Back in Colombia, when I was a child, I remember going out with my cousin and aunt, asking for candies on the evening of the 31st of October. Also, we sang a traditional song in Spanish and we enjoyed dressing up for that one-of-a-kind special day of the year. Now, as mom, I would like my son to experience how fun Halloween is.
Today, I want to show you 5 awesome activities you can do at home to celebrate a spooky, yet, child friendly Halloween party:
- Halloween Pumpkin Pie Play Dough Party
- Halloween Arts and Crafts
- Parachute Games
- Jack-o’-lantern Potions
- Halloween Themed Pass the Parcel
All these activities are meant to be done one after the others. Together they will make the party fun, exciting, and entertaining for the children.
1. Halloween Pumpkin Pie Play Dough Party
I love the smell of pumpkin pie! It’s fragrance so distinctly brings memories of October and Halloween. As I love it, so do children and this spice-smelling dough will captivate their sense of smell. The play dough soft texture will keep children’s hands busy. They will mould, flatten, squish, pinch, break, and roll play dough. And, best of all, they can decorate Halloween playdough mats with cookie cutters, googly eyes, and pony beads to add to the fun.
Before the end of the party each kid can take home a ziploc bag with their name written on it, filled with play dough.
What you will need
- Children’s table or Tuff tray with stand (I used 80cm wide x 89cm long x 7cm high)
- Home-made Pumpkin Spiced Play Dough
- Halloween Playdough mats (I laminated them for long duration)
- 1 Basket or plastic tray to put your play dough tools
- 2 Rolling pins
- 2 rotary cutters
- 1 dual ended tool play dough
- 4 different squeezers or dough extruders
- 2 plastic toy scissors (I have them from two play-dough sets)
- Googly eyes of different colors and sizes
- Pony beads
- Halloween cookie cutters
- Small ziploc bags (15cmx9cm)
How to make it
- Divide the play dough into equal parts. Put 200 grams of dough in each of the ziploc bags and write each child’s name with a marker.
- Add to the tuff tray the ziploc bags, the basket with your play dough tools, Halloween mats, cookie cutters, pony beads, and googly eyes.
- You are ready to go!
Make Pumpkin Pie Play Dough
What you will need
This recipe makes 1 kg (2 lbs) of Play Dough, perfect for 5 children.
- 2 cups (240 g) plain flour
- 2 cups (500 ml) water
- 1 cup (300 g) salt
- 2 tablespoons (30 ml) vegetable oil
- 4 tablespoons (60 ml) cream of tartar
- 5 Teaspoons Pumpkin pie spice
- Food coloring (12 drops of red and 30 drops of yellow)
How to make it
- Combine the dry ingredients in a nonstick saucepan.
- Add the oil, water, and food coloring and whisk until smooth.
- Stirring constantly with a rubber spatula, cook the mixture over medium heat for 3-5 minutes or until the mixture congeals (until it forms a ball).
- Turn the dough onto a counter, let it cool slightly, then knead the dough until it has a smooth texture, about 3 minutes.
2. Halloween Arts and Crafts
Children will be thrilled to color their own Halloween paper masks and to paint their own tape resist spider web. Both crafts can also be taken home at the end of the party. Making it a great souvenir!
Set-up your art and craft station on a kid’s table or on a easy to clean play mat. Keep at hand a basket with colored pencils and markers next to the paper masks. For the tape resist web craft check the step to step guide first. I recommend having the cardboard plates ready with the tape already on. Offer children different colored paint sticks to spark their creativity. To decorate the paper spider web provide plastic spiders and blue-tack to stick the spider to the plate.
3. Parachute Games
Level up the party excitement and movement with some parachute games! Enjoyable for indoor or outdoor areas (depending the size of the parachute). Both children and adults will have a blast. Parachute games encourage co-operative, non-competitive play and reinforce turn-taking and sharing.
What you will need
- 1 Parachute ( I used a 12 ft) It is good for 5 children and 5 adults to play with at the same time.
- Light weight soft balls or soft toys
What games to play
- Invite the kids to bring a ball, small toy or lightweight plush toy to the game.
- Lay the Parachute on the ground and place all the toys and balls in the center of the Parachute.
- Have each child pick up one of two of the Parachute’s handles.
- As the leader, let the children know to lift in unison on the count of 3.
- Once lifted, each child needs to flip the parachute up and down.
- The toys in the center of the Parachute with begin to “jump” up and down like popcorn being popped.
- The object of the game is to work together to keep the toys jumping and prevent them falling off the Parachute.
- Put a variety of small toys in a box. (For a Halloween theme party you could include plastic spiders, skulls, skeletons, bats, eye-balls)
- Place the box under the Parachute.
- Choose one player to be the Diver. They will stand outside of the circle until they are called.
- Have each player pick up one or two Parachute handles.
- On the count of three, have the players generate “waves” in the Parachute by moving their arms up and down.
- Each player takes a turn telling the Diver which toy to retrieve from the “Treasure Box” under the sea.
- The Diver rushes under the Parachute, sifts through the box and emerges from the water.
- The game can either continue with each child holding the Parachute getting a turn at instructing the Diver, or another child can take their turn as Diver.
- Parachute Tag: Lift the parachute high overhead. Call one child’s name and have her run (skip, hop, crawl) to the other side before the parachute comes down and tags her. A variation on this is to call two names and have children swap places.
- Ball games: Throw a small light weight ball onto the parachute. The children raise the parachute to see if they can keep the ball on the canvas. Next see how high they can collectively throw the ball. Now try it with a larger ball such a beach ball. Repeat with both balls.
- Match That Music: The music is turned on and children try to match the type of music they hear. If it’s a fast tempo, they can shake the parachute quickly. Classical music works great for this activity!
- Freeze Dance Party: Shake the parachute while the music plays. Stop as quickly as possible when it turns off. Begin the music again, and start over.
- Parachute Wave: Children wave the parachute one at a time taking turns around the circle. Watch as the parachute takes on a wave motion just like ocean waves!
- One Hand Run: Have each child hold the parachute with one hand, extending the other hand out for balance. Run around in one direction, then change and run around in the other direction. A variation would be to use music as the cue for changing direction.
- Weather: We start calm sitting on the floor and it is a gentle breeze, then rain and move up to a thunder storm with everyone standing up holding and shaking as hard as they can to make thunder. Be creative with this one-only limited by your imagination.
4. Jack-o’-lantern Potions
The Jack-o’-lantern Potions was the biggest and greatest surprise of all! It’s an awesome activity to enjoy in an outdoor area. The result is a fun and bubbly experience for the touch, sight and sound.
What you will need
- 1 plastic container (I used 26.5 L) This size is great for three to five children playing at the same time.
- Mini Halloween Pumpkin Buckets
- Clear jars in different sizes
- 500 g or 1lb of baking soda
- Black permanent marker
- 2 liter of white vinegar
- Food colouring
- liquid dishwashing detergent
- squeeze bottles
- Spray bottle
- 2 droppers
- 1 Pipettes
- 1 Plastic measuring jug or cup
How to make it
- Using the permanent marker draw a classic Jack-o’-Lantern face on your clear jars.
- Half fill the mini halloween pumpkins and jars with baking soda.
- Mix in a few drops of food colouring.
- Drop in a little liquid dishwashing detergent into each container.
- Place the pumpkins and jars into a plastic bin to capture the vinegar and fizz.
- Fill the squeeze bottles, spray bottle with vinegar, and the measuring jug with vinegar.
- Watch the children as they use the vinegar to make the baking soda, detergent, and food colouring, fizz and bubble, and overflow.
5. Halloween Themed Pass the Parcel
I recently learned about the game pass the parcel and it’s variations. The first time my son played the game with his friends it was in the Halloween party that I hosted a few days ago. Here you can check out simple pass the parcel ideas for kids. I will share with you how we played it and what prizes I included in the game.
What you will need
- 10 graduated fabric pass the parcel bags with drawstrings or you can use different colored wrapping paper. Here it is a video of how to wrap a pass the parcel game using paper.
- Laminated sheets of I spy Halloween and Spot the 7 differences (One for each player)
- Small chocolates (optional)
- Home-made squishy balloons (Play dough stress ball) One for each player. Each squishy balloon has 70 g of home-made playdough.
- Music that will play during the game. I used Justine Clarke – Dancing Face
How to get your pass the parcel bags ready
- If using reusable fabric, pop inside the smallest bag one of the squishy balloons. Then take the bag and put it inside the following bag with another squishy balloon.
- Continue like that until you arrive to the biggest bag and that’s where you will put the laminated “I spy Halloween” and “spot the differences sheets”.
- For the small chocolates you can distribute them as you like in the bags. You can put them all together in one of the bags and children can share them evenly with the others. You can also distribute the chocolates with the squishy balloons.
- Other ideas of prizes can include: Packs of stickers, small notebooks, fun pens or pencils, boxes of crayons, small books, pencil erasers, Yo-yos, etc.
How to Play Pass the Parcel
- On a comfy carpet all players sit in a circle. They have to be close enough to each other so they can pass the parcel quickly. If there are young toddlers, they can sit on their parent’s lap during the game and help them participate so everyone feels included and part of the game.
- Select the music-keeper. This person will be responsible for turning the music on and off. It should be someone who is able to keep an eye on the players and stop the music in a fair way that allows everyone a turn at unwrapping.
- Give the parcel to one child (often the birthday boy/girl) to start.
- As the music plays the children pass the parcel around the circle until the music is stopped.
- Whoever is holding the parcel when the music stops gets to open a layer of the parcel and collect their prize.
- This continues until all the layers have been opened.
