Halloween activities for kids can include more than just wearing costumes or trick-or-treating for candy. Halloween can be inspirational, educational, and nutritious too. That's a tall order, but parents can plan in advance for activities that will be interesting and fun this Halloween.
Fun Halloween Activities for Kids
This year think about Halloween activities for kids in different ways, including service, education, and nutrition. Now think about how to make those topics interesting and fun for kids during the month of October and leading up to the big Halloween celebration. Halloween activities can be more fun when parents work together on a plan. Here are some ideas to get you started.
Halloween Activities that Inspire
Halloween ideas can include raising funds for Unicef or other charities. Unicef is an example of a non-profit organization whose mission is to protect the rights of the most disadvantaged children in many countries around the world. Halloween is a great time for teachers, parents, and Sunday school sponsors to help kids research the purpose of non-profit organizations and to find one where kids can stay involved.
Kids can organize a Halloween carnival with face painting and a bake sale or talent show to raise funds to donate to the nonprofit local or national organization of their choice. Kids can also collect pocket change for the month of October, do yard or home clean up tasks for a small fee for neighbors or church members, or they can ask community leaders for a time to trick or treat for pennies as a way to raise funds for their charity.
Other Halloween activities might include visits to a local nursing home to deliver Halloween decorated place mats, Halloween cards, or handmade decorations to spruce up the room of the residents. Older kids might offer to help residents paint pumpkins or make ghosts out of white poster board. Older kids with babysitting experience may want to hold a costume party or haunted house for younger children and charge a small entrance fee. Most parents would be willing to spend a reasonable fee to provide safe entertainment for their children especially if the profit was for a good cause.
Planning a Halloween that includes service to others turns a holiday that may be associated with ghouls, ghosts, and vandalism into one of sharing and inspiration.
Halloween Activities that Educate
Halloween fun that can also help kids to learn is especially good for students in elementary school. Halloween mazes, word-find puzzles, hidden picture puzzles, and Halloween spelling challenges can be fun and educational.
For a quick homemade game for kids five to eight years old let children draw and color several Halloween objects. Easy to draw items may include pumpkins, ghosts, tombstones, skeletons, eyeballs, spiders, or bugs. Glue those pictures to orange and black construction paper, and cut them into equal-sized squares. Mix them up and turn the cards with the picture side down for a quick memory matching game. Each child will take a turn trying to find the two matching pictures. Kids will enjoy making the game and then playing it too.
Older children could be encouraged to read about the history of Halloween or read a Halloween book with a historical character and design a Halloween costume to fit the story. Playing a trivia game on tidbits about Halloween facts might be challenging and fun for teens. Teens might be very surprised about what they will discover by looking up ancient Halloween facts.
Encouraging an older child to try to stump an adult with information about Halloween facts might be an interesting twist. Parents may also find it fun to read chapters of a scary Halloween book aloud on a couple of evenings before Halloween night. Becoming involved with children during this time of year can be more than educational; it can be fun.
Halloween Sweet Treats
Halloween activities for kids should include more than candy. Consider serving other treats like caramel covered apples, frozen yogurt topped with nuts or granola, black licorice spiders, or a ghoulish frozen shake. For a ghoulish frozen shake, just place three scoops of chocolate chip mint ice cream in the blender. Add more green food coloring and a half cup of milk. Blend on high until mixed. Pour the drink into a glass, crumble chocolate cookie crumbs into the concoction, and top with whipped cream and a cherry.
Halloween should include food that will add to the fun of this fall celebration. Children love making and participating in food preparation during any season so look for easy recipes that kids can do. Dipping apples in caramel and making Halloween milkshakes are some easy ideas for kids that offer festive treats for the entire family to share.
