INQUISITR.COM / Health & Lifestyle

Halloween Acrostics: Acrostic Poem Ideas For Parties, Games, And School

By Charisse Van Horn
Published on: 10:08 PST, Oct 29, 2016

Creating Halloween acrostics is a popular activity for parties, games, and school events. An acrostic poem is created by using the first letter of a pre-selected word, then forming poetry based upon those letters. Acrostic poems are popular, entertaining, and educational. They can help children discover more about the holiday while exercising their creative writing skills. Adults can create Halloween acrostics as a party game activity, for holiday-themed scrapbooks, and more. There are multiple ways to use and display finished Halloween acrostic poems as well as many online tools and resources to help generate poems. While many choose to use the word “Halloween” for acrostic poems, you can use any word associated with Halloween.

The following is an example of a Halloween acrostic poem and comes from the site Canada Arts Connect. These are free, printable Halloween acrostic templates that include a graphic. In addition to the word “Halloween” they also have templates for the words alien, monsters, and mummy. As you can see, you don’t need much to create Halloween acrostics and children can draw their own pictures along with their poems. You don’t need a template to create acrostic poetry, but some kids prefer to use them.

You can create Halloween acrostics using a single word, or by making a lesson for more in-depth writing skills. Any word will work. You can see a photo of a Halloween acrostic poem used in a classroom setting for the word “spiders.” This acrostic poem has more of an educational rather than imaginative feel, but it helps you get an understanding of what can be accomplished through acrostic poetry. Children may create poems based purely on their imaginative ideas or on historical statements and facts.

In the samples below, you can see where a teacher encouraged students to use words rich in sensory detail to create Halloween-themed acrostic poetry. The poems range from two words to phrases and contain a variety of details. Acrostic poems provide children as well as apprehensive writers a starting place to gather their thoughts and ideas. For many budding writers, acrostic poems can help with the brainstorming process as children can make lists of words they associate with Halloween. Children, teens, and adults often state they enjoy writing acrostic poems and are proud of their finished poetic works.

There are many Halloween acrostic poem templates available for download and printing online. Children may also enjoy looking at templates for their own creative inspiration. If a child would rather use their own artwork to decorate their poems, they should. It’s always a good opportunity to combine art with creative writing when possible. Popular Halloween acrostic template choices include mummies, aliens, witches, bats, ghosts, zombies, witch hats, broomsticks, apples, haunted houses, pumpkins, jack-o-lanterns, skeletons, and more.

Another popular idea is to create a template on which the finished poem is displayed. For example, you could cut out shapes of bats, pumpkins, ghosts, or a witch’s hat from construction paper then have the child write their poem directly on the construction paper or on a separate piece of paper and glue or staple the poem to the cut-out shape. Those who are feeling more adventurous might want to create a mini book of various Halloween acrostic poems. You can use the different shape templates and affix them to a larger piece of construction paper then staple them or use a three-ring hole punch to bind them together as a poetry book. You can see an example below of children creating poetry in Halloween-themed shape books.

Adults often find writing Halloween acrostic poems fun and they make a great party game. Unlike children, adults often don’t rely upon templates in order to create poetry. Here are some examples of Halloween acrostic poems written by adults.

It isn’t just teachers and adults throwing Halloween parties who use acrostic poems. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) created their own Halloween acrostic poem to express the safety concerns associated with the holiday.

Are you going to use Halloween acrostic poems this year?

[Featured Image by DeymosHR /Shutterstock]

Share this article: Halloween Acrostics: Acrostic Poem Ideas For Parties, Games, And School
Halloween
More from Inquisitr