Most students love fall, so it is easy to get them excited about Halloween, pumpkins, scarecrows, and other autumn themes. These simple October ideas provide easy to use and creative writing prompts, hands-on projects and fun ideas for classroom use. Best of all, they are simple for the teacher to prepare which is critical during the busy fall season!
Catching Kindness Bulletin Board
Decorate a large bulletin board with a tree trunk and branches. Label it “Kindness is Falling Everywhere.” Cut out medium sized leaves in red, yellow, and orange. Challenge students to look for acts of kindness amongst their classmates throughout the day. At a set time each day (or once in the morning and once in the afternoon), have students share where they saw an act of kindness. The student then writes the kind person’s name on a leaf and gives it to him/her. The student caught being kind can add the leaf to the tree. The teacher can also be on the lookout for kindness to make sure all students have the opportunity to be “caught” being kind.
Creative October Word Search
As a class, brainstorm a list of October themed words and record them on the board or a large piece of chart paper. Provide pairs of students with appropriate sized graph paper and challenge them to create a word search. Make copies of each word search and make them available for students to do during downtime or indoor recess.
Dress Like a Scarecrow Race
For some Friday afternoon fun, put the children into teams for a scarecrow race. Provide the necessary props to create a scarecrow (clothes, straw, hat, etc.) and have students race to dress their scarecrow (one of the students in their group) before the other groups. Switch props among the groups and dress a different student to see if it makes a difference which group wins!
October Writing Prompts
- A Perfect Fall Weekend
- October is for Outdoors!
- The Disappearing Scarecrow
- A Surprise in the Leaf Pile
- Football is Fabulous!
Halloween Writing Prompts
- The Jack-o-Lantern Joke
- My Best Halloween Ever
- How to Succeed at Trick or Treating
- Too Many Black Cats!
- Planning the Perfect Halloween Party
Pumpkin Writing Prompts
- Invasion of the Pumpkin People
- The Pumpkin Pie Caper
- My Prize Winning Pumpkin Patch
- The Year of the Polka Dot Pumpkin
- Too Many Pumpkins!
October is such a fun time of year to enjoy the fall colors, pumpkins, scarecrows, and Halloween. Creative ideas don't have to be complicated and these easy to prepare writing prompts and hands-on projects will be helpful during the busy fall season. For other ideas to make the most of the season, see Pumpkin Unit Ideas, Scarecrow Ideas, and Fall Unit Ideas.
Sallie Schaaf Borrink - Sallie Borrink is a professional writer with extensive experience with business clients, the consumer market, and online destinations.
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