My students LOVE Halloween and I LOVE reading aloud to them, so here are a few of my favorite Halloween read alouds that are perfect for upper elementary students!
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The Ugly Pumpkin
This is a Halloween/Thanksgiving twist on the classic fairy tale The Ugly Duckling. The Ugly Pumpkin waits all season long for someone to take him home for Halloween, but no one will. He doesn't look like the other pumpkins, so he sets off in search for a place where he will fit in. Sure enough, he finds exactly where he belongs - BUT, it's not at all what he expected!
Teaching Ideas:
Themes: Loving yourself, fitting in
Grammar:
Adjectives - this book is filled with great adjectives for your students to find including: ugly, bright, crispy, late, cruel, overrun, odd, and happy.
Adverbs - your students can find a plethora of adverbs including: plainly, early, when, alone, awhile, then, and finally.
Verbs - See if you can challenge your students to write some sentences using the verbs in the story: waiting, picked, looking, getting, tricked, laughed, rolled, and happened.
Writing: This book is an adaptation of a fairy tale, see if your students can write their own adaptation of The Ugly Ducking or the fairy tale of their choice.
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Tim carves a pumpkin that is fierce and funny. A pumpkin like that deserves a name, and so he gives him one - Jack. Tim loves Jack so much that he keeps him "Long after the best trick-or-treat candy was eaten". He keeps Jack until it begins to rot and Mom tells Tim to throw it out. He takes it into the garden instead, and that is where the magic begins! He watches it throughout the year as it undergoes many changes until becoming his Jack'O'Lantern again.
Teaching Ideas:
Themes: Loyalty, friendship
Grammar:
Adjectives - fierce, first, funny, perfect, good, best, warm, magic, different, wrinkled, silly, bright, orange, brown, colder, flatter, cold, heavy, faded, crumpled, distant, thin, warm, hot, green, hidden, tired, new, tattered, pale, limp, wet, withered, unripe, bright, and generous.
Figurative Language - There are many examples of figurative language throughout the book:
"...the brown ghosts of last summer's plants"
"Flowers opened on the plant each morning, yellow stars that twisted shut forever in the afternoon."
"...searching for green pumpkins like hidden treasures."
"... the pumpkin plant seemed tired."
"The frozen plants seemed changed to pale blue glass."
Science: This book has a great science tie-in with the life cycle of a pumpkin.
Bone Soup
This fun little tale is a Halloween adaptation of the classic Stone Soup. Finnigin is infamous for his ravenous appetite. Every where he goes he carries his eating stool, his eating spoon, and of course his gigantic eating mouth.
When he happens upon a new town, all of the creatures there have been warned about his ravenous hunger, and they lock up all of their food. Finnigin stirs up some delicious Bone Soup and tricks them all into sharing with him.
Teaching Ideas:
Themes: sharing
Vocabulary: There are so many great vocabulary words in this book including: wits, ravenous, barren, impending, plague, locusts, panic, spare, cauldron, ceremoniously, splintered, ghoul, delicacy, stammered, fetched, stash, wistful, and longingly.
Punctuation: Many of the sentences include commas and quotation marks. You might give students samples of these sentences without the punctuation and ask them to correct them. You could also ask them to find the sentences and generate some punctuation rules for them.
Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich
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This book of poems is filled with monster size problems! Frankenstein's cupboards are bare. The Creature from the Black Lagoon doesn't wait an hour before swimming and goes into the bog too soon. The Phantom of the Opera has a song stuck in his head. The witches have watchers. And, don't even get started on Dracula's hygiene issues!
If your students are fans of Shel Silverstein poetry, they will love these ones!
Teaching Ideas:
Writing: Have your students write their own Halloween poems.
Figurative Language - Can your students find the figurative language throuout the book?
Onomatopoeia
" Cack cack-a-doodle-a DOOOOOOOOO!"
Alliteration
" Fancy folk avoid his feet"
"the personality of plaid"
If you are a Kindle Unlimited Member, you can get the Kindle version of this book for FREE here!
The rhyming text of this book makes it so fun to read! At the old haunted house there are all kinds of creatures: a big ma monster and her wee monsters two, a scrawny black cat and her wee kittens three, a green pa goblin and his wee goblins four, and even more!
Writing: Have you
Teaching Ideas:
Writing: This would make such a great mentor text for writing all sorts of things. Have your students use the same model to write a story book, or to teach about a non-fiction topic.
What are your favorite Halloween Books to Read Aloud? Share with us in the comments!
