this year, to ensure social distancing, we’re going to carry out our holiday festivities in virtual classrooms. Teachers, here are some creative and fun Halloween-inspired lesson plans for elementary students in your online learning program.
Tips to Create Halloween Lesson Plans for Online Learning
Boo! Here are some valuable tips to create virtual lesson plans for online learning:
- The process of creating lesson plans for online classes is similar to creating lesson plans for traditional classes. Your virtual lesson plan should have an objective, agenda, and format with timings allocated for each activity and student participation. Don’t forget to include scheduled breaks in between activities.
- Invite students to join the virtual lessons by sending out calendar invites.
- Email joining instructions to students about the e-learning materials and tools required for virtual classroom participation.
- Carry out test video calls and instruct students on virtual classroom etiquettes to minimize disruptions and distractions. Parents can help teachers by reading the instructions on video call etiquettes and preparing their children for online learning.
- At the end of the lesson, encourage students to ask questions and give feedback. Conclude the class with a summary of what was taught. Lastly, give your students an idea or preview of their next lesson.
Fun and Creative Halloween Lessons/Activities for Elementary Students
We’ve “scared-up” a list of creative, fun, and educational lesson ideas for you to teach your elementary students this Halloween.
- Halloween Science Lesson Ideas: Teach a class on the most famous mammal in October, the BAT. Teach them about the most popular seasonal vegetable in October, the PUMPKIN; Is pumpkin a fruit or a vegetable? Students can dress up as bats or pumpkins for the respective lessons. Conduct quizzes at the end of the class and reward your students with online scores or virtual treats.
- Halloween Math Lesson Ideas: Pumpkin measurements, matching spider webs, drawing spiders and spider webs using straight lines, making pumpkin pie charts, adding and subtracting candy corns, etc., are some sneaky ways of including mathematical problems into kids’ activities and games.
- Halloween English Lesson Ideas: Engage students in Halloween-themed English Crossword Puzzles, Word Searches, Fill in The Blanks, Learn New Adjectives, Match The Following, Antonyms and Synonyms, Spooky Poetry/Essay Writing, Ad Libs, Scary Story Writing/Reading, Halloween Quizzes, and so on. Teachers and students can make use of various online tools like pdf, MS Excel, MS paint, photoshop apps, audio and video recorders, etc., to create puzzles, quizzes, games, and more.
- Halloween Arts & Crafts Lesson Ideas: Schedule fun activities like Pumpkin Carving to make Jack-o’-Lantern, making Halloween Greeting Cards and Home Decorations, putting together Halloween Costumes, learning to make Origami spiders, bats, ghosts, and pumpkins, etc. All these activities can be done live in a virtual learning environment with the help of laptop/mobile cameras, stable Internet connection, and video calling apps. At the end of each activity, teachers can put together a collage of the final results in a photo or video format and share it with each student via email. This way the activities can be archived for future enjoyment.
- Halloween Music Lesson Ideas: Encourage students to sing and dance to Halloween-themed songs, play musical instruments, and perform Halloween-themed plays. They can put on live plays or record their performances to share it with the class.
- Halloween Cooking Lesson Ideas: Parents and teachers can create simple recipes for Halloween party foods like pumpkin pie, caramel apples, candy corns, pumpkin bread, scary-looking yet delicious cupcakes, blood-red mocktails, etc. Get on Pinterest or Google for some tasty Halloween food recipes that children can make with some adult supervision if necessary.
With so many creative ideas, this Halloween doesn’t have to be boring due to social distancing. With easy access to online learning platforms and applications, you can develop virtual lesson plans to both teach and celebrate the “spooktacular” holiday with your elementary students and their parents.
