The Good, the Bad, and The Spooky Halloween Activities

 Jory John and Pete Oswald have done it again with their new book, The Good, the Bad, and the Spooky.  In their latest story, the Bad Seed faces a Halloween costume dilemma.  Halloween is his favorite holiday, but he doesn't have a costume picked out yet.  He's worried that everyone else will out dress him, so he cancels the holiday for everyone.  I came up with some fun, standards-based read aloud activities that you can do with your class during a week in October.  You may even want to do this the week of Halloween.  We cover asking and answering questions, retelling a story, character response and change, and making text to self connections.  I also threw in a craft and directed drawing!

If you know me, you know I am all about an anchor chart!  I made anchor charts for each of the reading skills with a little Halloween flair.  These will go with whatever Halloween decor you might have going on in your room.  I thought they would not only help with teaching the standard, but add to your Halloween room transformations if you choose to do that.  Throw up some spider webs and make it super fun!

On day one, before reading the text, have students create questions about the text.  Hang this poster for reference on how to write a question.  I would give them the door and windows prior to the read aloud.  Have them write one question on the door that they have about the text.  You will probably need to model this for them, especially if you have not yet taught this standard.  Ask students to share a few of their questions to add to the class anchor chart.

During the read aloud, stop a couple of times and have them create two more questions they have about the text.  After reading, they can write one last question they still have about the story.  Don't forget to add these to the anchor chart.  Discuss why it's important to ask questions before, during, and after reading.  Point out any answers to the text you may have found and explain that you don't always find the answers to your questions in a story.  Afterwards, students can put together their haunted house crafts.

On day two, students will retell or recount the story.  I included both of those terms, because which one you use depends on which grade you teach.  In first, students retell and in second, students recount.  I would read the whole story again today, so that students can hear all of the major events.  After reading, students will retell the story using key details.  There are some great videos on YouTube you could show prior to the lesson to help students understand which details to include when retelling a story.

The Bad Seed is the perfect character for using to teach character response to major challenges.  He always has a very clearly defined problem with steps he takes to address the problem.  On day three, students will describe the problem he faces and how he responds to that problem in the story.

After responding to the text, you will do a directed drawing with students.  I include all of the steps in the pack for drawing the Bad Seed in his costume.

You will add on to the previous lesson on day four.  Still practicing the same standard, students will describe the Bad Seed at the beginning of the story using key details.  They will then describe him at the end focusing on how he changed.

I also included a mini version of this graphic organizer in case you wanted to attach it to a brown paper bag.  Since it's called SWEET Character Change, I thought it would be fun to add a little sweet treat to the bags for them to have a little book discussion afterwards.  Kettle corn would be an easy snack to add!

Finally on day five, students will make text to self connections while reading.  Halloween is on a Sunday this year, so this would work out great for your Halloween celebration day in the classroom.  If your school allows costumes, this text to self connection writing would be perfect!  If not, that's okay, too!  Students will draw and describe using key details their own costume for Halloween.  They will then connect it to the text, by describing the Bad Seed's costume.  You can have them discuss what's the same and different about the two costumes.

I hope you add this book to your Halloween read aloud collection, because it's a really good one!  What are you favorite Halloween read aloud books?