Just now, when the first leaves start to turn and some fall, that feeling of change and that fresher air on your skin, it can only mean that Fall is soon bringing my favorite holiday of all, HALLOWEEN!
Yes, I’m a halloweeney teacher and has always been. The smell of pumpkings, the sober colors in nature, the taste of a starbuck warm coffee in the afternoons with a carrot cake meeting with your besties and planning that special day. It lights my eyes every year. I can not help it! My workmates know that and every year I’m in the halloween comittee, even thought in Spain the Halloween essence is different. I manage anyways to bring that joy to my little ones, starting with my story selection.
I bring you here my top 7 (there are more amazing books I use) but these are the essencial, the basic ones. This time, I will include the link to a youtube channel for you to watch it, make sure it’ll work with the level of English of your students before you buy them. Sometimes you read amazing recommendations, but get dissapointed because the story didn’t hook your students’ attention or didn’t meet the needs having a more complex grammatical structures or vocabulary than your kids could handle. Here we go:
Greg Paprocki’s popular retro-style book alphabet helps students expands their vocabulary to introduce one of the most popular holidays on the calendar: Halloween. It makes learning fun and engaging. You can check it here
This is the story about Ethan who has a front-row seat as a colorful parade of silly little monsters compete to become the monster under his bed. It has the perfect balance of giggles and shivers. It’s a silly-spooky book and the language could be a little advance, I use it with my preschoolers (5-years-old). You can check it here.
This is definetly a toddlers book, ideal for pre-k level. A Halloween pop-up book with flaps and friendly pop-up surprises to engage students. The story is about helping find Little Black Cat and her friends hiding under the flaps fun rhymes and surprises your students will love to discover again and again. You can check it here.
This is definetly a fun, rhyming read-aloud Halloween picture book that starts a new holiday tradition it’ll perfectly fit for your class since they will be planning to wear contumes in school that day. «Marching in the school parade in frightening costumes that we’ve made; Look around, the signs are clear, Halloween is getting near!» This book is a lyrical celebration of the building excitement that children (and me) feel as the magical and mysterious night of Halloween approaches. Intrigued? Check it here.
Poor Little Ghost has lost her scary BOO, so she sets out on a nighttime hunt to find it. She searches high and low, but it’s nowhere to be found! Will she ever find her lost BOO? Maybe… if your students could help her! It has gorgeous illustrations and a bouncy, rhyming text. I promise it a charming, not-so-spooky book perfect for Halloween so your kids won’t cry. Check it here.
«Peek inside a witch’s kitchen, and you’ll either smile or shriek! Cool two-way flaps offer humor and heebie-jeebies in this neon-bright novelty book.» Definetly those who dare to poke around in a witch’s kitchen should be prepared for what they find! Will it be tasty treats or terrifying beasts? Foods that delight, or a nasty fright? A nice way to fill your belly or something disgusting and smelly? And who do you think will pop up if you try to escape through the back door? I’ve never seen a book so exciting that lure kids in for a tour that will scare them silly. This book has it all. Check it here.
And finally my forever favorite of all! Drum rolls!
It’s Halloween, and ten timid ghosts in a haunted house have a problem: a mean witch is preparing to move in and get them away, one by one! In this book your students will learn to count backwards from ten to one as each ghost flies away to the woods. It has a fascinating rhyming text to encourage children to participate in the haunted countdown, making reading and learning eerie fun. Check it here.
This book turned my classes upside down so much, I created an activity that could help my students to be able to understad the vocabulary, the sequence, the actions and finally retell the story by playing with it in different ways.
You can also watch how it looks HERE.
