Low-Prep and No-Prep Halloween Activities for French Lessons

Ideas for Beginner and Intermediate French Students

The theme of celebrations and traditions is a staple topic in the UK for GCSE French examinations of late. So, Halloween is the perfect topic to study at KS2, KS3 and KS4 during French language lessons in October. Since it’s a relevant topic to autumn, hopefully students will be able to apply the French Halloween vocabulary to their lives, thus helping the vocabulary to stick better. 

The Halloween activities for French lessons below are perfect for beginner and intermediate level French learners.

Halloween in French Speaking Countries

Although Halloween is not a traditionally French celebration, it is celebrated increasingly in the Francosphère.

Below, you will find some useful, engaging, and low-prep Halloween based activities which can be used in your French lessons. These include: reading, writing, listening, speaking, translation and vocabulary tasks on the topic of Halloween.

p.s if you’re looking for a traditional French festival similar to Halloween, you could talk to your French students about La Toussaint which is celebrated on 1st November.

French Halloween Activities and Ideas

LISTENING HALLOWEEN ACTIVITIES FOR FRENCH LESSONS

1. Beginner French Halloween Song

La chanson des squelettes

What’s this song useful for? It’s a great opportunity to revise numbers, time and verbs, and best of all – it’s no-prep! 

1. Students listen to the song and note down the times mentioned
2. The second time, students watch the video again and note down the verbs mentioned
3. Finally, students explain to their neighbour what the skeletons do at different times.

Obviously, there are many variations for things you can do with this particular French Halloween song. However, this activity is no-prep and useful for students to revise numbers, times and verbs, as well as pick up Halloween related vocabulary.

2. Video on How The French Celebrate Halloween

An authentic video in French illustrating how the presenter celebrates Halloween in France – rich in topic related vocabulary! 

3. C’est quoi Halloween Video

This 1Jour1Actu video is also good for intermediate learners and describes what Halloween is – ‘c’est quoi halloween from 1jour1actu‘ and here is a 2 page French c’est quoi Halloween worksheet in English and French to go with it.

4.  L’enquête interactive de Super-Ouaf (Ideal for 6-8 Year Olds and Beginners)

Dramacula’s spider is missing! Help Super-Ouaf and La Puce find the culprit by questioning the suspects and examining the clues.

5.  C’est l’halloween by Matt Maxwell

A low-prep activity for beginner and intermediate French learners to develop Halloween related vocabulary with a simple song. 

1. Get students to come up with their own list of 5 Halloween related words in English, watch the video a couple of times and note down any French equivalents.
2. Then students can add to their list, writing down any others that they feel are relevant.
3. Students could then sing along to the song and learn by heart.
4. Finally, give them a copy of the lyrics with words missing and they must complete.

6. Short Halloween Films

Short Halloween Films for Advanced French Students collated by L’OFFICE NATIONAL DU FILM DU CANADA. Pick one to watch. Depending on students’ levels, you could ask them to watch and summarise a video. Alternatively, note down any word they recognise as they listen or guess what the story will be about from just the title.

HALLOWEEN READING ACTIVITIES FOR FRENCH LESSONS

7. Trick or Treat?

Get students to read the sentences in the speech bubble, translate them and discuss the points. You could also ask students what they might say if they went trick or treating in a French speaking country.

8.  C’est l’halloween – Qu’est-ce qu’on voit?

A good opportunity to read and revise prepositions of place, nouns and rooms with this low-prep Halloween activity using a YouTube video.

1. Students watch the video and note down any words they recognise as they read OR give students a list of English words that they must note down in French as they watch, i.e. bat / witch etc OR note down: prepositions / Halloween nouns / rooms as titles in three columns and have students write the French, swap pages with their neighbour and write the equivalent in English (or the other way around).
2. Have some questions ready this time: ‘qu’est-ce qu’il y a dans le jardin / le salon / la cuisine?’ etc. Give students time to answer from memory, perhaps discuss in English first to see what students remembered and then give a little more time to complete. 

9. Silent Listening / Reading Halloween Activity

Perfect for reading, listening, translation and vocabulary around the topic of Halloween in any language. This is a French example.

1. You’ll need a long text with a grid and some questions. Likes this one created by Esther Mercier. As students get settled at the beginning of a lesson, they can complete the grid to do some translations from Target Language (in this case, French) to English.

2. Then students listen to the text twice. During the first listen, students follow the text with their
finger or a ruler. This helps them to get a feel for the speed of the text. Listen a second time with the audio on mute. Students re-read as if they can hear the text. Teacher shouts ‘Stop’ and they have to underline the word they thought they would hear if the teacher re-started the audio on loud. You could also get the students to write the word on the mini-whiteboard (perhaps with a translation?)

10. French Halloween Flashcards and Haunted House Challenge

Nicely presented Halloween activity for beginner and intermediate French learners with vocabulary in English and images in French. Students work through some vocabulary first and then try one of the ‘Story’ options at the top to use their language skills to get out of the haunted house as quickly as possible.

11. Les huit couleurs de la citrouille poem

An authentic French poem for French learners to practise rhyming words on the theme of Halloween via a YouTube video.

12. Interactive EdPuzzle – les zombies et les loups-garoux 

Watch the video and answer the questions to the right as students go along to revise question formation, as well as practise / learn French Halloween vocabulary.

13. Textivate Story of Halloween in French

Reorder the Halloween text and translate into English. Print out and in the next lesson, translate back into French!

14. C’est quoi ta plus grosse peur?

Reading activity with children’s greatest fears from 1Jour1Actu.

15. Halloween Infographic

Read and translate key facts. Are there any here that surprise students?

WRITING IDEAS FOR FRENCH HALLOWEEN BASED LESSONS

16. Past Tense Creative Writing

Halloween inspired ‘DR MRS VANDETRAMP’ stories to practice using the perfect tense. Why not combine French Halloween activities with a grammatical element, such as perfect tense être verbs to create ghoulish stories about the past?

17. Creative writing posters using a sentence builder

Use a sentence builder, similar to the one pictured to get students to write their own Halloween story paragraph. Pinched the picture of the sentence builder from @MFLWyedean

18. Qu’est-ce que vous faites le jour de Halloween ?

Pose the question:

Qu’est-ce que vous faites le jour de Halloween ? Get students to discuss in pairs and present to the group.

Some ideas from French learners as a reply: Je vais porter un costume et je vais acheter des bonbons pour les enfants./
Rien de spécial / Je me deguise en diable etc

Why not try using the sentence builder above to help?

19. Hidden Halloween Messages

A fabulous 27 page PDF download created by Madame Pascale with a halloween themed alphabet which needs to be used to decode the French Halloween Secret Messages.

Vocabulary Based Halloween Activities 

20. Halloween Vocabulary

Watch this French Halloween Vocabulary video and get students to note down the vocabulary in French only. Get students to swap sheets and translate as many as they can. Watch again and fill in the gaps. Perhaps take it one step further and use the vocabulary to create language stones with Halloween vocabulary in the target language. I know the image from @LanguageStones is in German, but you could do the same for French! These are quite simple French Halloween activities but perfect for beginners.

If your school has the budget (and you can be bothered!) why not decorate your classroom with props/decorations, such as these 46 Halloween Indoor Hanging Decorations? Students can then describe what they can see in the classroom using the target language that they have learnt. You could combine with prepositions of place to create sentence level language.

21. Halloween ‘Memes’

This one is for more intermediate/advanced French students. Read and translate the many images with a couple of sentences written over them here: short ‘scary’ French stories for translation.

22. Halloween Event Translation

A quick starter activity to familiarise students with Halloween vocabulary in French. In addition, French learners could then use some of this authentic vocabulary to make their own Halloween event with their own activities and timings.

These are just some of the French Halloween activities that I use with my French beginner and intermediate students. 

Which French Halloween activities and ideas do you use in your language classrooms?

Do you have a favourite from my list of 22+ Useful French Halloween Activities for Beginner and Intermediate lessons?

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