Halloween Activity Inspiration for the Family
Something I’ve done since my oldest was born is create a special list of daily activities to help build the magic and anticipation of the holiday (specifically halloween and Christmas). I do a countdown with an associated activity each day and my kids literally run down the stairs every morning eager to learn what we will be doing! We all love it so much. I want to share my list with you to inspire that kind of joy and excitement, wether you can commit to every day activities or just want to pick a few to throw in when you have some down time, these are for YOU.
For the Family:
- Jack-O-Lantern Face Stuffed Bell Peppers for dinner
- Ghost shaped homemade pizza bar with lots of toppings!
- Pancake Breakfast featuring Panky Doodle Pancakes!
- Paint a Pumpkin (If you use tempra paint, you can make a sensory activity out of washing it off and painting again another day!)
- Ghost cup stack bowling (have the older kids/adults stand on one foot, blindfolded, or non-dominant handed)
- Flying Ghost race (tissue ghosts, blown across table with straws- create start/finish line with washi tape!)
- Trick or Treating and Trunk or Treat!
Activities For The Kids
Educational:
- Skeleton Puzzle Sheet OR QTip Skelly.
- Age 4+ Have them draw/color on the activity sheet (lots of options on with google search!), cut out and glue together
- Age 2+ provide glue and QTips to build a skeleton!
- Candy Corn Count- How many candy corn can fit in each section? This is great estimation practice, as well as counting into the teens.
- Witches Brew Fizz- Vinegar, baking soda, food dye, and water! Science!
- Spider Pom Pom Push- Color recognition and hand eye coordination builder!
- Baby Sensory Bags- The options here are endless! Orange dyed gel in a ziplock with jack-o-lantern face, Glitter and gel with little plastic spiders, etc. Exploration and fine motor skills!
- Rice Sensory Bin- Usually fun for all ages! Dye the rice orange and black for a little extra fun! Fine Motor skills, pouring and scooping, imaginative play, and any letter or number add-ins are a fun way to sneak in some practice! “B is for Bat, P is for Pumpkin!”
- Halloween Bubble foam- sensory and math if you involve the kids in measurements! (Lots of recipes available with a google search!)
- Witch Broom Stick Lacing- Fine motor, color recognition, counting
- Witch Hat Ring Toss- Gross Motor Skills, communication skills, Color recognition
- Laundry Basket Spider Web- Use your fine motor skills and some kitchen tongs to rescue the spider from the web!
- Salt dye Web with water colors
- Ghostie counting with coordinating colors and numbers!
It’s a win-win to have FUN and work on so many skills listed above!
Halloween Arts & Crafts
And for our final group… Arts & Crafts! I love these so much! I know it’s a pain to set up and clean up after a short lived activity like arts and crafts but hear me out… The value it brings to see something you created from nothing is UNMATCHED! I love arts and crafts! Watch out, if you google more you could get sucked in to the Twilight Zone of options!
Arts & Crafts:
- Door Hangers
- Pumpkin Painting
- Coloring Pages of your kiddos favorite characters
- Sticker Books
- Ghost Hand prints
- Play Doh Monsters!
- Book Art (We decorated a bus after reading Spooky Wheels on the bus and singing it while crafting, but you could adapt to any halloween book you already have in your collection)
- Spider hands
- Toilet Paper Roll bats and spiders
- Apple Pumpkin Stamps- Be sure to dry thoroughly before making up your jack-o-lantern faces! For littles, pre cut faces and mouths and let them pick and glue!
- Web Resist Art (use Poster or Amazon craft paper, Use afterwards for color matching or Upper and Lower case letter matching with dot stickers!)
- Air Dry Clay ghosts/monsters/spiders- Make for an activity one day and paint the next!
