How to throw a Halloween Party for Kids
by Ellen Ambrose in General / 10.30.08
Throwing a Halloween party for children can be loads of fun and lots of work. Here are some great ideas for throwing the best darn Halloween party your kids and their friends have ever seen.
The first order of business is to decide the location of your party. By October, it is getting dark early and young children sometimes do better indoors although, night time can be really fun because the kids can play games like Ghost in the Graveyard, Light as a Feather Stiff as a Board and Hide and Seek.
A Halloween party is an excellent opportunity to serve up some really creative food. Here are a few examples of yummy Halloween treats:
1. Cupcakes shaped like vampires
2. Pretzel Spiders
3. Crazy Apple Teeth
4. Pizza Mummies
These kids Halloween recipes and many more can be found here.
One of the best ideas that I have ever seen (invented by a friend and fellow MindBites author, Tiffany Craven) is to have all the kids go trick-or-treating in your house. All the bedrooms and bathrooms automatically become doors to knock on with candy and treat opportunities. Have friends and family dress up in a mix of friendly and uber scary characters like Snow White and alien monsters. Mix up the doorways so the kids do not know what to expect. For example, have 2 really nice non-scary characters answer the door and then hit them with a scary one. Trust me, they will be afraid to knock on the next door.
Another really funny activity is bobbing for apples. This activity is really harder than you think. I tried it recently and really couldn’t come up with anything. I would say this activity would start at age 9 just because a lot of kids still won’t bite into an apple with skin. My husband just piped in that his technique includes pressing the apple all the way down with his mouth to the bottom of the bucket with head fully immersed under water to get the upper hand on the apple. Geesh, some people will stop at nothing to win.
The creepy, dark closet filled with disgusting items that the kids have to touch in the dark is always a winner. Items such as floating eyeballs (grapes or cocktail onions), guts (cold, cooked spaghetti noodles), brains (cold jelly), body parts (cold hot dogs), baby poop (soggy, wet bread) will gross out even the toughest kids. Be sure to have a pot of water and a towel for the kids to rinse their hands in the dark on their way out. You can call the pot of water a pot of blood for hand dipping.
A pumpkin painting contest always provides some good, clean fun. Create a little pumpkin patch in your yard and let the kids pick out their own pumpkin. Have tables set up with newspaper and paints. Create at least 3 awards for best painted pumpkin, most creative and scariest.
Another fun thing to do is to serve popcorn and show kid friendly, Halloween movies on a projector. All the kids cozy up and can chill after some exciting party activity. The top ten haunting Halloween movies for kids can be found here.
Last but not least, a costume contest is always fun. Same rules apply here. Try to give out at least 3 awards. And don’t forget to play music like Monster Mash, The Adams Family, Werewolf in London and Purple People Eater.
Here are three really fun Halloween activities that you can with kids:
How to Make a Paper Mache Pumpkin
How to Make Cool Halloween T-Shirts
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