TEAM GROUPING

The real party starts when the team leaders, chosen among the third level class children, go from class to class and collect the other children to make groups to play the games. Each child wears the mask and follows the team leader who has called him. An average of eleven children make each group, to which is given the name of a typical character of Hallowe'en: Ghosts, Gremlins, Goblins and Witches.
AIMS
-Learn to cooperate.
-Use the following linguistic items: Are you ...?
Yes, I am.
Here to you.
-Play creatively with rhymes.
ACTIVITY DYNAMICS
The team leaders group their team and start to teach the others a small rhyme linked to the character naming the team. They already know how to drill it, the sequence will be: team leader, group, group, team leader, pair, pair, pair, group, team leader. The rhymes are the following:

TRICK OR TREAT?

Trick or treating could be considered the most involving and deep-culture focusing activity of the happening. It follows a whole language approach and stimulates the children to enter the experiences of their foreign friends.
It involves the children of all classes.
AIMS
- Understanding the traditions linked to Hallowe'en in the anglo-american culture.
- Telling rhymes and chants.
- Learning to pronounce the following words linked to the "Food" topic: donought, candy/ies, chewing gum, chocolate, apple.
- Learning to greet using "thank you"s.
RESOURCES
Donoughts, sweets, chewing gums, apples, thankyou cards.
ACTIVITY DYNAMICS
After having taken their masks and joined their group, children go to the room where the teachers are. On the way each group tells the rhymes they have learned, then the team leader knocks at the door, the teachers ask "Who is it?" and all together the children shout, as their American and English friends do: "Trick or treat?" having a donought, some sweets and a red apple each in exchange for. After that they give the teachers a "thankyou" card, thank and start eating.

BOBBING FOR APPLES

This is a typical game and I presented it as a game that is always played on Hallowe'en when children have parties after having gone trick or treating.
CHILDREN INVOLVED
One contestant each team, all the other children are fan of their team while watching the game.
AIMS
- Understanding typical elements of the target-culture.
- Building self-confidence.
- Showing co-operation and team cohesion.
RESOURCES
Apples, a tub, water, plastic bags 70x100, towels.
GAME DYNAMICS
The game consists in catching hold of the apples floating in a tub with one's teeth. The contestants will be only four, one coming from each team and chosen on agreements. The first couple plays, then plays the second and the winners will contend for the first place. The winner gets two Jack o'Lantern scores, the other team gets only one score.

BINGO MIX GAME

This game is a mix of two well known activities usually enjoyed by the children when learning vocabulary sets and playing with the pronunciation of new linguistic items, i. e. bingo and chinese whispers, and the relay race. These are linked in order to have a quick strategy to learn a vocabulary set and let all the children participate together during the game.
LINGUISTIC AIMS
-Learning to pronounce and recognise the following words linked to Hallowe'en festival: Hallowe'en, October 31st, Jack o'Lantern, Trick or treat?, donought, candy, apple, ghost, witch, goblin, gremlin, skeleton, monster, vampire.
- Giving and following instructions using the imperative: come here, choose, give it to, run, score,...
RESOURCES
Paper (flash cards and scorecards), colours, cardboard arrows, blue tack.
GAME DYNAMICS
The teams organize into four rows beginning near a desk and ending five meters in front of the scorecard, the children face the scorecard and only the last of the line looks at the teacher behind the desks.
Team leaders choose a list of five symbols on the big scorecard, this will be the column the team are going to play on.
The teacher calls aloud a symbol, shows the flashcard the contestants at the end of the line. They run to the desk, search and find the same symbol among the flashcard set of each team; give the card to the next contestant reading aloud the words. The card runs through the line and the last contestant, the one five meters from the scorecard, runs and spots the symbol if it is there. If the symbol there is not on the set chosen by the team leader, the contestant goes back to the desk with the card. The other goes back also and wait for the teacher to call the next symbol: they will be the next to search and find the new call. The team that makes full house first wins a Jack o'Lantern score.
The game is to repeat three times to give all the children a turn to play.

STORY TELLING: MEG AND MOG

I decided to use a read-it-together version of the well known Meg and Mog written by Helen Nicholl and Jan Pienkowski, edited by Penguin in the Puffin Books series, to show children the tradition of telling horror, witches, ghosts stories during parties on Hallowe'en Night.
A read-it together Meg and Mog is not available on the market, but I found quite easy to manipulate with the computer the images to produce black and white A/4 pages. The read-it-togeter copy has been an enlarged set of A/3 copies coloured with large tip felt pens and sticked on cardboard.
I adapted the written text trying not to over-simplify it but only taking three or four pages away, linking the remaining in a coherent way to make it more compact and quick to read.
The strategies used while reading aloud were the same I already use when I tell stories in the "storytelling time" of each class:
- let learners read the pictures before reading the written text;
- follow the written text and show the pictures while reading;
- stop before the key-passages, asking and letting them predict what happens next;
- let them produce onomathopeic sounds where shown;
- enhance the meaning with gestures and face mimics.
This could be an overall reading. Then I ask them if they would like to have it read again: the answer is always positive. There is often no need to translate the text because children guess the meaning from the pictures and non linguistic features, above all with beginners; the children of the second and third levels have already developed appropriate strategies that help them link the new linguistic items to that already known.
Meg and Mog story has never been read to these classes, so could be exploited with the intermediate level classes during the school year: this has been a motivation and pre-teaching section for some and another fun experience for those whose linguistic understanding level is still inadequate for the full and easy enjoyment of the whole text.

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