School is back in session, and I am sure you are looking for engaging fall activities for your ELA students. If you’re like me, you’re starting to move past some of the review activities. Sometimes, it’s hard to know what to do first! That’s why I have plenty of fall activities that will cover all of your bases! Not only are these fall oriented, they also cover standards in a fun way to help get student buy-in right away! 

Ideas for Fall Activities

1: Quick Reviews for Bell Ringers 

While you have probably started moving past the review material, you don’t want to just push it all to the side. If you do, you’ll find yourself back in review land before you know it! These no prep activities are great for bell ringers, reading assessment, assessments and more! There are over 50 activities you can do with students which will give you at least 10 weeks of fall ELA activities to use as bell ringers or as formal or informal assessments! 

2: What’s Going On?

What is the one question all students will ask when they walk in the door? “What are we doing today?” In the past when students asked this, I would get super annoyed. Why? I have no idea. I love knowing what’s going on. Being in the dark is the absolute worst and that’s where I was leaving my students. These morning slide templates that are editable are perfect for putting what the goals are for the class that day! This is something that you can type up the night before or a week in advance because there are plenty of templates to choose from! While this isn’t an ELA activity, this fall themed décor and classroom management tool is great for keeping the calm in your classroom. 

3: Celebrate Halloween 

One thing my students absolutely dread is writing. Usually when my students have to write, the anxiety starts with “What am I going to write about?!” This is typical and it really is the big question. Using themed ELA activities like this Halloween Writing Activity, your students will have a framework to plan their writing. This takes away part of the “I don’t know what to write!” anxiety that students often associate with writing. Plus, with this activity, your students get to get creative with a popular Taylor Swift song. 

4: Digital Escape Rooms Thanksgiving 

Before you make the great escape for Thanksgiving, it’s always fun to do an Escape Room in class! This Thanksgiving Escape Room is the perfect fall ELA activity because it covers homophones, mechanics, grammar, punctuation, reading comprehension, and words in context. This makes it the perfect send off before students are gone for an extended period of time. You can use the Thanksgiving Escape Room to see where your students are at. 

5: Solve the Mystery with this Fall ELA Activity 

If escaping isn’t your style, you and your students can try to solve a mystery instead. The Missing Football Mascots need to be found, and your students are the perfect detectives! While students are trying to solve the mystery before the big game, they will be working on their comprehension, spelling, editing skills, and more! Students get everything they need to solve the mystery, and you get all the skills to review! This is a great activity for students to do during football season, maybe right before Homecoming! 

6: Nonfiction Football Writing

Sometimes we have to go away from the creative and work on more realistic aspects of writing. This Nonfiction Football Activity is great whether it’s before the big Homecoming game or the big game this winter. Because the article talks about sports, it is usually of higher interest to students. I have found even my reluctant readers love reading this three-page article. In addition to reading the article, students will also get comprehension questions, short answer questions, and a graphic organizer to help them put everything together. 

Fall is a time of excitement and change. When you are using fall themed content in your classroom, you’ll find your students more engaged and relating what they’re doing back to the real world. In addition, your students are getting to break out their creative side and have a little or a lot of fun! 

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Have you ever struggled to get students pumped up for ELA activities? Have you ever tried using an ELA Mystery in your classroom? I know I have worked and worked on different activities and found my students finish them too fast. Other times, my students simply can’t do the ELA activity because it is just too difficult or complicated. Finding engaging ELA activities that are also rigorous while still completely doable as an independent activity can be difficult. That’s why engaging ELA activities like the ELA Mystery Activities are a must-have for every English teacher! 

What is an ELA Mystery?

An ELA Mystery is an engaging activity that tests students ability in terms of ordering events, comprehension, context clues, and of course the ever important and hard to assess in a fun way, grammar. Once you use an ELA Mystery Activity, you’ll be hooked and so will your students! You can find these activities at English, Oh My! 

How to Use These ELA Mysteries

Usually when we think of an activity being engaging, we think it needs to be engaging on an individual level so students stay silent. However, the Mystery ELA activities are great for several different activities in your classroom. 

Collaborative Efforts 

Engaging ELA activities often start with students getting to work together. I like allowing students to collaborate on the ELA Mystery activities because they can learn from each other and talk through some of the problems. Now, I will say, if this is how you choose to use your ELA Mysteries in your classroom, you’ll want to make sure you set some expectations. 

For example, in the grammar section, it can be easy for one student in the group to just tell their partner their answer. To combat this, I make sure I am always circulating around the room while my students are working on these activities. Plus, I make sure there is a writer and a reporter. So, if you use this as a classroom discussion, the reporter has to be able to explain their way through the answer. This tends to combat some of the issues of one person doing all of the work. 

Review the Basics 

Another way you can use ELA Mysteries is as a class activity. When you do this, you’ll want to make sure you’re doing it to review and not so much to teach. This is a great way to use the ELA Mystery the first time because you’re teaching students how to do the activities. Then, when they get to do it on their own, they’ll be able to do it with few problems. 

A great way to use the ELA Mysteries as an engaging ELA activity for the full class is to exercise the I Do, We Do, You Do method. This helps make sure students are still doing some independent work. 

Assess Student Knowledge 

Now, you can use these engaging ELA activities in groups/partners, as a whole class, or as an individual activity. When you use these activities as an individual activity, you are giving your students an informal assessment. The main reason I love using these as an informal assessment is they are fun! Because these are fun activities, students don’t feel so much stress or pressure to be right. Therefore, you are getting more authentic work and you can see which area students need the most help with. 

What are Waiting For? 

When you check these engaging ELA activities out, you’ll see there are several mysteries to choose from. What does this mean? You’re covered with fun for several times of the year including: 

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• March with March Madness
• February with Valentine’s Day 
• The Fall with Football 
• Spring with the Missing Seed Truck 

Now of course you can use all of these at any time. However, it can be nice to do with the time of year. Make sure you check out all of my ELA Mystery Activities on English, Oh My! You and your students are sure to love them! 

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