The Halloween Spell Hunt is an activity for children of elementary level upwards and requires relatively little preparation. Similar to a treasure hunt, the children must solve clues in order find each ingredient of a spell. I actually got the idea from the British Council's LearnEnglish Kids website where you will find a game in which the children have to find each ingredient in a haunted house. Having no internet connection in the classroom, I wondered how I could adapt the game for my class of nine and ten year olds.
What you need to do before the lesson is prepare a set of clues. Choose five spell ingredients such as a lizard's tongue or a frog's eye and write descriptions of these creatures such as:
I am a reptile. I have got four legs and a long tongue. I live in hot places. What am I?
You also need to write a list of hiding places around the classroom or school, e.g. You can find me under the table. All the clues and hiding places should be photocopied and cut up into slips of paper (one for each team).
Divide the class into pairs or threes and give each team the first clue. When they have decided on the answer, they should come and tell you, and you give them the hiding place. For example, the answer to the clue above is LIZARD. When a team comes to you and says "lizard", give them the clue for where to find it. In this case, there should be a picture of a lizard or a lizard's tongue under the table. Make sure there are enough pictures as teams.
They then come to you for the following clue. The first team to find all the parts of the spell will then perform the spell for the rest of the class, choosing victims on whom to cast the spell from their classmates.
As well as being fun, the learners are also practising reading skills and language points such as prepositions of place and verbs in the present simple.
You can follow or preced this activity with spells from Boggles World's Spellbook or Potion Book
