Spotlight on Sources:
Welcome to Renzulli Learning’s Spotlight on Sources, some of our most engaging resources to excite and inspire your students!
Renzulli Learning provides your students with many outstanding “Type I” experiences – activities designed to expose students to a wide variety of disciplines, topics, occupations, hobbies, persons, places, and events that would not ordinarily be covered in the regular curriculum – as detailed in the Schoolwide Enrichment Model (SEM) by Dr. Joseph Renzulli and Dr. Sally Reis.
Looking for some educational – yet fun and engaging – Halloween activities? Look no further than the Renzulli Learning database! Our Curators have been busy scouring the Internet for new Halloween-themed resources for you!
Suggested Ways to Find the Fun:
- Search for “Halloween” from the Teacher Site and Share activities to students directly. Filter your search by grade, subject, or enrichment category.
- Give your students time to explore their own Enrichment Activities for the keyword “Halloween.”
- Use this opportunity to identify the various categories and how they can jump down the page using the category types at the top, and use the little blue arrows on the right to jump back up!
- Have them practice a writing skill based on their Halloween-themed exploration in their Renzulli Learning Journal. You can Comment back to them from the Teacher’s Site under My Students/My Roster/Navigate to: Journal.
- Students can post their favorite Renzulli Learning Halloween activities on a whiteboard, bulletin board, or in their Renzulli Learning Collaborative Group!
- Try a Differentiated Lesson using “Halloween” as a Create Your Own Topic.
K-2
Bat Cave Craft – Creativity Training
Can you believe that you can create a bat cave out of a tissue box? You can! Go to this website and find out how to make a bat cave to decorate your room for Halloween. Find out more about bats and where they live with this resource to get you started!
Bat Cave Craft
Halloween Memory Game – Online Activities
Strengthen your memory with these fun Halloween matching games! Try to find the pair of cards that look like each other. Don’t worry about time! Just have fun!
Halloween Memory Game
Pumpkin, Pumpkin by Margaret Hillert Non Fiction Book
This is a story about pumpkins for the early reader! Learn how pumpkins grow, and look at photos of the fun things you can do with pumpkins! If your computer has speakers, click on the words to hear them read outloud.
Pumpkin, Pumpkin
3-5
The Willies – Fiction Book
A chilling tale from writer Ethan Crownberry. Just remember…there’s no such thing as monsters. What gives you the willies? Strange noises? Creepy shadows? The feeling you are being watched? For a 12-year-old boy lost on Halloween night, it is all of these things and more. Join him on his adventure home as he encounters one hair-raising experience after another. Then, decide for yourself: are the Willies just something we feel, or are they actually little monsters that love to torment us when we are at our most vulnerable? Ethan Crownberry has done it again in thies spine-tingling masterpiece.
The Willies
CBC Kids: Halloween Crossword – Online Activities
Test your knowledge of Halloween with this interactive crossword puzzle. **Note: This activity does not work on phones. Turn your device sideways for best play on tablets.
CBC Kids: Halloween Crossword
Halloween Haiku Poems – Website
Enjoy these poems written and illustrated by students! They celebrate autumn, and especially Halloween. Can you write your own Halloween haiku, and draw a picture to go with it?
Halloween Haiku Poems
6-9
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley – Fiction Book
Enjoy this audio-book version of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. A summer evening’s ghost stories, lonely insomnia in a moonlit Alpine room, and a runaway imagination — fired by philosophical discussions with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley about science, galvanism, and the origins of life — conspired to produce for Mary Shelley this haunting night specter. By morning, it had become the germ of her Romantic masterpiece, Frankenstein. Written in 1816 when she was only nineteen, Mary Shelley’s novel of “The Modern Prometheus” chillingly dramatized the dangerous potential of life begotten upon a laboratory table. A frightening creation myth for our own time, Frankenstein remains one of the greatest horror stories ever written and is an undisputed classic of its kind.
Frankenstein
American Holidays: Halloween –Research Sites
On October 31st, children in the United States dress up in costumes and knock on doors yelling, “Trick or treat!” Back in the 1800s, it was known as All Hallows Eve. It was also the eve of the Celtic New Year. Explore more facts and customs related to this holiday.
American Holidays: Halloween
National Women’s History Museum: Boo! The History of Halloween –Websites
Have you ever wondered how Halloween came to be? Halloween, a night of ghosts and goblins, costumes, candy, and witches with hot boiling cauldrons. For centuries, the 31st of October has captured the hearts and imaginations of playful and mischievous children and adults alike who relished in its spooks and merriment. Read to learn more.
National Women’s History Museum: Boo! The History of Halloween
10-12
Halloween – Websites
Do you ever wonder why we celebrate Halloween? Check out this resource to discover how, why,, and when we celebrate this holiday. This website gives the complete history of Halloween!
Halloween
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley –Fiction Book
Enjoy this audio-book version of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. A summer evening’s ghost stories, lonely insomnia in a moonlit Alpine room, and a runaway imagination — fired by philosophical discussions with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley about science, galvanism, and the origins of life — conspired to produce for Mary Shelley this haunting night specter. By morning, it had become the germ of her Romantic masterpiece, Frankenstein. Written in 1816 when she was only nineteen, Mary Shelley’s novel of “The Modern Prometheus” chillingly dramatized the dangerous potential of life begotten upon a laboratory table. A frightening creation myth for our own time, Frankenstein remains one of the greatest horror stories ever written and is an undisputed classic of its kind.
Frankenstein
Try a Differentiated Lesson using “Halloween” as a Create Your Own Topic.
Have you tried creating a Differentiated Lesson yet – so that each student is offered the resources best suited for them? Did you know that you can narrow your search results by adding your own custom subtopic?
- Go to the Teach Tab/Lessons/New Lessons. Don’t forget to check out our Teacher Tutorial Video by clicking the purple video icon in the upper right hand corner.
- Select your desired Grade Level.
- Select a Subject Area – try Math, Science, and Language Arts!
- For Topic, select Create Your Own and enter “Halloween.”
- Click Customize to review the Resources and you can choose to Require or Exclude certain ones. Click Next.
- You can add Assessment Questions if you wish (KWL, choose from a list, or write your own). Click Next.
- Type specific directions for your students, select dates, and select your Students. Note that you can filter by your created Groups here and can revise the Title by clicking the little pencil at the top.
- Click Preview to review the Lesson, or Save to hang onto it as a Draft until you are ready to Assign it to your students!
Each week, we will send you teaching suggestions and a few examples of our best and most popular resources. For more ideas to infuse enrichment activities with your curriculum, please visit the Unit Supplements on the Teacher Site, under “Teach.” We can also link these enrichment resources to your regular curriculum if you send us a theme or topic.
Thanks for being a part of the Renzulli Learning family and we hope you find these resources helpful.
Your Renzulli Learning Team