Ideas for Halloween Fun
Well it’s that time of year again. Halloween!! I have to say Halloween is 100% my favourite holiday. When I was a teacher I loved Halloween even more because kids get so into it and it’s so much fun to be a part of that.
From my teaching days and my own annual Halloween parties I have gathered quite a list of activities so I thought I’d share some ideas that you can use either this year or in the future.
1. Halloween/Fall Scavenger Hunt Ideas (this is for parents and kids to do together)
- Okay here are just a few ideas to get you rolling if you ever want to do a Halloween/ Fall themed scavenger hunt. Some items to collect (by finding, buying, renting or borrowing): a blood-red drink, a feather, a pine cone, Fall leaves: one orange, one yellow, one red (they just have to be mostly those colours), a cross, garlic, a dead flower. You get the idea.
- You can also have picture/video challenges: get a picture of the following: an adult in a costume, obliging stranger that you’ve wrapped in TP as a mummy, a black cat, walking like a zombie in a public place, getting a group of people (two or more) to give their best witch’s cackle.
2. Wink Murder
- Everyone closes their eyes and one person is tapped on the shoulder assigning them “wink murderer” status. The game then begins with everyone milling around the room making eye contact with each other. The “murderer” winks at people and if someone receives a wink they must die an elaborate death (give props to those who get creative with their death scene). In order to stop the murderer someone must declare that they know who the murderer is and have someone back up their assertion. If they are right the game ends and a new murderer is picked. If they are wrong the person who made the declaration is out of the game and the game continues. Keep track of how many people each murderer kills and the murderer with the best record wins. Sick I know. But hey, it’s Halloween!
3. Ghosts in the graveyard
- Basically this is hide and seek with a twist. The seeker is looking for people but the people who are hiding want to be found. When the seeker is near them they jump out and try to scare the bejesus out of them. Each found person then joins the seeker in the search for the remaining “ghosts”. This is best done at night using both your yard and the inside of the house (with most lights turned off).
4. Blindfolded House of Horrors
- I played this game when I was in Elementary school and I loved it! This game does take a bit of prep though. You have a room that is very dark (maybe with a black light) and a long table with bowls of items along it. The bowls are filled with items that feel disgusting. Noodles with sauce could be witches intestines, Olives or peeled grapes in a slimy solution could be goblin’s eyeballs, a boiled cabbage could be Frankenstein’s brain…get creative! Each person that goes into the House of Horrors is blindfolded and guided through the room stopping at each bowl, sticking their hand in and feeling whatever gross object is in the bowl. You can have them guess what it might be or you can tell them a scary story to go along with it.
5. Pumpkins and Ghosts
- This is a great outdoor game to burn off some energy from all that candy. This is similar to tag except the players are divided into two groups, pumpkins and ghosts. Select a couple “taggers”. The taggers are witches who are able to freeze everyone they touch. When the pumpkins are tagged they have to duck down on the ground and freeze. When ghosts are tagged they have to freeze standing up with their legs spread wide apart and their arms out to their sides (like a jumping jack position). Ghosts can release pumpkins from their spell by “flying” over the pumpkins (i.e. leap frogging over their backs). Pumpkins can release Ghosts by crawling through their legs. This is why you need more than one witch to do the tagging.
6. Musical Pumpkins
- Just like musical chairs except using cardboard or construction paper cut-outs of pumpkins. Play some Halloween-ish music like Thriller or the Monster Mash.
7. Pin the nose on the Jack O’ Lantern
- An oldie but a goodie. Kids never get sick of this. Just make a huge construction paper Jack O’Lantern and just stick tape to the back of a paper nose.
8. Here are a few ideas for Halloween relays:
- Blind Ghosts: Throw a sheet over the kids’ heads and have them run to the other side of the yard following the sound of a teammates voice that is walking in front of them but can’t touch them or lead them. Each team member must be the blind ghost and the first team to go through all their members wins.
- Toss the beanbag in the pumpkin (hollow out a bunch of large pumpkins and have a large hole at the top – can be used for a pumpkin carving competition later). One point for each beanbag they get in the pumpkin.
- Bobbing for apples relay. Have a few buckets with apples in them and each team bobs for apples at the same time. They stand in a line and bob for apples one right after the other. First team that empties their bucket of apples wins.
- Costume relay: Divide each team into two and have them on opposite sides of the yard. Use any old costumes around (adult sized is best) and put one costume in a pile before each team. The first team member has to put on the costume, run to the other side, take off the costume and give it to their teammate who does the same thing. The first team to go through all their team members is the winner.
These are just a few ideas to get to you started and you can alter them to suit the age range of the kids. For example, wink murder might have to be blink murder since it is difficult for young kids to wink. Or maybe it could be “Goblin spell” where the goblin sticks out their tongue instead of winking and instead of being killed they act completely crazy before lying on the floor stiff as a board, “frozen” by the spell. Just use your imagination and I guarantee that both you and the kids will have a ghoulishly, creepy, fantastic time!
~Laura
Labels: activites, games, Halloween, ideas, Laura, relays, scavenger hunt
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