Halloween Read Aloud and Makerspace: A Skeleton for Dinner Activity & Challenge
Bring Halloween fun to your classroom with this exciting STEM Story Station based on Skeleton for Dinner by Margery Cuyler. Perfect for grades 1-3, this resource combines a read-aloud experience with engaging STEM activities and Makerspace challenges.
Students will start by diving into the story with comprehension questions, vocabulary work, and an exploration of key story elements. Then, they’ll use the engineering design process to solve the problem from the story, sparking creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration.
Why You’ll Love This Resource
Engages Students with Halloween-Themed STEM: Integrate STEM and STEAM activities into your Halloween lessons by focusing on Skeleton for Dinner—a fun, engaging book that sets the stage for creative problem-solving.
Builds Key Literacy and STEM Skills: Students work on comprehension by focusing on story elements, vocabulary, and asking and answering questions, while also tackling a hands-on STEM challenge that develops engineering and design thinking skills.
Interactive and Fun: This resource combines a read-aloud with a Makerspace activity where students design and create their own skeleton, following the engineering process to bring their ideas to life.
Flexible for Classroom Use: Ideal for Halloween STEM stations, whole-group activities, or literacy centers, this resource adapts easily to different learning environments.
What’s Included:
Comprehension Questions: Questions to encourage students to think critically about the story.
Comprehension Bookmarks: Tools to help students focus on key parts of the story while reading.
Vocabulary Cards: Fun, flexible cards that can be used in games like Headbanz or Charades, or as a classroom display.
Story Elements Activities: Focus on key aspects of the story like setting and structure, with multiple options for differentiation.
STEM Makerspace Activity: An engineering challenge where students design their own skeletons, encouraging creativity and problem-solving.
Skeleton Planning Sheet: Helps students plan their design before starting the hands-on building process.
Skeleton Writing Extension: Writing prompts that let students reflect on and describe their skeleton creations.
Compare and Contrast Think Sheet: Encourages students to analyze and compare different skeleton designs, building analytical skills.
Presentation Points: Guides students through sharing their final product with the class, fostering public speaking and presentation skills.
How to Use This Resource:
Read Aloud: Start with a read-aloud of Skeleton for Dinner (book not included), focusing on comprehension questions and vocabulary-building activities.
STEM Challenge: Transition into the STEM activity, where students use the engineering design process to build a skeleton that solves the story’s problem, making this a perfect Halloween STEM or Makerspace activity.
Collaborative or Independent: Use this resource for small group collaboration or independent work, depending on your classroom setup.
Halloween Makerspace Fun: Incorporate the skeleton-building activity into your Halloween Makerspace to bring engineering and creativity together in a fun, hands-on project.
Why Teachers and Parents Might Like This Resource:
Combines Literacy and STEM: This resource makes it easy to blend reading comprehension with STEM activities, ensuring students practice critical skills across multiple subjects.
Perfect for Halloween: Get your students excited about learning during the Halloween season with this Halloween STEM challenge that connects directly to the story.
Low-Prep, High-Engagement: With pre-made materials and easy-to-follow instructions, this resource saves you prep time while keeping students engaged and learning.
Builds Communication Skills: In addition to engineering, this resource encourages students to present their skeleton creations, helping them develop speaking and listening skills.
Use this Halloween STEM Story Station for Skeleton for Dinner to blend literacy and STEM in a way that will have your students thinking, creating, and problem-solving—all while enjoying the spooky fun of Halloween!