8 Halloween Writing Prompts for Kids That Beat "Write About a Ghost"
Halloween is the one night of the year my kiddos will happily write for an hour. Candy helps. So does the fact that nobody has to be serious.
But "write a spooky story" usually gets one sentence and a ghost who says "boo." The families who get whole stories out of their kids tend to do one small thing differently. They hand over a prompt with a character who wants something and a problem standing in the way.
Here are eight we've been using. Steal them, tweak them, and let your kid pick the one that makes them grin.
The prompts
- 🎃 The pumpkin who wants to be a jack-o'-lantern, but the carving knife is on its way and it's very nervous.
- 👻 A ghost who wants to scare someone, but everyone in the house is too busy to notice.
- 🧙 A young witch who needs one more ingredient for her potion, and it's guarded by a very sleepy dragon.
- 🦇 A bat who is afraid of the dark. Yes, really. What does he do?
- 🍬 A kid who trades costumes with a stranger at the door and ends up in the wrong story.
- 🕸️ A spider who wants to join the Halloween party, but everyone keeps running away.
- 🏚️ The haunted house on your street has a "For Rent" sign. Who is moving in?
- 🧛 A vampire who can't stand the sight of blood. Ask him what he does for a living.
How to get more than one sentence
Pick one prompt, then ask a single question when your kid slows down:
- ❓ What does the character want most?
- 😬 What is the scariest thing that could happen next?
- 🔦 What does the character do first?
That's it. No fixing spelling yet. A silly Halloween story that gets finished beats a perfect one that doesn't.
My kids use Spark, the built-in tutor in StorySpark, for exactly this. It asks the questions while they write and never writes the story for them.
Want to see it in action? Come take a look at joinstoryspark.com. You can sign up and get started in seconds.