Halloween Writing Prompts for Kindergarten – Unique and Fun

Today I’m sharing my favorite ways to get young writers excited about writing and even providing free Halloween writing prompts for you!

If you avoid anything related to Halloween activities, no worries! I’m also sharing some ideas for your writing center using the 5 Little Pumpkins rhyme. I love this one because you can say there were bats or leaves in the air instead of witches.

Kid Friendly Halloween Writing prompts and Stories

The Halloween season is the perfect time of year for students to finish story starters, a short story, and creative writing prompts to build essential writing skills.

Of course, when working with kindergarten students or 1st grade students, I always avoid spooky stories. I find that even 2nd grade students prefer fun Halloween stories over eerie tales.

Have you read Room on the Broom to your students? Little kids love the friendly witch who makes room on her broom for a black cat and other animals in distress. I love the message behind this adorable Halloween story.

Halloween Writing Prompts for kindergarten and other grades

You probably know all about Julia Donaldson. She is one of my favorite authors. Her rhyming and pacing is perfection. I first found out about her when I read the Gruffalo and The Gruffalo’s Child for the first time. Her rhythm and rhyme are unmatched. These unique stories that lend themselves perfectly to fall writing prompts. I spent time creating an entire unit over these two books incorporating lots of writing, math, and reading practice! There are several blog posts I’ve written about these. You can begin here if you want to find out more about those.

Room on the Broom is absolutely precious. I love reading this one to my prek, kindergarten, or first grade students because it isn’t a spooky story at all. I have so many creative prompts to share with you!

Room on the Broom Fun

You can make your read aloud really fun with a hat and witch’s broom. Seriously, it’s one of the best things I’ve found to use for props. Right before I began, I tugged the hat on, mounted the broom, and rode around the room pretending to be a happy witch and talking to the kids. They thought that was quite hilarious and I had their interest peaked immediately!

As I read the part in the book where her hat went flying off, I was able to send mine flying.  It was fun to act out different scenes in the book and a great way to keep engagement levels high!

Room on the Broom Sequencing

You may remember this resource that was offered as a freebie on TPT for 6 years. During that time it was downloaded by over 150,000 teachers. That STILL blows my mind. As a freebie, it had around 10 pages and contained these sequencing sheets as well as the pieces to create the broom craft. However, the resource has been fully updated with more than 100 additional pages. It is now a paid resource on TPT found here.

You will find all of these pages that go along with the book. We started with this Room on the Broom sequencing sheet. The students had such a great time coloring the characters from the book. Then they cut out the squares and glue them in the correct order to retell the story. This is a wonderful activity to do the week of your Halloween party or the weeks leading up to it. I also like to work on this during small group time in my kindergarten classroom. 

Fine Motor Support

Since it’s October, I sometimes still need to show them how to hold their hands when coloring, using scissors, and glueing. Older students still love these crafts and writing activities and you won’t have to provide as much support.

The kids really enjoyed this activity. You’ll find so many differentiated writing pages if you would like to create your own prompt or use one that I’ve included. It’s always fun to ask the students to design their own magnificent broom. Consider asking them to make predictions before reading the book or to write about their favorite part of the story.

Unique Halloween Craft

The best part? You should hear the squeals of excitement when they find out they get to create their own brooms!

I’ve included a color version so you can create a sample in no time. I precut the broom handles. I use the long construction paper and cut it once long ways down the middle and then I cut those 2 pieces down the middle long ways. This gives me 4 sections from each sheet. I like that I only use up about 5 long pieces for my whole class.

Is this making sense? You can watch videos I made of the process. Head here to follow me on instagram and to find the videos of this project.

For the head of the broom, you just curve the edges of one short side of a regular sheet of yellow construction paper. Then I let the kids cut the pages to about the midpoint to create the bristles by themselves! They really enjoy this part.

Students color and cut out the characters, trace the words to label the pieces, and then assemble the broom! You will find more detailed instructions within the unit on TPT. I hope your students absolutely love making these! As mentioned, this unit has been fully updated with over 100 additional pages. Now you’ll find an incredibly unique paper towel retell craft, masks, puppets, additional prompts, differentiated activities, puzzles, games, and so much more!

Paper Towel Retell Craft for Room on the Broom

I love the way the characters roll over to reveal the dragon!

Do your kids love puppets and headbands as much as mine? They are always a hit!

I also love the game above to practice rhyming words. I always attach the pot to a container in my classroom so students can reach in and pull one out. We play this in a similar way to my Pick a Card games!

You will also find puzzles and a color by code sheet. All of this combines to make station rotations super easy!

Have you ever noticed the rich language in this book? You’ll adore the activity to act out the verbs in order to increase understanding as well as the word wall cards included!

FLY over here to grab your updated unit.

Before we leave Room on the Broom, I have some great ideas for your grade levels Halloween costumes! My kindergarten team absolutely loved dressing up as the characters. They could easily identify us using the Halloween vocabulary cards.

Other Fun Halloween Writing Prompts

Let’s move on to other fun Halloween kindergarten writing prompts.

Five Little Pumpkins

Who doesn’t love the 5 Little Pumpkins poem? We’ve been reciting this poem for years in my classroom. My students always love it.

If you want to see a video where I explain all of this with more detail, go here:
The 5 Little Pumpkins – FREE Video Explanation

I start by introducing the word wall cards found in my resource on TPT. This is the perfect time to discuss ordinal numbers with your students. Although most students are familiar with them from lining up or winning a game, there is often still some confusion there, especially with multilingual learners.

multiple versions

I then read 2 different books, one was an old copy of the poem in a book and the other was a Pete the Cat version. Finally, I held up the poem that I printed out of the resource and we practiced saying it again while using hand motions. (I describe this more in the video posted above.)

We are working on retelling the major events of a story and this poem lends itself perfectly to that standard.

don’t celebrate halloween? No worries!

Again, I encourage you to avoid spooky prompts or of course, scary movies of any sort. Keep it light and fun and you’ll see even the most reluctant writer get into the spirit of things!

TIP: If you don’t reference or celebrate Halloween in your classroom, no problem! This one is truly perfect because it comes with “bats” or “leaves” options to replace the witch.

Several years ago, I had a very special student in my classroom who loved to sing this classic song. His preschool teachers told me that it was his favorite so I set to work coming up with ideas.

I created this unit with him in mind! It’s packed with writing opportunities, retell practice, math, and the BEST low prep STEM project.

STEM Project

I’m sure you can guess that the STEM project is their favorite. Just grab a bag of candy pumpkins and you’ll be set with materials you already have in your classroom. Children use the included planning page to really think about their design. Remember that planning is an essential part of making a STEM project successful. We use craft sticks and clothespins to create a fence. I tell them to design any kind of gate or fence that 5 pumpkins can sit on.

You will be pleasantly surprised at how quiet the room gets as they really concentrate on the task. They come up with so many cute designs! When they finish, don’t forget to pass out the extra candy pumpkins as a treat and complete the reflection sheet. Reflection is another important part of STEM!

Masks & Headbands

We really love using the masks/puppets and headbands for retell practice. I have students take turns standing at the front. We all wave our hands at the part that says “Woooo! went the wind!” When we get to the part that says “OUT went the lights!” we hold up open hands and quickly shut them into a fist. The kids turn in circles on the “Rolled out of sight” part.

Paper Towel Retell Craft

Have you ever used one of my paper towel retell crafts? It’s such a cute way to retell a story. I use it when I first tell the poem and flip each flap down as I get to each pumpkin. The kids even make their own retell craft to take home and retell the story to their parents. (Remember, that I’ve included options with leaves or bats if you prefer to not use the witch!)

Unique Retell Glove

I’ve also included pieces so you can make a retell glove. This is another fun way to teach the story and get kids excited about Halloween writing prompts!

Click on any of the photos to grab this unit on TPT or head to this blog post to learn more and see additional photos!

Chocolate Chip Ghost

I know we’ve covered a few really good ones, but this one is my absolute favorite! This is an adorable story that started as a flannel board story. It’s been passed down for years which explains why you probably don’t have the book. Don’t worry! I’ve got you covered and you won’t even need one.

It’s about the cutest little ghost family. I love that it isn’t scary at all. Basically, Mommy Ghost goes to the grocery store for milk and vanilla ice cream and leaves her 5 children with strict instructions not to eat ANYTHING or they won’t stay white. The first one eats grapes and you can imagine what happens. After that, the children love to shout out their predictions of what will happen. This story naturally weaves in color and positional word practice. You DO NOT need a book if you grab this resource.

halloween writing prompts for kindergarten Hallway Display Craft

One of my favorite things to do with this one is make a craft for the hallway. It’s a great time to get out watercolor paints. They choose a food and tell what color their ghosts will turn. Most choose a simple one like “I ate a lemon and turned yellow!” I’m always stunned by how creative some of them are.

How cute are these? You can even staple these to make a class book! There are so many different ways to use the writing painting prompts. Even 3rd or 4th grade students would love these painting crafts paired with a longer writing prompt.

Halloween writing prompts for kindergarten using STEM Projects

The STEM project is the perfect activity and one of my classroom’s favorite Halloween traditions. Bonus that it is so simple to set up! I know we are all looking for something to really keep the kids engaged this time of year.

Teachers have shared with me that they complete the 5 Little Pumpkins STEM project and the Ghost STEM during classroom Halloween parties or the day of Halloween.

You will just draw simple ghost faces on the cups. Children will use the included planning and reflection sheets to prepare for the project. (This is a great way to sneak in extra writing practice!) I give them a stack of cups and tell them to make the tallest tower they can. Some will figure out that they need to stack them like the photo above. How cute is my student crossing his fingers with hope? (Sharing their pics with parent permission!)

If you want to learn more about this sweet story, head to this blog post or grab the unit at a discount here.

Pumpkin Smasher Freebie

I always find this time of year kind of magical in the primary grades. The leaves, the pumpkins, and our kids are FINALLY settling into that routine that we’ve worked so hard on! The kids are starting to grasp really big concepts and are so much better at following directions in October.

This freebie includes the most adorable Halloween Writing prompts and the kids go nuts for it!

I begin by reading this book. (This is an affiliate link that adds no extra cost to you!)

If you don’t have it, its an older book that you’ll want to grab or see if you can find a YouTube retelling of it. If you are on a budget, you can skip the book. They will love the rest of the activity and the kids will still have fun with it!

After reading the book, the kids color and cut out a pumpkin. I have a couple of templates included in your freebie.

When they leave for specials, I go around and tear the pumpkins into about 5 pieces and place a treat on top. Make sure to leave a little treat on top. I’ve had one or two students over the years get a little upset until they saw the treat! (We did not have peanut allergies in our classroom but you might choose a different surprise to be safe. Make sure you check allergies!)

Halloween Writing Prompts for Kindergarten using the Pumpkin Smasher

 I’ve always loved this picture of my daughter in Kindergarten. She was genuinely shocked to see that her pumpkin had been smashed!

My kids use the included word wall cards to complete their writing and piece together a sentence about who they think the pumpkin smasher is. 

TIP: If you don’t celebrate Halloween in your school, skip the book and consider writing the names of people who could have smashed the pumpkins on the board (gym teacher, principal, etc).

I like to project this included poem on the board or screen. They think it’s so much fun!

If they mess up a little when putting it back together, I just let them go with it.

I promise this will have your little ones engaged and so excited to write! Figuring out how to put that puzzle back together is a great way to sneak in some problem solving skills too.

If you want to read more about this activity and grab your freebie, head here to read an in-depth blog post

 I hope you have a very Happy Halloween and that your kids enjoy filling up with Halloween Candy!

Happy Teaching and Parenting this week friends!