How I Use Visual Vocabulary To Crate Festive Classroom Displays for Halloween

One of my favorite things to do during the month of October is to decorate my classroom for Halloween. I love to get into the spirit of the season, and I think it's so important for students to feel that energy in the classroom too! This year I decided to use my visual vocabulary lesson to create festive displays. In this blog post, I'll share how I did it and give you some ideas for your own classroom.

To begin, I select a short story for each class and pull out the words from that story that I want to use as vocabulary words. Then I write each word on a Post-It Note and put the Post-Its on the front whiteboard so the students see them as soon as they come in. On my agenda slides, I tell students to select 2 words from the board that they don't know and take them back to their tables.

We read through the story as a class (usually with a dramatic Halloween ambiance as we read). Then it is time to introduce their assignment. Each student is going to take their 2 words and find them in the story, find the definitions, and then illustrate their word in a way that represents its meaning. So the word “Distorted” is actually distorted. “Alienage” is being abducted by aliens. “Amid” is surrounded by people. 

For the assignment, students need to include the name of the book, the sentence from the story that includes the word, and the definition along with the artsy interpretation of the word.

Generally, most of the words are spooky words since they come from spooky stories, so it makes for some pretty gruesome artwork from the students. Once the students turn them in I put them up all over the classroom and it creates a super festive atmosphere!

One of my favorite things about teaching is getting to see all of the amazing and creative ways that my students interpret the material. When we were working on our visual vocabulary lesson, I was so impressed by the imaginative ways that they illustrated their words. It just goes to show how much they understand when they're able to take what they've learned and apply it in such a creative way.

If you're looking for a fun and easy way to decorate your classroom for Halloween, I highly recommend using our Visual Vocabulary Lesson! It's a great way to get students engaged and excited about the material, and you'll end up with some pretty amazing artwork to display.