When teaching vocabulary to children, experts suggest using interesting words and building bridges between children’s experiences and words. What a perfect time of year to enrich children’s vocabulary with “spooktacular” and “bootiful” words.
Note! These activities can be used for Halloween words, Thanksgiving words, autumn words, or any unit of study.
Brainstorm
Brainstorm “spooky” words, Halloween words, or other seasonal words. How many words can they come up with? Write them on the board as children call them out.
*Older children could brainstorm as a small group activity.
Dramatize Words
Call out nouns or adjectives like “skeleton,” “mummy,” “spooky,” “haunted,” for the children to dramatize. Encourage them to use their faces, hands, and whole bodies.
Pantomime
Write seasonal words on index cards and put them in a sack. Children choose a word and pantomime while their friends try to guess.
Write the letters of the alphabet on a sheet of paper. Can they think of a seasonal word for each letter? Example: A - apples, B – bats, C – candy, D – Dracula…
Picture Words
Challenge children to turn words into pictures they represent.
Grow a Sentence
Write a simple sentence on the board. Can children add words to the sentence to make it grow?
I see a pumpkin.
I see a big pumpkin.
I see a great big enormous pumpkin.
I see a great big orange enormous pumpkin.
I see a great big orange enormous pumpkin on the porch.
I see a great big orange enormous pumpkin on the front porch.
I see a great big orange enormous pumpkin on the front porch smiling….
Build a Pumpkin
This is similar to hangman, but you will be drawing a pumpkin, which is much happier than a noose! Put blanks on the board for the number of letters in a word. As children call out letters write them on the appropriate place on the line. If the letters are not in the word make a “bone pile.” For each letter you put in the bone pile draw part of a jack-o-lantern. Start with the pumpkin shape. Add a stem. Add a mouth, nose, eyes, etc.
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