Read Aloud for Halloween Book and Activities

Do your students read The Magic Tree House books? Mine can't get enough!

One of my favorite holiday books to read with them during the month of October is Haunted Castle on Hallows Eve by Mary Pope Osborne.

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In this tale, Jack and Annie are sent on a Merlin mission on Halloween to restore order to the duke's castle. In order to get there, they must pass through a tunnel of fear. Along the trip is a previous friend, Teddy! During their mission they enter an abandoned village haunted with ghost children and a dog. Jack, Annie, and Teddy are turned into ravens in order to return the Diamond of Destiny that had been stolen by the Raven King. Jack learns to be brave and trust despite his fears, and Annie shows her ability to talk to animals. The trio are able to return the diamond, conquer the Raven King, and restore the haunted town back to normal though their adventures. They even make it home in time for trick-or-treating, but are too scared to go!

 I created a 28-page activity pack to use along with the book. This pack includes fun art extension activities that require creative thinking to respond to each chapter.

Download it HERE

These are my students' favorite part! After reading each chapter, I show them the chapter activity and give them time to work on their response. Then, I allow the students to share their work responses with the class. They love seeing each others interpretation of the chapter and are always proud to share their work. We cheer for them after sharing, which makes them smile every time!

Also included in the pack are "anytime" worksheets. These are activities that can be done at anytime during the book or even multiple times as the story progresses and changes. These lessons are also common core aligned and fun for the students. The topics include: a character map, story sequence, describe a character, key ideas and details, story craft and structure, character traits, cause and effect, chapter vocabulary fill-in, compare and contrast characters.

Finally, I selected four tricky words from each chapter to create memory match games. Several of these words are ones I have seen come through the WordMasters Challenge series over the years.

If your students enjoy listening to stories from iTunes, this book has been narrated by Mary Pope Osborne herself from Listening Library. How cool is that?!?

Happy Haunting,
Amber