Spook-tacular Real Estate Ads

This week, my students and I started a writing project that was inspired by a GREAT blog post/lesson from Clutter-Free Classroom. We're writing Real Estate Ads for...wait for it....


HAUNTED HOUSES!!!


My kids are TOTALLY into the idea! They really let their sick, twisted creative minds fly with this one!


I basically followed the lesson created by Clutter-Free Classroom, but added some of my own pieces as well.


We started out but reading a poem by Jack Prelutsky called "Haunted House." We talked about what they visualized when they read it. Next, we looked at some actual real estate ads and discussed how the writers of those ads try to make their home sound appealing. We talked about the various amenities homeowners look for, as well as the tone of the ads.


After that, we discussed who our target "buyers" would be for a haunted house. They came up with things like ghosts, goblins, zombies, etc. One of my students pointed out that those individuals probably wouldn't be looking for the same type of house a normal human being would. This idea led me right into the next phase, which was reading a short story about a haunted house that my colleague found. We read it together to find good adjectives they could use to describe a haunted house.


After we were all good and spooked, I set them loose to begin brainstorming rooms and amenities that would be found in their haunted houses, as well as "creepy adjectives" that they could use to describe their homes. They did a great job! Some ideas included a "slime pool," "bleeding ceilings," "undead butlers," and a "spell casting room." They came up with adjectives like "gory," "gruesome," "horrifying," "putrid," and "noxious" (which happened to be one of our recent "words of the day"...yessssss!). I then combined all of their thinking (TWO classes worth) into one chart to be displayed in the room.


 I can't wait to get them started on drafting!

What reading and writing related activities are you doing/have you done for Halloween?