The spooky season is upon us! Here are a few traditional and non-traditional Halloween family activities to help you make the most of this fun time of year.
Do Halloween Crafts
Halloween crafts are great to get the creative juices flowing, and there’s something you can do for every age!
If you have a toddler or preschooler, a spooky sensory bin is a fun way to keep your little ones busy while celebrating the season. Just get a plastic tub and fill it with black, white, and green dried beans and peas. Toss in a few toy pumpkins and skeletons, and they’ll be busy for hours.
Pumpkin slime is a crowd-pleaser for many ages. You’ll need white Elmer’s glue, unscented shaving cream, orange food coloring, baking soda, and saline solutions. To make, add ½ cup of Elmer’s glue and 4 cups of shaving cream to a bowl. Mix well, and add in a few drops of food coloring if you want the slime colored. Once you’ve mixed, stir in ¼ TSP of baking soda, followed by 1 TBSP of saline solution at a time. Keep adding saline and mixing until slime forms into a ball. Then you can have fun squishing and pulling this marshmallowy slime! When done, put it in an airtight container to save it.
Paint Pumpkins
Love the idea of pumpkin carving with your family but aren’t thrilled with the mess that comes with it? Consider pumpkin painting instead. If it’s still nice enough, this can be an outdoor activity to give everyone free rein to get messy. If indoors is the only option, just make sure to lay out a tablecloth before getting started.
You and your children can get creative and dream up your own designs or search online to find the perfect no-carve ideas. Silly faces, haunted houses, and playful pet pumpkins are a few of our favorite ideas!
Host a Game Night
When it comes to Halloween family activities, a game night is always a good idea. It could be as simple as playing a favorite board game, word game, or card game with some special fall treats. Or, if you’ve got teens, hosting your own Murder Mystery is a fun way for them and their friends to get dressed up, eat some Halloween candy, and utilize teamwork to solve a murder.
“Boo” Your Neighbors
This fun activity involves your friends and neighbors, too.
If you’ve never heard of this before, it’s when you create a Halloween goodie basket and leave it on the porch for a neighbor and friend. If you receive one, it means you’ve been tagged in a game, and now it’s your turn to pay it forward! Of course, you are more than welcome to start this tradition in your neighborhood if you’ve never been booed.
First, pick a container to fill up with goodies. Next, you’ll want to gather your goodies, and anything goes: candy, stickers, bubbles, Dracula teeth, and glow sticks. Whatever you want to surprise your “victim” with! When you fill the goodie bag, don’t forget to put in instructions and a boo sign, as getting a random bag of goodies on your doorstep may be confusing. Instructions can be found online to print out. The “We’ve Been Booed” sign (that you’ll also provide) is for them to put on their front door so they can signify they’ve been booed so they won’t get hit twice (these signs can also be found online to print out).
This is the most exciting part for kids: delivering the basket! You can deliver the basket to their front porch when they’re not home or ring the doorbell and quickly run away so you don’t get caught! The kids will be excited when they see their Boo sign hung up in the coming days.
Make Some Fall Treats
It’s Spooky season without some sweet treats, right?
If you’re not a big baker, that doesn’t mean you can’t get in on the fun. Get some plain sugar cookies and spend a night with your kids, decking out the cookies with icing spiderwebs, pumpkins, and ghosts. If you’re more into fall treats than spooky treats, consider making pumpkin bread, apple cider donuts, or mini pumpkin pies with your kiddos.
Write or Read Spooky Stories
Halloween family activities can be spooky, too! This idea is perfect for older kids who can handle some fun scares. Start the night off by getting creative and writing spooky stories. Everyone can write their own and then come back together for storytime. If you want to up the scariness, you can take it a step further by having some scary stories on hand, like the classic Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.
Epic Kids is Here for Your Family
We hope you and your family enjoy these Halloween family activities all month long!
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