The Theatre Classroom — Halloween

October 17th, 2011

Activities and exercises for the Halloween season

With Halloween just around the corner, you might want to celebrate it in several ways. One of the fun things I did was to have my students complete the following word search and offer a prize for the first student who had completed it correctly in the shortest amount of time. Of course the prize was candy, because what is Halloween without candy!!

Unscramble These Halloween Words

HUGLO [ghoul]
NHUDEAT [haunted]
IRKTC [trick]
ATETR [treat]
YARCS [scary]
NLALEWHEO [Halloween]
HTWCI [witch]
NIOBLG [goblin]
PPKMUNI [pumpkin]
RURSCAETE [creatures]
RVAYDEARG [graveyard]
HTOSG [ghost]
KOLEETNS [skeleton]
DPSISRE [spiders]
SORENTM [monster]

If you want to extend this type of activity, you can also find many Halloween crossword puzzles on the Internet.

The second thing I liked to do was divide the class into groups and have them present three of Jack Prelutsky’s poems — “The Ogre,” “The Ghoul,” and “The Troll” — from his book Nightmares: Poems to Trouble Your Sleep. You can find these three poems on page 47 in my recently published book, The Drama Teacher’s Survival Guide #2.

If you are not familiar with Mr. Prelutsky’s work, I am including another poem from this collection, “The Witch.” The author uses wonderful words — cackling, screech, desiccated, and shriek — that your students can vocally enhance, making the poem sound dramatic, dangerous, and/or desperate. These may not be appropriate for every classroom, so make sure they are suitable for your school district and community. Happy Haunting!

The Witch
by Jack Prelutsky
She comes by night, in fearsome flight,
In garments black as pitch,
The queen of doom upon her broom,
The wild and wicked witch.
A cackling crone with brittle bones
And desiccated limbs,
Two evil eyes with warts and sties
And bags about the rims,
A dangling nose, ten twisted toes
And folds of shriveled skin,
Cracked and chipped and crackled lips
That frame a toothless grin.
She hurtles by, she sweeps the sky
And hurls a piercing screech.
As she swoops past, a spell is cast
On all her curses reach.
Take care to hide when the wild witch rides
To shriek her evil spell.
What she may do with a word or two Is much too grim to tell.