Create an interactive, spooky board for students to use as inspiration to avoid commonly used words. After painting multiple unfinished wood coffins, students will use chalk to write words they may use instead of overused words like said, big, and good. It will all be brought together with spooky wall hangings, spider webs, creepy cutouts, and more! This themed board will put you in the Halloween spirit and also be a great grammar resource for students to look to for assistance!
Spooky season is one of the most exciting times of the year! All the decorations and fun activities makes everything super fun and scary! There are so many ways to integrate the Halloween spirit in your classroom.
For example, when students are writing they tend to reuse certain words over and over. Said is one word teachers see over and over in writings. Create this "Said is Dead" interactive board to really engage kids and get them in the spooky spirit!
I started this project by mixing white paint and black paint together to make the perfect gray color! I then used a paint brush to apply two coats of paint on the unfinished wooden coffins. I painted three of them for the three overly used words we were working with. I let them dry for a day to make sure the paint wouldn't smear and so the kids could write on them.
While the coffins were drying I measured some fadeless bulletin board paper with a chalkboard like finish for our wall. This gives the background a spooky, misty feel. I cut out the phrase "Said is dead and other over used words" using a colored cardstock. The cardstock makes the letters a bit more durable. I then put up my borders. I used two different black and white borders to create a double border. For the striped border, I used Schoolgirl Style's Black and White Striped Bulletin Board Borders. For added texture and dimension, I used some black and white awning borders. Another great option would be some fun Halloween borders!
Next, I got the students involved. We brainstormed some overused words and I wrote them down in chalk. We decided upon said, good, and big. We used the same bucket of chalk and had the kids come up and write different examples of the overused words. For the word "Big" students picked alternatives like giant, bulky, huge, vast, enormous, and massive. Instead of using the word "Good" they decided to go with great, fine, awesome, fantastic, wonderful, nice and lovely. Finally, the group agreed upon questioned, explained, stated, replied, expressed, answered, and declared instead of "Said."
Finally, we added all of the spooky decorations! We used stretchable spiderwebs, Ghoul Gang Cutouts, orange fringe streamers, skeleton garland, and spider push pins! All of these spooky decorations really went along great with the coffins. I hung them up with tape and and the spiders were pinned into the wall like tacks.
The final product serves two purposes. It teaches students to think outside of the box, or coffin, and add some variety to their writing. It also creates a spooky scene for the classroom to get kids into the Halloween spirit!
