Currently, my favorite Halloween book is Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson! My students always love the whimsical story, lively illustrations and the rhythm of the text almost feels musical when read aloud (There is, in fact, a musical version that can be heard HERE!).
I always read the book a few times, do a little dramatic play with some props and then towards the end of the week I show the short animated movie - the kids really love this story!
Since the story is repetitive, it great for having the children join in while reading and to work on retelling skills afterwards. I really wanted my students to be able to engage with this story over and over again in new and different hands-on ways, so I created a few activities to go with it - they can be found HERE.
My students' absolute FAVORITE activity is this Build & Balance Retelling activity:
Students have to balance the broom by carefully stacking the storytelling props on top of each other. I created several printable options including foldable picture props, pictures to attach to wooden blocks (or these BLOCKS
), or pictures sized for DUPLO
type blocks. Several options make for quick and easy differentiation!
), or pictures sized for DUPLO
type blocks. Several options make for quick and easy differentiation! 
The foldable stacking pieces are the easiest to balance and the quietest, but are more fragile than the pictures sized for wooden blocks. The Duplo pictures are great for adding to your building area and they stick together so there isn't really much balancing, just building.
For older students, I added some worksheet options to go with the activities including pages for retelling, creative writing, problem solving, main idea and story elements. There are MANY different options for each, which makes for easy differentiation!
I also collected these great dramatic play props so that the children can act out the story!
