Hi friends! It's Halloween time, the beginning of the holiday season! You will soon start to notice that kids are starting to get a little more wiggly because of all of the sugar coming into the classroom or is in abundance at home. Children get so excited about Halloween. They love to talk about their costumes! Sometimes, it can take over the classroom a little bit. When focusing on phonics or reading instruction, we want to make sure that we can blend the excitement into our lessons.
This week's blog is all about adding in movement and games for Halloween. Adding games and movement into your lessons helps with the hustle and bustle and allows you to manage it. Have fun, get your kids moving, play a game while using your own materials online or off. This week, I'm giving you some games to have on hand.
Looking for even more games and ways to incorporate movement? Don't forget to check out my webinar this Wednesday, October 20. I hope to see you there live. It will also be recorded in case you can't make it. You'll learn so much about how to incorporate Games and Movement into every part of a structured literacy lesson. See you there! Click HERE to register and learn more.
I've also included a FREE game this week that has movement with an option to play it as a game. DOWNLOAD IT HERE. My games include font that is easily read by students with dyslexia or struggling readers with an editable slide and bonus cards for students to choose the activity. You can read the lesson plan to get the perfect suggestion for you. It also has in-person and virtual set up.
Halloween can be very exciting, but it can also cause a lot of disruption in the classroom. What we need are hands-on activities to make sure that we are giving students opportunities to be excited for Halloween but not take away from our activity or planned lesson. We need activities on hand for when the candy is overloaded and the student is frustrated or not wanting to work. Check out these tips for quick Halloween games for your students. Tag me if you use any of them or the word cards. I'd love to see you how you use them. Find me HERE on Instagram.
Five Quick Tips for Quick Halloween Games
1. Go to Tic Tac Toe: Use black and white X’s & O’s, or have the student make a quick picture to fill in the box. It could be a pumpkin 🎃 or something similar. You can do this whether you’re using Zoom, a whiteboard, or a piece of paper. When you’re on Zoom, you can also use a special feature where if they’re on the iPad, they can use emojis. I can make a pumpkin emoji or a ghost emoji, and that can be their mark. In order for them to do this, they have to use the text box feature and that will bring up the option.
2. Try the word cards this week! It has all the lessons that you need and the flexibility to make this a Movement game or a regular card game. Print out the cards and use a suggested movement or game idea. Let students create their own ideas like: tiptoe for a haunted house, squatting up and down when it says boo. This works perfectly in Zoom because you’re squatting down, jumping up, and saying boo~ let your kids make rules for the Bonus Cards or follow the lesson plan.
3. Grab a spooky container whether you’re a Wilson teacher with Wilson Cards or practicing your high frequency words, pull them out of the container. Have your students read the words, or say the words yourself and have the students write it. Keep the card secret and see if they match it.
4. Sentence fluency practice: I grab a blank board game, cut sentences into strips, use a virtual or regular die, and put a Halloween sticker on the back of one of the sentence strips. This can add in movement or provide an opportunity to skip a word or go again.
5. Play roll and read, roll the die: Provide students with a word to read. Each number stands for one word. Use a blank template from last week as a freebie. Click here for another Halloween freebie from last week. If you didn’t grab it, grab it now! Instead of using it for high frequency word practice, use it for roll and read phonetic word practice. Number six is a bonus roll. Let your students act out their favorite Halloween Character.
I hope you enjoy these tips and find them useful. I hope sugar doesn't take over your classroom and make your kids extra wiggly. But if it does, you now have some games on hand using your own materials. Don't forget to register for my webinar which is happening live this Wednesday. CLICK HERE to read all about it.
Have a great week!
Michelle