Read Alouds for Halloween: Stories and Activities to Make Learning Spook-tacular!
Halloween is the perfect time to bring a little magic (and maybe a few giggles) into your classroom! October read-alouds can be more than just fun—they’re a wonderful way to build vocabulary, sequencing skills, comprehension, and creativity. Whether you’re exploring pumpkins, witches, or trick or treating, these stories are sure to capture your students’ attention and make learning come alive.
Below are 5 of our favorite Halloween picture books for elementary classrooms. Read them for fun or pair them with flexible, low-prep follow-up activities you can use across grade levels.
Top Halloween Read-Alouds for Elementary Students
- The Runaway Pumpkin by Kevin Lewis
- A rollicking, rhyming story about a giant pumpkin that gets away from the Baxter brothers! Perfect for rhythm, prediction, and cause-and-effect discussions.
- Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson
- A witch, her cat, and a few helpful animal friends go on a broomstick adventure about friendship and teamwork.
- The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything by Linda Williams
- A brave old lady encounters spooky sights and sounds in the woods—but she’s not scared! Great for sequencing and sound exploration.
- There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat! by Lucille Colandro
- A hilarious, cumulative tale that’s perfect for repetition, rhyme, and practicing retelling skills.
- Boo! by Robert Munch
- A laugh-out-loud story about a boy named Lance who wants the scariest Halloween costume ever—but ends up frightening everyone in town! Perfect for exploring emotions, cause and effect, and a little spooky fun.
Top Halloween Follow-Up Activities for Spooky Story Fun
These activities can be mixed and matched with any of the stories above to deepen comprehension and add a dash of creativity to your literacy block:
✏️ Literacy Connections
- Story Retell & Sequence – Use picture cards or drawings to retell the story’s beginning, middle, and end.
- Character Letter – Write a letter to your favorite character, giving them advice or asking them a question.
- Adjective Hunt – Find spooky describing words in the story (“bumpy,” “creaky,” “giant”) and brainstorm new ones.
🎨 Creative Expression
- Pumpkin Character Craft – Turn paper pumpkins into the story’s main characters.
- Haunted House Design – Design a spooky house where one of the characters might live!
🧠 Comprehension Boosters
- Story Map – Identify characters, setting, problem, and solution using a graphic organizer.
- Compare and Contrast – How are The Runaway Pumpkin and Room on the Broom alike or different?
- Main Idea Mystery – Summarize what the story is mostly about in one sentence.
🎭 Drama & Movement
- Act It Out! – Use simple props to retell the story as a class play.
- Sound Effects Fun – Create spooky sounds for each event in The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything.
Goosechase Experience Template to Try
The Boo-tastic Goosechase Experience is an interactive, game-based activity designed to extend your Halloween read-alouds beyond the rug and into active learning! Using the Goosechase platform, students complete short, themed missions that reinforce literacy skills like identifying characters, setting, problem and solution, nouns, adjectives, and main idea—all through movement, creativity, and collaboration. It’s a perfect way to review comprehension in a fun, hands-on way that keeps students engaged long after storytime ends.
Boo-Tastic Book Hunt!
Bring your Halloween read-alouds to life with a Goosechase game! Students can complete fun, literacy-based missions after your storytime individually, in pairs, or as small teams.
🎃 Ready to make your Halloween hauntingly fun? Click any of the links above and jump into these ready-to-run Goosechase Experiences. Don’t forget to share your spooktacular classroom moments with us on social @Goosechase — we love seeing the Halloween magic come alive!