Digital Play

By kylemawer 　http://www.digitalplay.info/blog/2011/10/21/top-ten-halloween-dress-up-games/

Here’s a brief description of ten Halloween themed dress up/ monster creator games and a few suggestions on how to use them.  All these games were chosen to tie in with the Halloween theme of trick or treat and dressing up in costumes.  You can access them by either following the links or clicking on the image.

1  Make Your Monster

In a computer room get young learners (7 – 9 yrs) to make their own monsters and write the description for their monster. e.g.

My monster has got green ears and green hands.  He’s got a square blue body.  He’s got red eyes, a big grey nose and sharp yellow teeth.

Collect their descriptions in and correct them.  If you can save their monsters (screen capture) too that’s great.  Then next class you can hand out the descriptions randomly to other students (making sure no-one gets the one they wrote) and students reproduce the monster from the description.  Compare with the original monster picture if possible.

2  Goose Bumps

Again in a computer room with young learners (7 – 9 yrs), another way to use the language from the previous activity is to make a monster yourself, write out the description for it and dictate it to your learners.  They have to listen and reproduce the monster you are describing. e.g.

He’s got an orange head. He’s wearing a grey suit with a red bow tie.  He’s got big strong green arms.  He’s got very short legs and they are yellow.  He’s very ugly.

Check to see if any of the student’s monsters are different and ask students if they can say what is wrong using the target language.  Praise them if they get it right.

3 Make a Monster

Drag the body parts on the left onto the create area and manipulate each part with the controls below.  The controls here are a little more complicated and the game a little more complex so I use this game with older learners (9 – 11 yrs).  You can use the game to stimulate a writing a description activity.  Language can be a little more complicated and have a greater range. e.g.

My monster likes eating small children.  He doesn’t like tidying his room and on Saturdays he likes to watch horror films.  He sleeps in the day and goes out at night to scare people.

If you can’t save the monster using screen capture then get your learners to copy the monster into their notebooks.  Give them 5-10 minutes to do this copying from the computer screen.  they can colour it in or add other details at home.

4 Halloween Monster

Play the game yourself and write/ type it out and print a single copy of the description out.  Then go to the computer room and ask students to sit in pairs.  direct them to the website and tell them they have to make this picture and show them the printed description.  Put the description on a wall (blu-tac) and tell one student in the pair they have to come up, read and go and tell their partner the description.  When they can’t remember any more they have to come back and read the next part and go back to their partner and repeat.  After 5 minutes the pair change roles.  Here’s an example of a description:

There is a brown path leading to a very tall scary house.  There are five lights on in the house.  The monster is on the right of the house. He’s standing to the right of the path in the middle.  He’s got a pumpkin’s head.  He’s got two grey arms that are reaching out towards the path.  He’s wearing some very old brown trousers and old brown shoes.

When they’ve finished they can look at other pairs’ monsters and spot any differences.

5 Zombie Creator

This is good for a bit of collaborative gaming and speaking in a connected classroom.  Display the game on a central screen and choose the create-a-scene option.  Then encourage learners to dictate to you what to put in the scene.  You input language as it’s needed and encourage learners to repeat the language.  There is some quite select language that comes up so it may help to make a note of the language you expect to elicit and for learners to use. e.g. (see image on the left)

The skulls are flashing.           There is a ghost on the left.          They are in a wood with a moon.           There is a birthday cake.

The zombie on the left is coming out of the ground

As a follow up put learners in teams and they have to write down the scene remembering as much of the language as possible.  Encourage them to ask you how to spell words.

6 Halloween Fright Site

If you want a template for a halloween card then use this site.  There are a few designs using various costumes associated with halloween (skeleton, ghost, and a witch) along with a selection of different backgrounds.  You can choose to have the design coloured in by default or left in black or white.  Once learners have a finished design they can print it off.

• If it’s in black and white do a collaborative open class colouring in dictation.

• If you print off coloured in designs then get your learners to write a halloween recipe, story or poem.

7 Trick or Treat Dress Up

8 Ghost Dress Up

9 Halloween Dress Up

This computer room relay dictation activity has a lesson plan for it posted on this blog already.  Just click on the link or picture to read all about it.  The language covered includes:

has got / is wearing

colour / clothes/ parts of the body

10 Funny Halloween

 Learners open up two internet explorer pages.  On the first one they have 5 minutes to create their character.  When the time limit is up pair two computers together.  Computer A goes to their second internet explorer page which is set to the beginning of the game. Computer B describes their character for Computer A to listen to and reproduce.  When they have finished they should compare and discuss the differences and count them up.  They then repeat but swap roles.  At the end decide which of the pair had the least differences.  Then decide which team in the whole class had the least differences.  Ask them if this is the result of them being good listeners or the others being the best describers.

10 more days to Halloween!