Halloween Colors Activities for Elementary ESL | Flashcards, Games, Worksheets & Puzzle

 This resource is also included here: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Colors-Unit-for-Elementary-ELL-Starters-3629423

Instead of learning colors in isolation, students connect them to Halloween. It builds cultural understanding alongside vocabulary.

 Draw the grid on the board and place the Halloween characters flashcards in each box. Call out “A2!

Students: It’s the witch!
Teacher: Yes! What color is the witch?
Students: green! She’s a green witch.

Draw the color splotches on the board and have the students start sorting according to color. Ask questions: What is brown?

Students: the tree, the coffin, the Werewolf.

Place any flashcard in a clear plastic sheet. Using a whiteboard marker students write sentences about the image.

Spin the bottle using the small cards. Students will sit in a circle with a plastic bottle in the middle. Display the cards in a line in front of the children. One of them can spin the bottle and the others wait until it stops. The bottle is pointing to a student and has to pick a card say what it is or a sentence. 

The small cards work well for short paragraph writing.

Play match the word to the picture, juts cut the word out of each card.

Go upstairs with the small cards. Place clear masking tape on the ladder part of the card and hand in to an individual child or group along a dry erase marker. Cut the words from the small cards and students arrange them into a pile. When the student recognizes a Halloween card correctly he checks a space on the stair. The first one to make it to the top wins.

Halloween Coloring Worksheets. Each worksheet has Halloween characters and objects for students to color according to the color word provided.

Color Recognition Practice. Students identify the color word (orange, green, black, purple, etc.) and color the picture correctly.

As an extension students make simple sentences after coloring: “The tombstone is gray. ”The ghosts are yellow, black, red, purple, brown, white, orange, blue, green, and pink.

Students will strengthen color vocabulary in context in this worksheet.

Another benefit is that the worksheets give students a clear visual connection between the written color word and the object, helping them build stronger word recognition skills.

 

Puzzle Match & Say.  Students take turns picking a piece (picture or word). They find the matching piece and say the full phrase: “Purple haunted house.”

I added letter tiles with Halloween features to make crosswords of the color words

or to write the Halloween words.

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Fun Classroom Games to Teach Emotions to Elementary ELLs

 This resource can be found here: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Emotions-Unit-for-Elementary-EFL-2023631

Games give students repeated exposure to the target vocabulary (happy, sad, angry, etc.) in a way that feels natural and engaging instead of repetitive drills. Many games require students to talk, listen, and respond. This encourages oral language development and gives them confidence in using English naturally.

Since the board game path has only emotion words, students need to match to emotion cards to stay in their spot.   Students roll the die and move along the path. If they land on “angry,” they must find the matching angry picture card. If correct, they stay; if not, they move back one space.

This Emotions Domino Game is designed to build vocabulary, practice reading, and make connections between words and pictures. Students match emotion words like happy, sad, angry, scared, worried, shocked, and excited with their corresponding *emotion picture cards.

Playing the Guess Who? Emotions Game/ Yes/No Questions.

To play the Guess Who game, teachers should prepare a display for each student. A simple way is to cut the front panel from a cereal box and use the side flaps to staple or tape it so it stands upright. Then, glue the printable part  on the front of the display. Each student will have their own standing display to use during the game.

 One student chooses a card with an emotion. The other students take turns asking yes/no questions:
“Is she happy?” → “No.”
“Is he angry?” → “Yes!”

Build the Emotion Words with letter tiles. Give students a pile of mixed letter tiles. Call out or show a picture of an emotion (e.g., happy) using the wheel. Students race to build the word with their tiles.

Guess the Missing Letter. Teacher shows an emotion word with missing letters (e.g., s___oc___e____). Students use tiles to fill in the blanks and find the small card to match.

Find creative resources and engaging activities to make learning English fun for your students. Follow me on Instagram for teaching tips, freebies, and more!

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I used the alphabet from Creative Fabrica, check my affliate link:    https://www.creativefabrica.com/product/groovy-smile-doodle-alphabet/ref/2670802/?sharedfrom=pdp

Beach Unit Games

  This resource is included in Beach Unit for Elementary at this link:

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Beach-Unit-for-Elementary-ESL-4075972

Print the beach-themed board game and play with a twist. Each time they land on an item, they "collect" it in an imaginary beach template that has been assigned to each player.
At the end, they list or draw the things in their beach and describe them: “I have a towel and sunglasses.”

Spelling Activities Matter: Learners internalize the correct spelling of new beach-related words (e.g., bucket, mask) by physically constructing them.

Develop early reading and vocabulary skills with this matching card game. Students will match beach-themed word cards (e.g., sandcastle) with corresponding picture cards to build vocabulary recognition, strengthen spelling awareness, and support reading fluency.

Students will review and reinforce their beach vocabulary by writing words on their own Bingo boards and listening carefully during a picture-word calling game using the cards from the previous activity.

The blank Bingo boards provided are for students to write in 8 beach-themed words. Prepare a master list of the words you want to use. As each word is called, students check their boards. If they have the word, they cover it with a token. The first student to cover all 8 words and call out “BINGO!” wins. You can keep playing any other day, they just save the board that is already prepared.

 Matching Words. Lay out the picture cards on one side of the table and the word cards on the other. Students take turns matching the correct word to each image.

Animals on the Beach – Sentence Building Game. Students will use a variety of animal-on-the-beach picture cards to create complete and meaningful sentences using a variety of word cards (nouns, verbs, adjectives, prepositions, and more).

Students will write their sentences on their notebooks and share to the class or a partner. The teacher or peers can help check for grammar and sentence structure.

This resource has more to check, go to this blog post:   https://eflelementaryresources.blogspot.com/2025/05/beach-unit-printable-book.html 

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“Fun on the Farm: Engaging ESL Learners with Hands-On Farm Games”

 This resource is included here:   https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Farm-Unit-for-Elementary-EFL-3790548

Games are a powerful tool for language learning. That’s why I included several interactive farm-themed games in this resource!

Card Games encourage students to speak, listen, read, and think in English in an authentic way. Whether they’re identifying animals, matching vocabulary, or making sentences.

By spelling out farm animal names like horse, duck, sheep, and goat, students are reviewing the words they're learning in a new and tactile way. Draw an animal card, and students race to build the word using letter tiles.

With four starting points, students follow the path on the board game, landing on colored spaces and answering questions that match the color using the corresponding cards. Set up groups of 2–4 students and assign each group a board. Instruct a follow-Up Writing where students write 2–3 sentences about their favorite animal they landed on during the game.

Sorting helps students understand how things are grouped and connected, which is key for building comprehension and academic thinking.  This farm resource includes several sorting mats, such as:

Mommy and Baby Animals

Animal and the Product It Produces

Animal Sounds (Moo, Baa, Oink, etc.)

Farm Headband Game Cards.

Whether you use store-bought headbands or make simple paper ones, this activity is guaranteed to get your students engaged. Each card features a farm animal image, and students wear the card on their head without seeing it, while their classmates give clues.

Encourages Descriptive Language
Clue-givers use descriptions like:“It says moo.”“It gives us milk.”“It’s black and white.” 

This matching game helps students explore farm life by pairing each animal with what it eats. Students learn not just the animal names, but words like grass, hay, corn, worms, grain, insects, and carrots—expanding their word bank around the farm theme. Lay out all the animals and food cards. Students match them in pairs (cow → grass, pig → corn, chicken → worms).

This resource has more to check, go to this blog post:

https://eflelementaryresources.blogspot.com/2025/03/farm-animals-flashcards.html 

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