CYBER SALE! ➔
When October hits, everything seems to be coming at you at once, right? IEP meetings, referrals, progress reports due, and teachers needing support for their students. That leaves NO time for planning engaging speech therapy lessons. So, I wanted to share some easy and free Halloween speech and language activities you can adapt for your mixed groups in October.
If you’re looking for ideas for preschool and elementary students, head over to my Halloween Speech Therapy Activities post for crafts, sensory bins, and book ideas. This post focuses on low-prep Halloween activities for mixed groups and older students in upper elementary and middle school.
When you have students working on different goals, digital games make planning simple while keeping sessions fun. You can plan lots of fun Halloween speech and language activities with engaging digital websites & resources.
Kahoot is always a hit for mixed groups. You can find free Halloween-themed quizzes for Would You Rather?, trivia, and vocabulary practice on kahoot.com. Students can respond verbally or in writing, making it easy to target language formulation, describing, and articulation carryover. You can also find figurative language, grammar and other language concepts.
Another favorite site is Bamboozle, where you can search for Halloween games that focus on vocabulary, comprehension, or quick conversation prompts. It’s free to play and easy to adapt for different goals.
If you’re using Google Slides in therapy, try your Halloween Speech Therapy Google Slides templates to make digital task cards featuring Halloween costumes or themed objects. Add articulation targets, WH-questions, or describing prompts right on the slides.
Digital tools like these are perfect for keeping all your students engaged, even when you’re juggling multiple goal areas in one group.
Halloween is the perfect time to bring in short nonfiction passages to build background knowledge and vocabulary. Older students love learning about why we celebrate Halloween and where traditions came from.
You can find free reading passages on ReadWorks.org such as “History of Halloween”, “Halloween Leftovers,” or “History of the Jack-o’-Lantern.” Each article includes comprehension questions and vocabulary words that make it easy to integrate into language therapy.
You can also use this National Geographic article about why kids say “Trick or Treat” to work on summarizing and inferencing skills.
Therapy ideas include:
If you have access to Newsela or CommonLit, search “Halloween” or “Werewolves” for leveled nonfiction passages that can target comprehension and vocabulary goals too.
So many cute Halloween costumes are floating around on Pinterest and Google Photos. So, why not use them to plan Halloween speech and language activities? To keep things organized, adding your photos and Giphy to Google Slide templates is a great way to have an activity ready to go year after year. The templates include a variety of slides that you can customize:
You can duplicate the slide with the Google Slides templates to make multiple costume slides for your groups. It is worth the time to add pictures of Halloween costumes because once it’s prepped, you can pull it up over and over again in minutes!
To duplicate a slide, right-click your mouse and slide down to click duplicate. Then, go to Pinterest, Google Photos, or Giphy.com to search for Halloween costume pictures to add to your Google Slides. Adding a GIF is super easy and is explained around the 8-minute mark of this video.
Make sure to prepare your Halloween costume pictures BEFORE students enter because there can be inappropriate GIFs or photos when searching.
Plan Halloween speech and language activities with these free Google Slides by using one task card to cover lots of different goals. For example, If you have students working on speech-sound goals, find Halloween costumes that feature your student’s target speech sound. Give them a challenge list of words to use that are sound-loaded to describe costumes.
Have your students describe the costume by attributes and adjectives for vocabulary goals. Pick some tier II vocabulary words to discuss while talking about the costumes. Review the tier II vocabulary word definitions before pulling up the Google Slides. Encourage students to use the vocabulary words during the lesson. For example, you could use the words brilliant, prepare, fragile, inspire, or create while discussing the costumes.
Ask WH questions about the costumes.
Use this free sentence frame graphic organizer to build complex sentences about the costumes. What Halloween speech and language activities can you plan with these Google Slide task cards?
Simon’s Cat wordless shorts are perfect for mixed groups because everyone can watch the same clip while targeting different goals. You can plan easy Halloween speech and language activities with these videos, plus kids are so motivated by them!
These videos are probably my favorite go-to for planning Halloween speech and language activities for elementary and middle school students.
Or use the official Spooky Simon’s Cat: Halloween Specials playlist to pick clips quickly.
Always preview any YouTube video to make sure it’s appropriate for your caseload.
These clips are great for inferencing, WH-questions, describing, predicting, story retell, and articulation carryover. To save planning time, pair them with my Halloween Simon’s Cat Speech Therapy Cheat Sheets.
You can easily combine articulation and language practice in one activity by using simple reinforcement games and themed worksheets. Here are some low-prep Halloween speech and language activities that work across a variety of goals.
Start with this free Halloween Vocalic R activity from The Speech Spot Creations. Students can build words, say them in silly sentences, or practice their words five times before earning a turn in a game.
Pair this worksheet with your mixed groups by adding a quick language twist:
If you want more spooky speech practice, grab this free articulation set from Sublime Speech called Spooky Speech Halloween Articulation Word Lists and Activities. It includes themed word lists and a “potion-making” game where students mix up a “potent potion” while saying their target words.
You can also bring back the Halloween bucket toss game. Each student gets a flashcard or sentence card and a chance to toss into a bucket after their turn. Add point values for extra excitement.
And for language-focused fun, try a few free Halloween Mad Libs on Teachers Pay Teachers. These are great for reinforcing parts of speech, sentence structure, and creative storytelling.
For students working on social communication, Halloween presents numerous opportunities to discuss perspective-taking and problem-solving.
Try Halloween “Would You Rather?” questions found on Kahoot or Pinterest. These prompt conversation, flexible thinking, and justification skills.
You can also present short scenarios like:
These can lead to role-plays, emotion labeling, and inferencing tasks. If you’re using group video clips, pause at key moments and have students guess what a character might be thinking or feeling.
For sharing opinions, play Halloween “This or That” games for costumes. Students can explain why they would pick the costume, how they would feel wearing it, and learning how to respond when someone has a different opinion.
You don’t need a ton of prep time to make your October sessions engaging for older students. These Halloween speech and language activities will help you hit multiple goals while keeping sessions lighthearted and fun.
For more themed ideas, check out:
If you love themed lesson planning but want the prep done for you, join the Themed Therapy SLP Membership. Each month features themed book companions, games, and ready-to-use materials to simplify therapy planning.
Happy Halloween, and may your sessions be filled with laughter, learning, and just the right amount of spooky fun!
