Here are some ideas to fire your little skeletons’ imaginations…..
Throw a Spooky Party: Stock up on cheap decorations (or get the kids to make some!), serve spooky snacks and party on!
Make your own costumes: Shop bought Halloween costumes cost a fortune and you only get 1 or max 2 years wear out of them as kids grow fast. We like making our own at home – an old T shirt can be covered in red paint or lipstick, an old pair of shorts can have jagged edges put in and rips made, and there are lots of masks you can make yourself or cheap mask making kits to buy. We’ve also been a ghost a few times using an old white sheet!
Play Halloween Games: Our favourites are Wrap the Mummy (gather some toilet rolls and have teams wrapping up a volunteer), Halloween Bean Bag Toss (throw them into pumpkins with wide mouths), Halloween bingo (instead of numbers use a pumpkin, skeleton, black cat etc on the cards) and sticking hands into a pumpkin to guess what’s inside (jelly, toy rats, etc).
Try some spooky science experiments: How about some Halloween-themed slime? There’s a slime recipe here and you could add Halloween colours and small spider or bat decorations. Or, make a pumpkin erupt like a volcano! Simply carve a pumpkin and put a bowl inside. Add some bicarbonate of soda, some washing up liquid and some food colouring (it’s best to do this outside for an easy clean up). Add some vinegar and watch the foamy liquid ooze out of the pumpkin’s mouth! You can find lots more Halloween science ideas here.
Hide sweets in your garden or around your house: Play some spooky tunes while the kids are searching to set the mood, and give them flashlights or head torches if you want to do it in the dark!
Pumpkin carving contest: Who can carve the best pumpkin? The grown-ups or the kids?! We team up and do girls vs boys (me with my daughter vs my husband and son). Its often cheapest to pick your own pumpkins at a local farm, find a list of all the places open for pick your own pumpkins here.
Paint rocks or pumpkins: Decorate some Halloween-themed rocks. You could even paint pumpkins instead of carving them. You can find lots of designs for pumpkins on Pinterest.
Glow stick dancing: Turn out the lights, snap some glow sticks and get grooving. You could even wear black then stick the glow sticks to your clothes like skeleton bones!
Have a Halloween Afternoon Tea! Everything looks better served on tiered trays. Our favourites are sausage mummies (wrap strips of puff pastry around sausages then bake and add black icing eyes), banana ghosts (chop a banana in half and add chocolate chips for eyes and a mouth) and Oreo spiders (stick two Oreo cookies together with melted chocolate, and put some strawberry laces in between them for the spider legs. Coat the top with melted chocolate and make scary spider faces with icing pens.)
Set up a spooky trail with scary clues: You can have some fun inventing the clues and have a spooky prize to uncover at the end.
Host a spooky disco: You can play Halloween-themed tunes or just your favourites, but turn down the light and set some atmospheric lighting.
Spooky movie night: Family-friendly ideas include Harry Potter, Toy Story of Terror, The Adams Family, Room on the Broom, Curious George: A Halloween Boo Fest, Pooh’s Heffalump Halloween Movie, Casper, Coco and The Nightmare Before Christmas. Don’t forget to check the age advice before viewing to avoid more frights than you bargained for!
Tell ghost stories! Snuggle up on some beanbags or throw a pile of cushions and duvets onto the floor, light some battery-operated candles and tell some good old spooky tales. Funny Bones is always a good one for young children. We like Llama Llama Halloween too.
Create some fun tasks in chalk for kids to do on the pavement outside your house: You could set challenges to get them jumping, skipping, star jumping or dancing along the pavement!
Drive/walk out to look at other decorated houses: If you know an area that always makes an effort at Halloween, why not drive – or walk – around to see different decorations? Do a pumpkin trail around your neighbourhood. Colour in a pumpkin and pop it in your window to display, then see how many you can spot when you go for a walk? You can download the template below here – Pumpkin Colouring Sheet.
Happy Halloween!!
