Haunted House Advertisement

 

I love all the holidays. I especially love incorporating holiday activities in the classroom whenever possible. Students are constantly distracted by the events surrounding the holidays so I feel if I can give them some holiday-related activities, they will be more engaged in the lesson.
 
Even though holiday lessons can be fun, it can be hard to find time within your schedule to include holiday activities. This is a really fun writing activity one of my second-grade co-teachers introduced me to. 
 

Directions for the Free Haunted House Advertisement Activity

The goal of this activity is for students to create their own haunted house and to produce a sale ad persuading people to buy their house. Their audience is not your everyday family.
 
Instead, they should pretend their audience is more like the Addam’s Family or even Zombies (who continue to rise in popularity). For this activity, students are to create the scariest, grossest, and the most haunted house they can imagine.
 

Parts of the Halloween Haunted House Ads Assignment 

• Web: Students can brainstorm ideas about what features they would like in their haunted house.
• Page 1: Draw the exterior of the haunted house. Name the haunted house.
• Page 2: is Optional: Draw two interior rooms in the house (most students like to draw the bathrooms or a bedroom). You may choose to leave this out based on time or provide it as an additional activity for early finishers.
• Page 3: Students fill in the name of the house. They should list the features of the house, address, and the realtor (they should think creatively on who might sell a haunted house). Lastly, they should write an opinionated description of why people should buy this house. They are writing to persuade the reader to purchase their house.
• Page 4: Additional page if a student needs more space to write.

 
See the example of page 3 below. It is far less interesting than what my students have produced in the past.
 
 

 
 
 
Assignment Notes & Tips

• Intended for Grades 2-5.
• I included a list of Halloween words. Please feel free to edit this list to meet the level and needs of your students.

 
Common Core

At the time that I created this activity, it aligned with Common Core. I know that things are ever-changing but in case this helps, here are the Common Core connections.

This writing activity can fall under the following Common Core English Language Arts & Literacy standards.
 
Grades 2-5:
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.2.1
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.3.1
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.4.1
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.5.1
 
To connect your objective to Common Core, students should: state an opinion (that someone should buy their house) and reasons to support their opinion (why
someone should buy their house).
 

To Download

Click the links below to download the files. After the file opens, DOWNLOAD the PDF by clicking the little down arrow in the upper right-hand corner. 

Files to Download

• Haunted House Ad
• Haunted House Ad digital version (adapted so that students can type in their responses)
• Haunted House Web
• Halloween Adjective List 
• Haunted House Ad Example