We love Halloween! It's one of our favorite holidays. We were surprised to hear that in Austria they do not celebrate Halloween. Instead, they celebrate a holiday called Rauhnachte. A long time ago, farmers used to believe, on Rauhnachte, animals in the barn could speak and had other magical powers!
Halloween History: No one is sure how old Halloween really is, but trace its probable origins back to BC times to the ancient Celts, who lived in England, Ireland and Wales.
The ancient Celts held a festival called Samhain, which celebrated the start of a new year. Halloween was their New Years Eve.
The ancient Celts believed that the night before each new year, a door opened between this world and the Otherworld - a place the ancient Celts believed was inhabited by supernatural spirits both good and bad. They believed that October 31 was the most dangerous night in the year. That night, people were exposed to the entire supernatural world.
Black Cats & Spooky Tales: The
ancient Celts believed, on October 31st, the good spirits of the dead would come back to earth, in the form of an animal, often in the form of a black cat, to be reunited with loved ones, one last time. Today, silhouettes of black cats are used as Halloween decorations, and everyone tells spooky tales!
Pumpkins: How did pumpkins get in the act? No one knows! It's a history mystery! (This mystery makes a great subject for a creative writing lesson.) But most probably, pumpkins replaced turnips, which is the vegetable people used to carve during the ancient new year festival.
Baked Pumpkin Seeds: Baked pumpkin seeds are easy to make and fun to eat! Here's the recipe we use: Dig out the pumpkin seeds, rinse them off, let them dry on a paper towel for a couple of hours, dump them on a cookie sheet (without the paper towel, of course), and cook at 400 degrees for about an hour. Throw them in a bowl, sprinkle with butter and salt, and eat, shells and all.
Pumpkin Soft drink:
For a pumpkin themed soft drink, place one or two scoops of orange sherbet in a glass. Pour in cold ginger ale. Add a straw, and drink!
Free Interactive Online Games for Kids
(flash games have been removed)
Arthur's
Tricks and Treats, interactive
Halloween breaker
game
Halloween memory
game
Pumpkin Blaster game
Spells Casting game
Halloween
Game
How much
do you know about Halloween?
Halloween Bats
The Ghost With the Most
BAAM!
For Teachers
Chillalley:
A great way to get the kids writing is to write one story by rows.
This is a fun and meaningful activity. It takes no prep and the kids
really love it. 5th to 9th grades. This is not a graded activity.
First, talk about words that writers
use to scare their readers or prepare readers for something scary. They use
music and lighting in movies. Ask: How do writers do the same thing using words.
It's like a magic trick - it's not so scary when you know how it's done.
Depending upon the grade and your time, you can throw in a short story or short
video to demonstrate the writing behind a scary story. Brainstorm some words.
Brainstorm Halloween words.
Then, if your desks are not already
in rows, position them in rows. Or, if you work in round tables that
works too.
Hand out pieces of lined paper.
Direct each student to start a story. At the sound of the howl (a wolf call is
nice) they must stop writing and hand their story to the student behind them
even if they are in the middle of a sentence. The last student in the row brings
the story they have been working on to the first person in the row each time the
wolf howls. Make sure they understand the rules.
Start. Keep this going until all
kids have had a chance to participate in all the stories per row or per round
table - not all the stories, just the ones in their row.
Give them some warning about half
way through. Announce: You are at the middle of your story. You are getting
close to the end. Everyone - end the story you are holding.
Ask for volunteers. Have the
students read a couple. Collect the stories. After school, post them all on the
wall in your classroom or in the hallway outside of your room (with permission
from the office of course.) The kids feel safe because they are only part of the
story authorship, so I don't ask their permission; I post them all. I add
Halloween type cutouts. I tilt things, including the stories, to make the wall
interesting. Note to new teachers: NO TOMBSTONES. As teachers, we do not always
know if a student has recently lost someone they know or love. Tombstone cutout
are so easy to make, and can have such devasting consequences.) .
Typically, the stories are
surprisingly good, and quite often humorous. And typically, once the stories are
posted, the kids talk about the stories to each other. I give them some class
time to do that at the end of class over the next couple days - 5 minutes max
per day. We can't spend a lot of time on this, but they'll say things like:
That's not where I was going with my story, but I like it. (It's funny. It's
always "my" story.) As teachers, I'm sure you know how exciting it is when your
students support each others efforts. I've even seen new friendships spring up,
someone impressed by another student's sense of humor or whatever. I love this
lesson.
Position the timing of this lesson
no more than 10 days, no less than 4 days prior to Halloween. One year I only
had them posted for four days. The kids whined. They actually wanted to read
them.
Ghosts and Fears in Language Arts 9th to 12th grades (read, think, write)
