I've almost lost all sense of time in 2020 but I'm pretty sure we are now in October, aka every SLP's favorite month because of Halloween themed speech! Am I the only one who starts doing Halloween activities well before October and continues with them beyond the 31st??
While our therapy sessions may look a lot different this year, there are plenty of Halloween themed activities online that can be used during teletherapy (and/or in-person) sessions-- most of which are free! The activities below have been sorted by type and by age-- activities for younger students may be better for preschool and early elementary schoolers while activities for older students may work better for older elementary, middle, and high.
I hope that this list adds some fun to your sessions and cuts down on your planning time. For more themed activities, check out this huge list of that I compiled with Lucy Stone of The Speech Express (@the_speech_express) over on her fantastic blog, The Ultimate List of Themed Speech & Language Activities. Make sure to bookmark the post while there, because we will continue to add on!
Happy Halloween Speech!
Activities for Younger Students
Digital Games:
Virtual Trick-or-Treat Game on Boom Learning by Spiffy Speech - ideal for younger students working on language skills like requesting, expanding utterance length, pronouns, prepositions, answering basic questions
Broomsticks & Cauldrons Game on Boom Learning by Spiffy Speech - includes versions for common artic sounds, multisyllabic words, and language tasks like describing, comparing, synonyms, multiple meanings
Toca Boo & Companion Activity by MrsMcSpeechie - use the game Toca Boo, a Toca Boca app where a girl dresses up as a ghost and scares her family! MrsMcSpeechie created a companion activity on TpT that allows you to to target speech-language goals (including motor speech targets using PROMPT and a variety of language concepts) while playing!
Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood Dress Up Game on PBS Kids
Sesame Street Dress Up Time Game on PBS Kids
Virtual Pumpkin Carving Game on ABCya - great as a quick break between activities or as a reinforcer
Oh My Gourd Game on Disney LOL - build a jack o’ lantern with different colors, features, and accessories
Arthur’s Tricks and Treats Game on PBS Kids - give characters the candy they request before time runs out, great for expanding utterance length, using adjectives, and sequence/position concepts
House of Haunts Game- practice using a variety of vocabulary words, complete sentences, adjectives, and location concepts to give specific directions, describe each spooky room, or describe Halloween items. Also great for older students working on making basic requests and expanding utterance length as it is not as juvenile as Sesame Street or Daniel Tiger.
Halloween Candy Hunt Game on ABCya - look for hidden candy in picture scenes, good for working on location concepts and describing scenes
Book Read-Alouds:
Turkey Trick or Treat book read-aloud on YouTube - great for making inferences and predictions
Crankenstein book read-aloud on YouTube - good for inferences, discussing anger/frustration
Froggy’s Halloween book read-aloud on YouTube - great for story retell, answering basic wh questions
Creepy Carrots book read-aloud on YouTube - great for making inferences, working on predictions, and practicing categorization since it includes category items (clothing, bathroom items, toys, tools, etc.)
Creepy Pair of Underwear book read-aloud on YouTube - very silly so it is engaging and motivating but some kids might perseverate on it, great for working on inferences and predictions
Clifford’s First Halloween book read-aloud on YouTube - good for sequencing events in a story, story retell, answering basic wh questions, and describing pictures
Halloween Hustle book read-aloud on YouTube - great for rhyming, phonological awareness, practicing tier two vocabulary
Room on the Broom book read-aloud on Youtube - good for rhyming, phono awareness, tier two vocabulary, making inferences and predictions
Peppa’s Halloween Party book read-aloud on YouTube - good for basic describing and answering wh questions
Other Activities:
Leveled Halloween WH Questions resource by Spiffy Speech - work on answering who, what, where questions separately and then when person, place, and object are combined into one Halloween-themed scene. Also good for older students working on answering basic questions, naming from descriptions, describing, and expanding utterance length as pictures are not too juvenile
Halloween Directions Picture Strips by Spiffy Speech - includes a print version of picture strips for following directions in-person as well as a no-print version that can be pulled up on a device in-person or while screen sharing! During teletherapy, students can be given mouse control to place their computer arrow over the correct picture or can use Annotate to draw a circle around it.
Halloween Sentence Comprehension resource by Speech Time Fun
Halloween Coloring Pages on Disney LOL - work on using adjectives, specific vocabulary, location concepts and on following directions
Green Screen Activities:
Join my mailing list for instant access to my Freebie library, which has over 200 FREE green screen backgrounds-- including pre-made Halloween backgrounds for the activities described below!
*Print out pictures of Halloween items. Change your virtual background to a witch’s hat, cauldron, magic hat, or open jack-o-lantern. Describe items for the student to name and then pretend to pull them out of the hat or jack-o-lantern. Or, have the student describe or compare/contrast two before you put items inside.
*Change your virtual background to the front door of a haunted house, pretend to knock and go inside. Change the background to a hall of doors. Pretend to open the doors, see a scary monster (change your background each time to one with a monster), pretend to run away and scream, then “slam” the door and return to the hall of doors. Credit for this awesome activity goes to the green screen speech queen, Serena from Play Spark Toys! Follow her on Instagram (@playsparktoys) and her Facebook group, Green Screen Speech Therapy (Distance Learning).
Activities for Older Students
Digital Games:
Halloween Jeopardy Games on Jeopardy Labs - students can play pre-made Jeopardy games or create their own, some games include pictures or spooky video clips
Halloween Hop Game on ABCya - good for a quick break between activities and includes trivia questions
Halloween Crossword Puzzle on ABCya - work on synonyms, word associations, naming from a description
Escape Rooms:
Dr. Diabolical’s House of Horrors Virtual Escape Room - fantastic for reading comprehension, visualizing, higher-level vocabulary, understanding humor
Zombie Escape Room - answer questions by clicking parts of a spooky picture and visiting websites (websites can be used to work on comprehension or making inferences)
Other Activities:
17 Ghost Stories for Kids - fantastic compilation of spooky short stories to practice vocabulary, reading/comprehension, summarizing, paraphrasing, inferencing, and more. While some stories are more mild, others can be quite creepy, so make sure to preview them before sharing with students!
52 Cool Pumpkin Carving Ideas - use the descriptions to work on synonyms/definitions of tier two vocab, includes some idioms like "a thorn in its side," use photos to work on formulating sentences given a target word, describing, comparing/contrasting, making inferences about (or retelling) the steps to carve each design, discussing whether the student likes/dislikes each idea
What Halloween Costume Matches Your Personality Quiz - includes tier two vocabulary and photos that can be used for describing or making inferences
*Pull up pictures of Halloween costumes such as the elaborate (and expensive) ones found at Chasing Fireflies. Describe a costume for the student to guess or have them use costumes for describing, comparing/contrasting, explaining how two words go together (ex: butterfly and wings), or playing Would You Rather? You can repeat this activity with a Google Images search of various jack-o-lanterns.
*Write a ghost story or mystery story using a graphic organizer and one of these picture prompts: Haunted Castle, Flying Pumpkin, Magic Mirror, Cauldron in the Woods, Witch and Cat
Wacky Weekend: Animal Costumes on NatGeo Kids - have students look at pictures of animals in Halloween costumes using this page or a quick search on Google or Amazon. Students can make inferences about what they think each animal is dressed as and how they know. My freebie page includes free sentence frames that can be used during inferencing activities such as this one-- use Annotate to fill in the blanks! NatGeo Kids has a bunch of other quick Halloween activities such as Halloween trivia and polls!
Green Screen Activity:
*Change your virtual background to various spooky rooms as you take a virtual tour of a photo-realistic haunted house. In each room, have the student make inferences about the room (ex: How can you tell this is the kitchen?) or what might have happened there (ex: What could have ripped the curtains?)
If you are interested in any Halloween resources from my site, including my Halloween Bundle, make sure to use code BOO2020 to get 25% off!
Don't forget that you can find even more themed activities for tons of different themes over on The Speech Express's blog: The Ultimate List of Themed Speech & Language Activities!
Be sure to bookmark the page while there because we will continue to add on! There are other blog posts over on The Speech Express website that provide tons of teletherapy tips, ideas, and activities.