The Haunted Castle is a highly interactive Halloween adventure. Vocabulary is easy enough for young readers grades 1-3 but the story would be fun for older students and for adults. Since the text reads aloud, even Pre-K children would enjoy this activity.
The story starts with trick or treaters deciding to try out a spooky-looking castle. Once inside, they are informed that they are trapped until they locate the front door key!
They help out several benevolent ghosts in the first few rooms, and meet a helpful giant spider who puts them back on the best route when they wander.
Once they reach the throne room, things take a scary turn. The floor is covered with skeletons! But when they pick up the fallen crown of the king, the skeletons disappear and some extremely realistic ghosts appear. The explorers continue on through the definitely haunted castle, to many more surprises.
I won’t give away the location of the key, nor what lurks at the top of the tower. The Haunted Castle seems like a real, if decidedly strange, location thanks to the realistic scenes rendered in a 3D CAD program. The throne room ghosts are translucent figures in ancient costume.
But it is the sound effects that really create the spooky atmosphere. Students with visual deficits can follow the story by the sounds, which give a true sense of the physical surroundings. Footsteps sound labored going up the spiral stairs to the tower. Real bats squeak eerily. Doors creak–and slam shut and lock.
To make the adventure more like a real-life exploration, students click right on the illustrations to move around and interact with objects. To open a door, click on the handle. Where the next action is to move in some direction, click an arrow.
To pick up the crown or key, click on the object. Besides having something happen to advance the story plot, clicking can elicit various sounds. Try clicking the sword, the junk in the cellar, and the demon face over the door as you leave. These clicks are optional but fun.
The Haunted Castle is a great way to kick off your Halloween!
Application needed: Classroom Suite
Subject area: Reading, Holidays.
Level: Grades 1-3.
Online Links-Activities
The Haunted Castle link: haunted/index.html The Haunted Castle activity to read online. Sounds require up-to-date QuickTime. For details on using Annie’s Books Online, click here.
Downloads-Activities
Classroom Suite
HauntedCastleFile.zip (56 MB) The Haunted Castle interactive adventure in Classroom Suite v.3 or later. Custom IntelliKeys overlay is attached.
TheHauntedCastle.dpkg (2.1 MB) The Haunted Castle overlay saved as a Dynavox package file.
