Halloween ESL Activity: Witch's Potion

Level: Kinder, Elementary, Middle School

Materials: 1 cauldron, 1 wooden spoon with a magnet on the bottom, various objects or magnetic laminated pictures of icky things (slugs, toes, slime, eyeballs, lizards, etc.)

Activity:

One by one, students must pull icky ingredients out of a cauldron and pretend to be under a spell. The spell they are under is predetermined by what object they pull out. For instance, if a child pulls out a lizard, she must bark like a dog; if she pulls out an eyeball, she must wiggle like a worm; if she pulls out an eyeball, she must spin around.

This is a great activity for young learners, as it helps develop motor skills!

Halloween ESL Activity: Reassemble a Skeleton

Level: Kindergarten

Materials: Puzzle or large felt pieces for the wall. Teachers, all you need for this activity is a pair of scissors and black and white felt and your creativity!

Activity:

Have children reassemble felt pieces of a skeleton with your help. Ask questions such as, "Where is the leg? Where is the hand? What is this?" Children will enjoy helping solve the proper placement of the different bones.

This activity is great for Halloween, as you will have a new classroom decoration when it is complete. Or you can use it when teaching about parts of the body.

Pictionary Riddles

Level: Medium

Materials: White board, dry erase markers

Activity: Separate class into two teams. Choose one student to come up and draw a picture while you read out clues. The class must work within their teams to guess what the child at the front is drawing. They must also listen to your clues, because the child's drawing may be misleading!

Example:

Who am I?

• Most people don't like me.
• I am green.
• I have no arms. 
• I have no legs. 
• I can't swim. 
• I can't fly. 

Fly Swatter Memory Game with Flashcards

Level: Low-Medium

Materials: Plastic fly swatter and magnetic flash cards

Activity:

Align flash cards on magnetic white board. Ask two students to come up and have students hit one card and say the name, ie, "pencil." Second student must hit the first card and pick a second card, ie: "pencil, table." Students must remember the order of the pictures and add a new card for each turn until one student forgets the order of the cards.

This is a great memory game that will help your students learn vocabulary quickly and have a great time while they're doing it!

ESL Flashcard Game: What's Different?

Level: Medium-High English

Materials: Objects, or Picture Flashcards

Objective: Teach students to compare and contrast in English. 
Activity: Set two objects or flashcards side by side and ask children to name one thing that the items have in common and one thing that is different.

Example:

What's different? An Apple is red. A watermelon is green (outside). Inside, an apple is white and a watermelon is red. 

What's the same? The both have black seeds. They're both fruits. 

Students really enjoy this game because it often appears simple but students can come up with some complex responses which will make it interesting for teachers as well!  

Kindergarten Animal Actions Game

Level: Kindergarten/Elementary
Materials: Animal flashcards
Sentence patterns: "Can you...?"
Vocabulary: Animal names, animal actions (run, crawl, swim, fly, etc.)

Introduce:

Before beginning this activity make sure your students know the names of basic animal names and their associated actions, ie: Eagles/Fly, Zebras/Run, Snakes/Crawl, etc.

Activity: "Who Am I?"

One student chooses an animal flashcard and looks at it. Classmates must ask questions about the animal in the form: "Can you fly?"until a classmate guesses correctly what the animal is. Continue activity until ever student has had a chance to be the mystery animal.