Celebrating Fall Holidays With Middle School Students With Fun Activities

Ideas for celebrating Halloween, Remembrance Day and Thanksgiving in the middle school classroom.

How do you go about celebrating fall holidays with middle school students? When the fall holiday season arrives, I like to change up my lessons to acknowledge the new season and add some different activities to my lessons. My tip is to embrace the season and all of its holidays.

Celebrating Fall Holidays With Middle School Students

I like to work on a spooky-themed reader’s theatre for Halloween in October. My students have enjoyed the reader’s theatre version of Edgar Allan Poe’s A Tell Tale Heart. They like adding different voices and sound effects. My students will also work on a Halloween Creative Writing Assignment or a Fall Creative Writing Assignment.

Halloween Creative Writing – Shopify CAD and Teachers Pay Teachers USD
Fall Creative Writing – Shopify CAD and Teachers Pay Teachers USD

I also have more Halloween resources to use in your classroom for celebrating fall holidays with middle school students. You can also read this blog post for more fun Halloween Activities you can do in your classroom: Middle School Halloween Activities: Fun and Spooky Ideas for a Memorable Celebration

Halloween Unit – Shopify CAD and Teachers Pay Teachers USD
Halloween Non-Fiction Article – Shopify CAD and Teachers Pay Teachers USD
Halloween Digital Escape Room – Shopify CAD and Teachers Pay Teachers USD
Podcast Listening Comprehension Lesson – Halloween Stores – Shopify CAD and Teachers Pay Teachers USD

For Thanksgiving in October/November, my students participate in a Thanksgiving Drama Circle by Runde’s Room. Students love this interactive, structured, improv-like game that gets everyone to participate and laugh together.

I also have an exciting Thanksgiving digital escape room and a fun Canadian Thanksgiving Activities resource that students will love. Celebrating fall holidays with middle school students can be both fun and educational! These Thanksgiving activities not only teach students about the history of Thanksgiving but allows them to have fun while doing so. You can check out this blog post for more ways to incorporate Thanksgiving into your classroom: Fun Middle School Thanksgiving Activities.

Thanksgiving Digital Escape Room – Shopify CAD and Teachers Pay Teachers USD
Canadian Thanksgiving Activities – Shopify CAD and Teachers Pay Teachers USD

For Remembrance Day in November, my students work on a choral reading of A Prayer for the 21st Century by John Marsden. First, we read the poem out loud and analyze the meaning as a class. Then, I break the class into six groups, each learning a different verse of the poem. We present with the class standing in six rows facing forward. It looks dramatic and adds creativity to a traditional activity like choral reading. Celebrating fall holidays with middle school students should not exclude learning about Remembrance Day.

Check out this detailed blog post for more Remembrance Day lesson plans, or purchase this ready-to-teach complete middle school Remembrance Day Unit. Use these ten engaging and detailed lessons with multimedia elements for two engaging weeks to help your students explore and grasp the core concepts behind this occasion.