kids halloween party suggestions??????

Question

I have never had a Halloween party for my kids and this year I'm gonna attempt one. My kids are ages 9, 6, 5 and 3 so any cool ideas would be great. Thanks!

Answer 1

What fun! I love Hallowe'en and ran the Hallowe'en Carnival at the elementary school my daughters (now 15 and 18) went to.

First things first: If you concentrate on fun, SLIGHTLY spooky activities, you won't lose your 9-year-old's interest or terrify your 3-year-old. Stick to pumpkins, black cats, the occasional skeleton, spiders, and spooky trees -- monsters, vampires, witches and devils are likely to be too much for the little guys (though you'll know your children's limits better than I do).

We took traditional party/carnival games and "repurposed" them with a Hallowe'en theme. For example, instead of a bean-bag toss, we had kids try to throw rubber pumpkins through the holes in a giant cardboard jack-o-lantern face. Or our favorite -- one year a dad built us a simple lever-style catapult, which we called the "jack-a-pult" -- you'd whack one end of it with a rubber mallet and send a plastic pumpkin flying through the air. Hours of fun!

Another popular activity: we built a dollhouse-sized "haunted house" (out of cardboard, painted to look spooky) with fabric curtains over the windows. For a ticket, the kids got to reach into one window; behind three of them were little prizes (spider rings, skull whistles, etc.) and behind the fourth was something gross and slimy (those stretchy window-climber things with a little water to make them feel like bloody guts).

We also had face-painting and scary makeup -- one year the after-school drama class got together and did "bloody bruises" on kids who wanted them. We had a couple hundred kids walking around looking like they'd been assaulted with a baseball bat! The kids loved it.

But the main thing we did, and I recommend a smaller-scale version of this: half the multipurpose room was lined with tables where the kids made spooky arts and crafts, while the other half had the games and activities. When we've thrown parties for our own children, we used to find that having a dedicated 30-minute craft activity at the beginning was a good way to wait for all the kids to get there, then we'd start the games, and then we'd end with another craft to calm them back down when they're all sugared up on birthday cake.

Some of the crafts: we took empty cereal boxes, spray-painted them primer grey in the weeks before the carnival, and then let the kids paint them to be "tombstones." They LOVED that. And pumpkin decorating is always fun; have the kids paint them with acrylic paints if you're worried about knives and cutting (though those safe plastic pumpkin saws work surprisingly well). Get a selection of those plastic glow-sticks to put inside them, that way you don't have to worry about the kids burning your curtains down. And we made ghosts with styrofoam balls, cheesecloth, and stick-on eyeballs -- just wrap a square of cheesecloth around the styro ball, tie a string around the "neck," then pin or glue on eyeballs and a mouth and pin a thread through the top of the "head" so the kids can hang them on their own porch when they get home.

Oh, and one final thing -- blacklights ROCK. Get some fluorescent paint and a GOOD blacklight, a 36" fluorescent tube. You can usually pick up "shop light" fixtures cheaply (ten bucks or so), then buy ultraviolet fluorescent tubes -- they're going to run you a bit more but they are MUCH, MUCH better than the purple bulbs you'll buy at Spirit or Michael's. Have at least one room that you can block all the daylight from, and set up your blacklight in there. Don't do the WHOLE party in there, because the little kids won't want to go in, but the 9-year-olds will think it's the greatest thing in the world. Just paint some spooky scenes, maybe a "dead body" by stuffing old clothes, hang "ghosts" from the ceiling, whatever -- have fun with it.

As your final craft activity, get some stamps and have the kids decorate their own goodie bags. The URLs I include below have EVERYTHING you need for one of these parties, and you can probably find ideas beyond what I've included here.

You may also want to get a copy of "The Nightmare Before Christmas" for inspiration. Yes, some of it's about Christmas, but the main character is Jack Skellington, the King of Hallowe'en. If nothing else, get the sound track and play it in the background while the kids are arriving, the first song is called "This Is Hallowe'en." We'd use it for our costume-contest parade...

All the best, and happy Hallowe'en!

Answer 2

We used to host an annual Halloween sleepover. We started this when my oldest was quite young. We don't do it now because all his friends have moved (we're military). I would go all out with decorations. I'd put up streamers and balloons. I'd play a cd with spooky music for musical cushions (instead of chairs). We had games like pin the nose on the jack-o-lantern and we'd use a fake spider for hot potato.I'd do the usual spaghetti and grapes trick. Let the kids feel the spaghetti while blind folded. Tell them it is monster guts. The grapes are eyeballs. I always made pizza but put the toppings on to look like a jack-o-lantern. My husband would help me carve oranges to look like jack-o-lanterns and we'd fill them with chocolate ice cream for dessert. I usually had a few books picked out for spooky story time. At some point in the night my husband would try to scare the kids. We'd make popcorn for later and when it got late we'd let them camp in the living room while watching Scooby Doo (spooky but age appropriate). I'd always have a craft project. If you can find the foamies those are the easiest. They have all kinds of Halloween shapes with sticky backing. The kids just peel off the paper and place the shapes on their foam background to create a picture. You can usually find these at Hobby Lobby or Michaels.

In the mornings I'd make a big breakfast and have the parents come around 10 to pick up their kids. I'd have goodie bags full of Halloween themed items and I'd let each kid take a helium balloon.

Halloween is a huge deal in our house and it was so fun sharing it with my son's friends. We still go all out but now it is just the family.

Good luck and have fun!

Answer 3

From CostumZee - check it out btw: # Gomez and Morticia Addams # Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne of the Osbournes - though Kelly Osbourne would be more fun than Sharon # Batman and Catwoman or BatGirl # Superman and Supergirl - Wonder Woman # Ceasar and Cleopatra # Bonie and Clyde # Dracula and Vampira # The Incredibles - great if you have kids. Go as the whole family. # Chicago Gangsters # CSI Agents # Danny and Sandra Dee from Grease # A pair of Pirates or a Pirate and Wench # Hugh Heffner and a playboy bunny # Dog and Beth - The Bounty Hunter TV show # Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire # Fred and Wilma Flintstone # George and Jayne Jetson # Popeye and Olive Oyl # Romeo and Juliet # John Lennon and Yoko-Ono # Sony and Cher # JFK and Jackie Onassis # Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky # Pegg and Al Bundy (from Married with Children) # Austin Powers and Foxxy Cleopatra or Felicity Shagwell

Answer 4

Decorate your house with a different theme per room: have a room that is the "forest" (hang yellow, green, brown and black paper streamers down from the ceiling, have a stereo in there playing nature sounds, etc.) a room that is a party room (any party theme you want, from scary to mild and have halloween songs playing in that room, use a strobe light or black light for effect), etc.

Have a sheet cake frosted with chocolate frosting, cover it with chocolate cookie crumbs so that they look like dirt. Have gummy worms or other gummy bugs crawling through it. (You can do individual cupcakes if you prefer).

Have different bowls filled with halloween candy around the house.

Fun games are:
Bobbing for donuts (tie a string from one end of the room to the other and have donuts stringed across it, don't let them use their hands).
Black Cat Pinata (you can get one at almost any party store, or you can make you own with some cardboard, ballons, paper mache and black streamers).

Pin the Hand on the Zobmie

Have a coloring center for the younger kids with Halloween themed pictures (you can search on google.com for free coloring pages)

Family Fun Magazine usually has some great ideas in it in thei October issue. You can get it at almost any grocery store.

Have fun!

Answer 5

noting too scary....have like funny witch and skeleton decorations around the place. And cany...lots and lots of candy. thats the best part of halloween. Oh, and another good idea if if oyu know a good painter, or if you could paint decently, have a face painting table. where the kids can line up and get there face painted. That'll be so cool. that's what i did for the elementary school kids halloween festival last year, they loved it.

Answer 6

Who's the Ghost?
Supplies:

Large white sheet

Preparation:

None

Game Play:

This game is best for grades kindergarten through two. Divide the group into boys and girls. Take one group into the hall and place the sheet over one of the kids. Help the ghost back into the room with the rest of his or her group. The other group must guess who is the ghost. (No Prizes)

Answer 7

I remember when i was little my aunt had a halloween party and she filled up cafeteria gloves with popcorn and put candy corns in the nails and stapled them to a black poster sheet. She used them as decorations and then gave them to all of us as take home goodies.

just a thought*