Tag Archives: halloween

Happy October everyone! Are you ready to have some fun this fall? This was always my favorite time of year as a teacher. I tried to channel all of that creative excitement with Halloween into writing and language arts projects for my students. Through this, I developed a “How to Write a Spooky Story” unit that I have now made available in many different forms through the years. I’ve even written a pumpkin story that originated from one of my own spooky stories as a child. So, if you’re ready to explore the fantastic learning opportunities for your child, here is a list of all that is available that I’ve put together.

Full Online Free Spooky Story Writing Unit: This is a free online unit that I posted over five years ago. I made it a simplified version of what I used to do in my classroom, and it takes about a week. Children can follow along with each post daily, and create their own shareable story by the end. I relist the posts each year. I’ve seen visitors from around the world engage in story writing, and I’m proud to again share the links and posts to keep generations of children writing. This is great for parents or basics for teachers to assign online.

Day 1: Write Your Own Spooky Story, Create Your Main Character

Day 2: Creating a Spooky Setting Or Plot

Day 5: Revising and Proofreading Your Story

Spooky Story Online Course

Spooky Story Online Writing School Course: If you just want to get your child set up and running with a course that will do all the teaching for you, guess what? I’ve started my own online writing school, and have put together the above unit into a self-teaching course. It goes more in-depth than the free online one, and I’m there to support too. Check out the link below to get more information. It’s just $19.99.

For Teachers: Teachers Pay Teachers Spooky Story Unit: If you’d like to teach the unit to your own classroom, I’ve got the full writing workshop format unit I developed at Teacher Pay Teachers. I also have a unit on writing mysteries and other helpful writing lesson plans that are available. It’s just $2.95.

Spooky Story Unit @ Teachers Pay Teachers

My own Halloween picture book story, Pumper the Pumpkin, is available online at Amazon.com. I wrote this originally when I was ten in 5th grade, and discovered the magic of writing. The main story stuck with me, and I rewrote it as an adult. This is the latest form of the story illustrated by myself. It was my first attempt at a picture book, and I learned a lot from creating it. It’s just $0.99.

Pumper the Pumpkin on Amazon.com

So, get ready for Halloween and focus all that creative energy into creative writing for your child. All of the writing techniques work for adults too. So, if you’d like to take a stab at spooky or horror story writing along with your child, you could share the stories between you.

Happy Halloween 2021! Stay safe!

-Mrs. Turner

Sep24

Tiffany Turner To Teach Online Spooky Story Writing Workshop

Posted on September 24, 2020 by Tiffany Turner

LINK HERE TO FIND OUT MORE & REGISTER!

It’s getting near that spooky time of year. After over 15 years of teaching a spooky story workshop to my students, I’m offering it for the first time online. Bring Halloween indoors in an academic way, and keep this season spooky, fun and safe! It will be available two ways.

1) This first way to sign up for this workshop is as a full online in-person experience taught by myself live on Zoom. It will be available through the tutoring center called Knowledge Quest. I’ve worked there now for 3 years tutoring students in person and in local schools before the pandemic.

Now, the opportunity to learn from myself, a published author and certified teacher, is through Knowledge Quest. It starts on Oct. 5 through Oct. 29. There are two sessions, one for grades 3-5 and the other for grades 6-8. Each session will have one hour a week for four sessions. Kids will have an hour of instruction and will be walked through activities and given assignments to continue writing between sessions.

**Some at home support, such as looking over the story and doing feedback with your child, will be required.

I’ve taught and developed this spooky story unit over the years and I have put up some parts of it FREE to do through my website. But this is the full unit, developed by me, and available only this upcoming month of October. By the end of the sessions, all the students will have written their own stories that they can share on Halloween night. They will learn character development, create a plot with problem/solution structure, study the spooky genre, and have a lot of fun! They’ll have a chance to unlock the creativity within them.

**Note times are Pacific Daylight Time since I’ll be teaching the workshop live through Zoom. Sign-ups for the live Zoom instructional spooky workshop is through Knowledge Quest.

Find out more and REGISTER HERE!

2) The second way to take the workshop, especially if it would be difficult to in your time zone, is to sign up for my online writing school course. It’s the first course available, and I plan to develop more through the next several months. I’ve decided to develop the spooky story writing workshop first since the basic posts on the blog are so popular, and my students loved it as their favorite story during the school year.

Here is the blurb from my writing school “Keep On Writing”:

Ready to have some fun writing? Here’s a course to help children love writing and enjoy it. I often found children didn’t get to enjoy the writing projects assigned when I was a teacher. So, I developed an, exciting “Spooky Story” writing project for the month of October that I taught for over fifteen years in my classroom. Now, your child can experience the joy of writing and using their imagination.

Taught through a Writing Workshop format, I go over all the steps of writing, prewriting, drafting, revision and proofreading and creating a final draft. Each lesson includes mini-lessons on the craft of writing including organizing ideas through graph organizers, writing dialogue, “Show, Don’t Tell”, plot creation, character creation and conflict, and problem/solution story structure.

Write your own Spooky Story in either a live workshop with Mrs. Turner or in her online writing school. Get spooky and stay safe this Halloween! Use your imagination and write!

When your child finishes the course, they will have a fantastic story of their own creation to share with family and friends. As they go through the writing process, they are asked to work with a family member or guardian with the writing process in which they learn to gain feedback on their writing and make changes. Anyone in the family or through Zoom can fulfill this role making it a bonding activity with your child.

Whether this course is being used during the fall for a Halloween project or any time during the year to engage children in writing, or help adults write for children, it has always been a student and child favorite. I now present to you, the “Spooky Story” Writing Project to help bring the joys of writing to your child.

The online writing school course is $19.99.

**Happy Halloween!

-Mrs. Turner

Oct26

Write Your Own Spooky Story For Halloween

Posted on October 26, 2018 by Tiffany Turner

Write your own Spooky Story this weekend, Oct. 26-31.

Each year, I would teach a unit on how to write you’re own spooky story to my class. Since my semi-retirement, I’ve posted the whole process over a 6 day period. Now, you can follow the same plan and create you’re own spooky story.

Here are the links to each step in the process. You can write your story over the next 6 days ending on Halloween, or take each step faster.

Day 1: Write Your Own Spooky Story, Create Your Main Character

Day 2: Creating a Spooky Setting Or Plot

Day 5: Revising and Proofreading Your Story

HERE IS THE LINK FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THE ONLINE SPOOKY STORY WORKSHOP!

If you’re a teacher and would like this entire unit to teach your class, here is the link for the Spooky Story Unit on TeachersPayTeachers.

Plus, if you’d like a more intense and easy online workshop for your child or students, I have put together the above Spooky Story Workshop into a tutorial workshop format in my new Online Writing School. Kids can work at their own pace on their own. It’s all set up and ready for them to begin. No prep for you!

Pumper the Pumpkin: A Halloween Tale by Tiffany Turner

Also, I have a Halloween Picture Book, Pumper the Pumpkin, that is available on Amazon that was my own spooky story when I was a kid. It is only $0.99! Check it out start out your Halloween weekend. Great for young kids that are going to be carving pumpkins this weekend. 😉

This was my own spooky story that I wrote at the age of 10 in 5th grade, back in the day. I have since updated it and drew my own illustrations, but the core and idea was written when I was ten. I enjoyed creating my own Pumper the Pumpkin carvings and designs for several years after I wrote the story. In fact, I still do. 😉

Have fun and stay safe this Halloween! -Mrs. Turner

Oct24

Halloween & Spooky Story Project: Step By Step Plan to Keep Your Kids or Students Busy Until Halloween

Posted on October 24, 2017 by Tiffany Turner

Create your own spooky story this week with a step by step plan. Click on Day 1 below to get yourself started.

Note: This whole activity is available online at my new “Keep On Writing” Online Writing School. It’s set up as a tutorial to allow kids to work at their own pace with more in depth instruction. For more information, LINK HERE!

So, I am currently a semi-retired teacher writing full-time. But when I was teaching, I would teach my class one of my most loved and remembered writing units: A Write It Yourself Spooky Story Unit! I would spend a whole week, sometimes two, with my students writing a spooky story that they would then read-aloud on Halloween. We would spend the whole day in school reading them, and I’ve been told year after year, it was the one thing that my students remembered from being in my class.

So, I will share with you now, the step by step plan for getting your kids (or yourself) motivated and channeling that nervous Halloween energy into something productive. I first wrote these posts back in 2015. The links will take you to the original instructional posts.

If you are a teacher, and would like the full lesson plan for this unit. It is available on Teachers Pay Teachers in my Writing Is Fun Store.

Below is the list of each step. The link will take you to the post with all the information you need to get started.

Day 1: Write Your Own Spooky Story, Create Your Main Character

Day 2: Creating a Spooky Setting Or Plot

Day 5: Revising and Proofreading Your Story

Pumper the Pumpkin: A Halloween Tale by Tiffany Turner is a Kindle Unlimited title.

Also to celebrate Halloween, I’ve put my Halloween picture book, Pumper the Pumpkin, on sale for FREE from Friday Oct. 27 – Tuesday Oct. 31. I wrote the first draft when I was 10 years old and promised myself to finish it when I got older. I did.

So, have fun writing with your class or children this week. Or maybe you’re the child writer, and you’d like to take this on. Go for it! It may be the start of a new adventure for you. Writing is fun and challenging, and so worth the effort of seeing people enjoy your story.

Be sure to comment and let me know how you like this post. I’d love to hear what kind of stories you all come up with.

**If you liked this post or others, please be sure to follow my blog. My fourth book in the Crystal Keeper Chronicles is complete and is going through the revision process. So, get on the newsletter and blog list today. Be sure to get all the updates and informative posts coming up in the next several months!

And of course, HAPPY HALLOWEEN! WAAAHHAHHHHAHAHHAH!

-Tiffany Turner

Oct29

Pumper the Pumpkin Picture Book Free Oct. 28-31/Write Your Own Spooky Story

Posted on October 29, 2016 by Tiffany Turner

Day 1 For Writing A Spooky Story: Main Character Creation

Every year, I like to give away a little treat of my own. I’ve written a picture book from a story I originally wrote when I was 10. I originally wrote it back in Mrs. William’s class when I was in the Fifth Grade. 35 years later, here is the story of that long ago character I created, Pumper the Pumpkin.

Pumper the Pumpkin: A Halloween Tale by Tiffany Turner *Available for Free on Amazon 10/28-31

On Halloween Eve, Pumper is trying to be a jack-o-lantern. Only he needs to find the right family to adopt him. Will he in time? Join Pumper in this amazing Halloween quest of being a part of something bigger.

This Halloween short story is intended for ages 3-10. Get into the Halloween spirit with this family friendly tale.

For years, I’ve carved Pumper the Pumpkin has my pumpkin in hale to this character I created so long ago. Sometimes, things you make up as a kid, like having unicorn friends come hang out with you in your bedroom, can make their way into a children’s story to entertain children that were once your age.

Remembering those fun, creative activities always has been a plus for me. I use them all the time in my stories. And yes, I still have the Pumper original story. I promised myself that when I got bigger and my language arts skills improved, I would rewrite Pumper the Pumpkin. The original story had bully kids come in and throw all of Pumper’s family to the ground, breaking them into pieces. It’s how I said he was alone originally. But I cut that out in the rewrites, and made it that he just hadn’t been picked yet. I added the character Miraballe. Voila! A new, improved Pumper story was born.

So, if you’d like to write your own Spooky story over the next few days before Halloween, check out the steps on How To Write Your Own Spooky Story below. These can be done in a few days if you double up a few of the lessons. Try two lessons a day, and you can make your story in time for Halloween. Waaaahhahhahahahha!

Day 2: Creating a Spooky Setting/Plot

Day 5: Revision and Proofreading your story

https://www.amazon.com/Pumper-Pumpkin-Tiffany-Turner-ebook/dp/B005X1CS1A

For those of you that would like the full lesson plan, it is available on Teachers Pay Teachers at this link: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Spooky-Story-and-Summary-Report-October-Writing-Unit-2763010

The Spooky Story Writing Unit is available on Teachers Pay Teachers for $2.95.

Only $2.95!

Plus, Pumper the Pumpkin will be free on Amazon between Oct. 28-31!

HAVE A HAPPY AND SAFE HALLOWEEN!

-Tiffany Turner

Oct21

Spooky Writing Project Unit On Sale 10/21-10/23 @ TeachersPayTeachers

Posted on October 21, 2016 by Tiffany Turner

LINK To TEACHERS PAY TEACHERS HERE For Spooky Story Project!

spookystoryunitbkcvr So, I’ve been writing down all my teaching wisdom to preserve and share it with current and future teachers. I’ve had 18 years experience teaching with a specialty in writing. So, I’ve been writing up some fabulous projects on TeachersPayTeachers.com. I’ve just put my Spooky Story writing project unit on sale for this weekend, 10/21-10/23. The unit follows current Common Core standards. It’s on sale for $2.36. Unit includes graphic organizers(worksheets), sample writing paragraphs, grading rubric, and all the lesson plans for the unit. It even includes a Spooky Book Summary Report.

I’ve had kids over and over say this was their favorite project in my classroom. So, if you’re a teacher and need something for Halloween, have the kids write a story. They can’t get enough of this. Or even if you’re a parent and you want to keep your kids busy from now until Halloween, try this project and have them read it on Halloween night. There is nothing more magical than watching kids entertain themselves with their own writing.

Plus, my Halloween read-aloud is available exclusively on Amazon Here!

And I’ve just posted a new writing unit for Mysteries!

Hot off the presses: Mystery Genre Writing Unit LINK HERE!

OH yes, have a spooky and safe Halloween!

Nov2

Write Your Own Spooky Story Day 6: The Final Draft

Posted on November 2, 2015 by Tiffany Turner

Look for other story writing projects on my blog in the coming months. Please follow to not miss them!

Note: This whole activity is available online at my new “Keep On Writing” Online Writing School. It’s set up as a tutorial to allow kids to work at their own pace with more in depth instruction. For more information, LINK HERE!

So, now that the trick-o-treating is done, did you get a chance to recopy your story? If not, and you got swept up into the Halloween spirit, don’t despair. You can write a Spooky story any time of the year. It’s called Horror Fiction, and people like to write and read it all year round. So, even if you got distracted by the Halloween excitement, sit down now and recopy your story out into a nice, final draft.

There. How do you feel? You actually wrote a fabulous, spooky story you’ll have to share with others every Halloween. How do I know? I wrote my first spooky story when I was 10 years old in Mrs. Williams class. The story has changed many times over the years, but it became “Pumper the Pumpkin.” If you didn’t get a chance to download it this week, it’s still on Amazon for $0.99. I didn’t price it too high on purpose. There is such joy in being able to share a story with people, and I hope you are able to enjoy mine.

Pumper the Pumpkin: A Halloween Tale by Tiffany Turner is a Kindle Unlimited title.

Thank you for joining me in this writing adventure this week. I do plan on some more to be posted in the next coming months, starting with how to write you’re own Mystery story as the next project. So please follow my blog so you don’t miss it.

Have a fabulous November! -Tiffany Turner (Mrs. Turner)

My Halloween Tale, Pumper the Pumpkin is be available for free on Amazon. Here is the link: http://www.amazon.com/Pumper-Pumpkin-Tiffany-Turner-ebook/dp/B005X1CS1A

Oct29

Write Your Own Spooky Story: Day 4 Your Rough Draft; Adding Dialogue and Getting Unstuck

Posted on October 29, 2015 by Tiffany Turner

Using dialogue to describe your characters action can propel your story forward.

Welcome to Day 4 of writing your own spooky story. Today, it’s time to work on connecting those middle events to lead to your solution in your ending. It’s going to be a busy day. Before I start, I have to announce the HUGE issues with my phone. It completely has died. I have to take it to the CPR phone store. So, I’m going to have to postpone my Periscope broadcast until tomorrow at 3:30 pm PDT. Sorry folks. When the electronics act up, it affects everything. But of course, I can still answer questions and comments on the blog. Feel free to ask advice as you progress through your project this week.

Today is the second day of writing your rough draft. It’s the time you need to connect your introduction and problem you wrote yesterday to the rest of the story. You need to write the middle events that lead your characters to the solution, and end your story with the satisfying bang that they crave. In this section, you have to leave clues that your character can find or have events that push them along to the ending. Think of all those other spooky stories you may have read. They will help you get some ideas. Writers are active readers as well as observers. A lot of the time, a good book in the same genre will jog an idea for you. If you get stuck, try remembering some of your favorite books and try the same thing(s) with a twist. All you have to do is something similar but with twists and changes.

Another thing that helps me get in the zone for writing is to put on some music. If it’s difficult for you to concentrate without noise, that’s normal for some people. Some people need a background noise, like music, to concentrate. Some people need complete silence. If you’re having trouble, and know you need quiet or music to write, try making an environment for writing. For example, I have made several playlists for different projects using Youtube. I find the video for a song and put them in a playlist. Right now I’m playing a Halloween playlist to get me in a spooky mood. It includes Panic at the Disco’s “Emperor’s New Clothes”, “Thriller” by Michael Jackson, Theme song from “Tales of the Crypt” and “Ghostbusters”. If I get stuck, I watch the video and listen to the music, and it gets my concentration going again. This works for me. But if you have other ways that help you as you write, please feel free to share in the comments section.

As you’re writing, be sure to check your story map to check off things as you add them. They will help you guide yourself to the ending. Also, to avoid telling too much, try using dialogue. Sometimes it’s easier to have your characters talk about something than just describe it. Here’s an example:

Mark and Becky walked up to the house at the end of the street. No one liked to trick or treat at this one house, because it looked too haunted. It had a older man that lost his wife a few years ago. He never appeared except to water his lawn now and again. Becky thought one more treat would be good. Her candy bag looked a bit small. Not many people had been home in her neighborhood. Maybe they could get something at this house after all.

Now, let’s add some dialogue to the paragraph.

Mark looked at Becky. “You think we should trick or treat at the house at the end of the street?”

Becky felt ill. “Really, no. I mean, that old guy never appears since his wife died. He only comes out to water his lawn. He’s not very nice when he does it too.”

Mark grabbed his bag looking inside. “It’s been slim pickings this year. Not many people have been home, Becky. Why don’t we try one more house? It couldn’t hurt, right?”

Becky shrugged her shoulders. What did she have to loose? One more house couldn’t hurt.

Adding dialogue makes the scene come alive, and you’re no longer telling the action, it is being done by your characters. Dialogue can make the action propel into the next scene. Next, I’d have them walk to the porch and try to trick or treat. Since this would be my haunted house setting, somehow they’d end up inside the house. And then the real fun begins.

Pumper the Pumpkin: A Halloween Tale by Tiffany Turner is a Kindle Unlimited title. Free Oct. 27-31!

Enjoy finishing up your rough draft today. Tomorrow, we’ll work on revising and proofreading to ready you to get that final copy done for Halloween. Ask around and see if someone is willing to listen to your story for tomorrow. And I’ll post questions and tips for them to look for. Until then, happy writing!- Tiffany Turner (Mrs. Turner)

Plus, for this week only starting, Oct. 27, my Halloween Tale, Pumper the Pumpkin will be available for free on Amazon. Here is the link: http://www.amazon.com/Pumper-Pumpkin-Tiffany-Turner-ebook/dp/B005X1CS1A

Oct28

Write Your Own Spooky Story: Day 3 Starting Your Rough Draft

Posted on October 28, 2015 by Tiffany Turner