Middle School ELA Halloween Activities

I feel like my Middle School (7th and 8th Grade) students sometimes get forgotten on Holidays, but I also don’t like to make myself crazy with a bunch of activities or insane ideas.

Because of this, I have been trying to create fun and simple holiday activities that are ELA based, but also fun and out of the ordinary for the kids.

Last year on Halloween I pulled a bunch of Halloween-Themed ELA activities together to create a fun, no-pressure filled day with my middle schoolers in our ELA classes.

We had so much fun with:

Figurative Language Halloween-Themed phrases
Rhetorical Appeals in Halloween commercials
Mood and Tone in Halloween commercials
Would you Rather Read Horror/Thriller Novel Slide Activity
Halloween Word Scramble for a warm-up

They are also all Digital in Google Slides if you are doing distance learning!

For each activity, I have included reference sheets:

Mood and Tone
Rhetoric
Figurative Language

The activities were meant for mostly review for my students, but I also know that whether or not these concepts have been taught, sometimes students just need a reminder!

Fun Halloween Word Search Warm-Up

Below is the table of contents of everything included, plus the fun halloween word search. I always like to do a fun Holiday based word search on days like this, because it’s a nice break for my students. Nothing hard or crazy, just fun! Middle schoolers like fun too ha!

Digital Halloween Google Forms Activities

I know that so many teachers are doing digital and/or hybrid models, or just want an easy way to do some fun Halloween ELA activities. Because of that I made Google Slides versions of all activities to make it one less thing you have to worry about.

Halloween Commercials Rhetorical Appeals or Mood and Tone Analysis Activity

This might be one of my favorite things I have ever come up with ha!

When I came up with my Middle School ELA Valentine’s Day activities we were right in the middle of our rhetoric unit and we had been watching TV commercials to analyze them for rhetoric.

I wanted to continue that so we watched a Valentine’s Day TV Commercials and analyzed their rhetorical appeals! The kids loves it!

I decided to do the same thing for Halloween. I also came up with having them analyze the mood and tone for the same commercials because most of them have definitive moods and tones (and so appropriate for Halloween!) that change from beginning to end.

Horror or Thriller Novel Would You Rather Read Activity

I know I said the last activity was my favorite thing I ever came up with, but this one would be a close second. My middle school students are always asking for Horror to Thriller type novel suggestions. It’s not my favorite genre so this is a perfect way for students to be exposed to different novels, read the synopsis and then make their own decisions on what they would like to read.

Halloween-Themed Figurative Language Activity

Lastly, is a fun figurative language Halloween-theme activity (plus you can get this one as a freebie too!) All answer keys are included! It’s a fun and easy Halloween activity no matter how much time you have.