Our Favorite October-Themed & Halloween Worksheets
Boots and sweaters are coming out. Football games are starting. Pumpkin spice has taken over the shelves (but, are we really mad about it?), and depending on where you live, the leaves are changing. Fall is here! Which means, you may be looking for October themed History of Halloween | Social Studies lesson | With Halloween worksheets for first grade!
As teacher’s, fall was one of our favorite times of the year to teach. The variety of lessons around this time is so fun! You can teach science lessons about fall vegetables – like pumpkins. You can teach about animals like bats and insects like spiders. You can even teach about the skeletal system! All of these are great topics for first and second grade. And yes, all of these are fun Halloween topics too!
We know that some schools are less excited about Halloween lessons. The best part of fall lessons though is that they can be taught in addition to, or separate from, Halloween.
Our Favorite October-Themed, Self Led Learning Activities
Learning quests are independent research activities that guide students through learning on their own. Students are self-directed as they independently complete these learning quest activities. These activities can be completed as traditional classroom lessons, centers, homework, independent work, or are great for fast finishers. To celebrate October and related themes. We start with our top 4 Learning Quests.
4 Fun October Themed Units
Each learning quest can be completed in short sections throughout the week, or as one longer research activity in a day. If you want to use all four, choose one a week for the month of October. If you want to specifically focus on Halloween – students LOVE learning about the history of Halloween in the Halloween Then and Now quest.
If you want to explore the spirit of Halloween, without explicitly teaching about Halloween, the Life Cycle of a Pumpkin is perfect. This is our favorite fall themed learning quest. A combination of science, research, and writing, it covers a lot of core standards in a fun way.
PRINTABLE Pumpkin learning quest activities include:
- Show What you Know Life Cycle focus activity (cut & paste)
- Informational texts
- Timeline sequencing activity (cut & paste)
- QR code to video clip (videos linked to YouTube)
- Parts of a Pumpkin infographic and labeling activity (cut & paste)
- Pumpkin sequencing writing activity
- Writing response pages
- Pumpkin Quiz
The DIGITAL learning quest activities include:
- Show What you Know Life Cycle focus activity with moveable pieces
- Informational texts with pre-recorded audio that can be read aloud to students
- Timeline sequencing activity with moveable pieces
- Link to video clip (videos linked to YouTube)
- Parts of a Pumpkin infographic and labeling activity with moveable pieces
- Pumpkin sequencing writing activity
- Writing response pages
- Pumpkin Quiz
All of the October Halloween learning quests include similar activities. Students listen to or read the texts, complete interactive activities, watch a video clip, write in response to learning, and submit answers to a quiz
All of them are offered in both print and digital. You can have students complete lessons only digitally, only use a printed version, or you can also mix them up. You choose what works best for your classroom.
HALLOWEEN READ ALOUD FOR FIRST GRADE
Halloween books are some of our favorite books. Which is why we created a TON of different read alouds for the month of October. Many of our Halloween themed read alouds are also great additions to other themed lessons – like learning quests!
The “Pumpkin Eye” By Denise Fleming is one read aloud that pairs perfectly with the life cycle of a pumpkin learning quest. This follows our read aloud format that includes 3-5 daily interactive reading lessons, complete with engaging Halloween worksheets for first grade. Each day, students use evidence from the text to deepen their understanding of the story and respond in meaningful ways.
Just like our learning quests, the Pumpkin Eye read-aloud is available as a printable or digital interactive read-aloud lesson plan pack:
- Detailed Lesson Plans with full-size Samples
- Text Dependent Questions and Answer Keys
- Nouns and Adjectives Graphic Organizer
- Vocabulary Matching Cards
- Vocabulary Words Graphic Organizers
- Mini Book Craft Instructions
- Graphic organizers pre-loaded to Google Slides and Seesaw
One of the favorite parts for students is the craftivity that follows the read-aloud learning activities. The craft is always the fun part, but there’s just something extra fun about a holiday themed craft.
Combine this read-aloud with the life cycle of a pumpkin learning quest for a complete week of lessons! You can find some of our other favorite Halloween themed read-alouds here:
HALLOWEEN STEM ACTIVITIES FOR FIRST GRADE
STEM learning has become a focus for many elementary classrooms. One of our favorite ways to introduce STEM to teachers and students is through read-alouds. To help teachers include STEM easily, we replaced the traditional craftivity in some read-alouds with a STEM challenge.
Three of our Halloween read-alouds for first graders have a STEM challenge included:
- Creepy Carrots
- Bonaparte Falls Apart
- Crankenstein
STEM additions to read-alouds are just one way to celebrate Halloween through science, technology, engineering and math though! A STEM challenge can be its own entire lesson. Which is why we created several complete Halloween STEM activities.
STEM is all about cross-curricular learning and solving real world problems. Our Pumpkin STEM challenge includes all of these things.
This fun fall themed activity includes REAL PUMPKINS! It doesn’t get more hands on that using REAL items in the classroom. Pick-up some pumpkins for your class and then present students with the problem: The pumpkin is too heavy to carry home.
Once students are presented with the problem, they will work to solve the problem using the engineering design process. To help you prepare for this project, we have provided one way students need to try and solve the problem: to roll the pumpkin home!
Students will build a ramp with their group to roll their pumpkin home. By providing a specific type of contraption, you can easily prepare to have materials on hand. This also allows students to follow the engineering design process, without getting stuck on what type of contraption to build. Rather, they focus on HOW to make it effective.
Once students build their ramps – you have to test them out! Can you already imagine how much fun your students will have rolling their pumpkins to see whose will “get home” the fastest?! We promise, your students will be engaged and learning during this whole process!
While this STEM activity already includes several core standards, why not add on to it? Add it to a week or month long unit about pumpkins! Use the life cycle of pumpkins learning quest + the “Pumpkin Eye” read-aloud and make it a full month of pumpkin fun!
HALLOWEEN FREEBIES FOR FIRST GRADE
Every holiday celebration should include a gift! That’s why we put together several fun Halloween freebies for you to use this month. These freebies are great additions to our other Halloween activities for first graders
Use the Halloween Writing FREEBIE as an extension of the Halloween Then and Now Learning Quest. In this writing freebie, students respond to the question, “This Halloween I want to be…”
After students have learned about the history of Halloween, this is a great way to help students make a personal connection to learning. This could also be used as an introduction to a Halloween unit. Get students excited to learn about Halloween by having them begin the unit with this prompt.
The Halloween Decodable Reader freebie is another great way to get students excited to learn more about this holiday. Print this reader off and give students their own copy to keep. Students will love having their own Halloween reader to take home and share with their families.
Halloween Bingo is the perfect activity to end the month of October! Use this on the last Friday of the month. This will help you wrap up a month of fall fun in a fun and playful way.
However you choose to incorporate the spirit of Halloween into your classroom this season, we hope that these activities will help you and your students enjoy the fun of fall!
If you’re looking for more Growth Mindset activities check out our STEM activities for First and Second Graders you can visit our shop or you may be interested in these blog posts such as:
