A free 30-minute Halloween history lesson
Real events behind Halloween's spookiest stories: a vanished colony, a ghost ship, a "cursed" tomb, a radio panic. Students work out where and when each happened, then decide what is history and what is legend, and how we can tell.
Use in class — free →Free · pick your day · students join with a class code, no accounts.
Solved, or still a mystery?
A returning ship finds the settlement empty, one word carved on a post, on a sandy island tucked behind the long chain of barrier islands on North America's Atlantic coast.
Students drop a pin where they think it happened and pick the year. A later artist's picture of the scene.
Show the answer ▸
Roanoke Island, off today's North Carolina, 1590: the "Lost Colony". About 115 English settlers were gone, with one word left behind. Still a mystery.
More from the pack
Images (public domain, Wikimedia Commons): Harry Burton · unknown artist, possibly Honoré Pellegrin · Leonid Kulik · Horace Bristol. Your class plays 5 of the pack's events.
The lesson
| Part | Time | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Play | 8 min | Students guess where and when for 5 real events, some solved and some still a mystery. |
| Discuss | 8 min | Open 💬 Discussion starter on the leaderboard and project it (it appears once students start playing). Use the questions below. |
| Write | 12 min | Students answer the written task on the printable response sheet. |
| Exit | 2 min | One-sentence exit question. |
Teaching note: two of these are about real people. Twenty people were put to death in the Salem trials, so treat it as history, not a ghost story. The moai were carved by the Rapa Nui people and are part of their living heritage: the open questions are how they moved them and how the island changed, not who built them.
Discussion questions
- Which clue made you choose? Turn and talk.
- Which of today's events do we know the most about, and which is still part legend or mystery? How can you tell?
- People at the time often blamed ghosts, curses or monsters. Did any of today's events get a spooky explanation? What would a historian look for instead?
The printable response sheet
The written task, exit ticket and rubric on one page. A preview:
| Score | What it looks like |
|---|---|
| 4 | A specific clue for both events, plus a clear reason which has better evidence. |
| 3 | Clues for both events; the reason is general. |
| 2 | A clue for only one event, or no reason given. |
| 1 | Answers without clues or reasons from today. |
Class directions to paste
Today we're working out real history mysteries. 1) Go to class.erapin.com and type our class code: [YOUR CODE] 2) For each picture, drop a pin where you think it happened and pick the year. 3) Answer the questions on the response sheet. Due: [DATE]
Your dashboard fills in your code and date and copies this for Google Classroom, Canvas or Planbook.