By Debra Scott
Bobing for apples
Get a big bucket or pot (we used to use my mom’s bread making pot) fill with water and apples. Kids try to get an apple out of the water using their teeth… NO HANDS allowed. It is more difficult than it looks. Have lots of towels ready.
House of horrors
Blindfold kids and have them touch the horrible things – telling them what they are feeling
Eyeballs (peeled grapes)
Worms (large soba noodles)
Peeled plums (giant spider’s eggs)
Cold oatmeal (brains)
Spaghetti in oil (guts)
Pass The Pumpkins
Have kids sit in a circle and pass small pumpkins or gourds when the music is playing. When the music stops the child without a pumpkin is out continue until there’s a winner.
Halloween Candy Hunt
Like an Easter egg hunt: Buy plastic eggs and paint them in halloween colors. put candy in them. then hide them. The prize can be the candy inside or some of the eggs can contain notification of winning a small prize or party favor.
Alternative Witch Hunt – In Search of Halloween Candy (Good for ages 3 – 6)
An evil Which has stolen the Halloween Candy! And now we need to find her and get the candy back. Good thing there are clues.. Gather a bunch of brooms (borrow from neighbors) and scatter them around the yard, with the handle pointing in the direction you want the children to go. (If you don’t have brooms use something else) Start at the beginning of the broom path and search with flashlights for the next broom, and the next. At the end of the line have a big pot of candy waiting for the kids. For more fun buy one of those witches that look like they smacked into a tree and place the candy right under that spot.
Guess The Ghost – Great for Young Children
Have one child leave the room. Then take a large sheet and have a different (child) stand and hide under the sheet. Mix up the remaining children in the room and then allow the child who left the room to come back inside. That child has to guess who’s the ghost, by process of elimination they need to figure out which child is hiding under the sheet. Then that “Ghost” goes out of the room and a different child becomes the new ghost, mix up the remaining children and repeat until all of the children have had a turn being the ghost.
Witches Brew
Fill a big pot with prizes wrapped in black and green paper, and throw a bunch of other gross stuff in like spiders, cobwebs, that popcorn Styrofoam, etc. to make it look like a big stew. Then have them reach hand in for prize (if they dare!) If it wasn’t so messy, I’d even suggest slime or jello as the soup base.
Halloween Decorations – Iced Hands.
Fill some gloves up with water and put them in the freezer. As soon as the gloves are frozen, cut the rubber off. Then you put the iced hands in your bowls of punch , the effect is absolutely great and spookey.
Rolling Pumpkins Relay
Line up into 2 teams. The first person passes the pumpkin over his/her head to the next person in line. The next person passes the pumpkin under his/her legs to the next person, and so on. When you get to the end of the line the last person runs up to the front and starts it all over again. Whoever has the first person that was in line at the beginning of the game in the back of the line WINS.
More Halloween ideas :
