Halloween storytelling lesson idea

Age: 9 - 13

Level: Elementary - intermediate

Language: Review - Lower levels - Furniture, rooms, word class review Extra: adverbs for storytelling, Narrative tenses

Skills: Listening and maybe writing.

Materials: Colour pictures of a haunted house and its rooms, blu tac, paper, pencils, cup, bubble wrap, celery, balloon, microphone

Before class: Place the pictures of the house and room around the room on the walls, make sure you place the outside view of the house on the board.

In class

Step 1 - Students enter and you elicit what is on the board.

Step 2 - Students stand up and explore the haunted house. You ask then what each room is and whats in each room?

Step 3 - Students predict what might have happened.

Step 4 - Tell students they are going to hear a story about the haunted house. They are given a number between 1 and 3 1s write verbs, 2s write nouns, 3s write adjectives.

Step 5 - Get the microphone and tell the story (Break the celery for the breaking of branches, roll the cup over the bubblewrap for the crunch of autumn leaves, bang the cup on a hard surface for stairs, whisper for ghost voices, scratch a balloon for creak
ing door noises.

John was playing hide and seek in the woods. He loved the woods from the day he moved to the little town near by. He could hear Ricky was coming by the breaking of branches and crunch of leaves. He ran through the trees and leaves of autumn gold, red, and purple flew by. Suddenly he saw something far away. John was interested and rushed over before Ricky had time to see him. He got closer and realized it was an old house. Perfect! He thought, he saw the old broken door was open a little… As he opened it, it creaked noisily. There was a little light to his side. He opened the door and saw writing on the dark walls. John couldn't understand it, the letters were different it was some strange language. He heard a whisper upstairs. He listened and heard it calling his name. He thought it was Ricky being silly, he went to find his friend. He walked up the staircase clomp clomp clomp he opened the door with the blue light. Ricky he said. He heard the front door Slam. Ricky wasn't in the room either. Suddenly the lights went out and then!!!!!!

Repeat 1 or 2 times.

Step 6 - Ask students to put the story together in their groups.

Step 7 - Ask students to finish the story (Set this task just before break to build curiosity).

Step 8 - Get students to share conclusions.


If you have more time, or would like a follow up lesson or something more challenging. You can follow the previous stages but with some changes:
For steps 4 - 6
Students write the words
One day
He
but then
Suddenly
Finally
Get

They then listen and complete the story.

You can follow this with step 7

Next put students into groups of 4 and get A1 or larger size paper. Draw around a child
Students write the name John write his personality and thoughts inside the body shape and physical attributes outside.

Get students to do the same with a new character on a new piece of paper. Get students to invent a character for a new story.

Finally they can use the story structure and character profile to write a new story either in class or for homework.