October is such an exciting time of year. Does anyone else consider Halloween the start of the holiday season? You can tell because students start buzzing with excitement.
Make learning exciting with these October activities for the elementary classroom that will keep your students engaged!
Read on to grab October resources that will make your planning easy-peasy this month. And don’t forget to stock your emergency chocolate drawer!
Explore the lifecycle of a pumpkin with the Life Cycle of a Pumpkin Lapbook. This robust download has prompts to practice sequencing, creative writing, vocabulary, comparison skills, and more! I recommend letting your students gut a pumpkin to explore the different parts for a hands-on lesson extension.
Integrate more spooky learning into the month with the Halloween Activity Lapbook. Similar to the Pumpkin Lapbook, but with seventeen foldables that encompass all things spooky. My favorite writing prompt is “If I could eat one candy forever, it would be. . . ” because it would for sure be Reese’s!
October Literacy Activities
The October Adapted Book Piece Set will help instill a love of reading into your students by turning classic stories into interactive adventures! By adapting your classroom books, you’re making reading accessible to all of your learners. This set contains titles such as The Hallo-Weiner, Stellaluna, The Biggest Pumpkin Ever, The Night Before Halloween, and more! Note: You do need to purchase the actual book in order to use the adapted book piece set.
Adapted books are helpful tools for small group literacy blocks. There are two options for level 1 and level 2 readers, and they’re the perfect booster for those students who might not love to read. If you’re not ready to commit to the Adapted Reader Bundle, here are a few single titles that would fit snugly in your October curriculum:
- Life Cycle of a Pumpkin (Grab this one for free!)
- Stay Safe: Fire Safety
- How to Carve a Pumpkin
- How to Make Pumpkin Pie (Bonus: This one doubles as a visual recipe. To Learn more about visual recipes, click here.)
- History of the Teal Pumpkin
October Activity Bundles
The All About Pumpkins Thematic Unit is a done-for-you, cross-curricular bundle of lesson plans and activities that will cut your planning time in half. Along with math and STEM activities, this resource also has book companions and craftivities. For example, have you ever read Stumpkin by Lucy Ruth Cummins? Your students will love it!
The October Lesson Plan Pack will help you pack your planner with twelve activities and printables themed around pumpkins and bats!
Do you celebrate Halloween in your classroom? If so, check out the Trick or Treat Halloween Activity Packet. It includes downloads that are great for independent work or fast finishers. The best part? It has job applications for witches, skeletons, and ghosts. Just what your students need to get into character for Halloween.
More October Activities
Our October Visual Recipes are ghoul-icious with step-by-step instructions to make Veggie Pizza, Monster Munch, Critter Crack, S’more Sushi, and Vampire Sweets. We love cooking in the kitchen because there are many opportunities to track student progress and IEP goals related to life skills.
Errorless learning is a tool that boosts student confidence and promotes focus, and quite frankly, we love it! So much so that we want you to try it, too, with our Free Errorless Learning Starter Pack. The pack contains a printable for a pumpkin patch file folder activity. Perfect for this month! Try it and tell us what you think.
Do you celebrate Halloween in your classroom or do you stick to pumpkins? Let us know in the comments!
