You may have noticed the recent changes in the weather and the rapid shift from daylight to night-time before 5pm… we're convinced it's because Halloween is near. We've seen it written in the leaves falling from the trees – the witches are brewing up spooky times for all you hardworking students, and we're not just talking about the rain tapping on your window or the chimes going wild in the wind. We're talking Halloween activities you can enjoy with the family, but also bloodcurdling things you may do when the children go to bed and the nightlights are turned out…
Struggling with things to do for Halloween? Take a trick or treat from this selection of kooky Halloween games, ideas and crafts. The clocks are counting down… tick… tock… tick… better start planning for Spooky Season today.
Family Halloween Activities
All diligent students, mothers, fathers, and workers should take five around the Halloween period to spend some quality scare time with their families and friends. In fact, we insist. So, we've compiled a list of terrifyingly fun (or tame) Halloween activities you can all experiment with to create a harrowing or heart-warming night to remember:
Spooky Baking/Cooking Recipes
Halloween is a time for jump scares, and scare mazes, but also scarily good cooking - and we're not talking Grandma's meatloaf but creative recipes that let your little sprites and devils get messy in the kitchen. After binging on episodes of the Great British Bake Off, scouring the depths of Pinterest, and creating a BooTube Halloween playlist, we've gathered frighteningly easy Halloween recipes you and your children can use to put those culinary skills to the test. So, if you're looking for Halloween activities to keep the whole family interested, there's nothing better than these frightening food treats.
Haunted Pizza Recipe: Mozzarella ghosts and olive and salami bats make this homemade Halloween treat a real scream with the kids. An easy way to raise spirits during the Halloween season. Check out Tesco's recipe.
Strawberry Ghosts: Trick-and-treat your children into creating and delving into these sinfully sweet and adorable vanilla-coated ghost strawberries. Check out this fiendishly cute recipe from Candiquik.
Spider Donuts: Here's a fun recipe from a mother of five who knows the best way to children's hearts on Halloween is with this devilishly tasty doughnuts treat - a wicked snack you can get hands-on with together.
Mummy Cookies: These mummy-shaped cookies by Lil' Luna are a fun and easy way to cook up a treat for everyone this Halloween.
Monster Treats: This video by So Yummy offers easy, quick and tasty ideas that let your little monsters mix sweetie ingredients to create a variety of spooky aliens, spiders, bats and other Halloween classics.
Halloween is a candy-filled adrenaline rush, so balance your children's diet and nutrition by preparing some deliciously tasty, but healthy, sand-witches on wholegrain bread. You could even shape them into pumpkins.
Wicked Arts and Crafts
The scariest thing this Halloween is the idea of creativity losing its value or traditional crafting skills disappearing for good. We're advocates of learning new skills, so it's a given that we'd be double daring you to dust off those old watercolours and art sets to creep it real with killer Halloween activities and crafts for children and 'groan-ups'. Not sure what you might make? Here are some ideas to get you started!
Puffy Ghosts: Spook up your haunted house with these cute cotton ball mobiles. Hang them by a window or a fan and watch as they float, glide and scare (or make smile) trick-or-treaters and family members.
Pumpkin Goodie Bag: You're about to go trick-or-treating and realise you've no bag for your goodies! These makeshift Jack-O-Lanterns are fun to make in minutes with a couple of paper bowls, paint and string.
Apple Stamps: A fun way to introduce fruit, crafts and paint together are these Pumpkin stamps. However, parents can carve apples into various gruesome shapes, so kids can get creative on paper.
Yarn Spider Cobwebs: These creepy oversized cobwebs create an immediate visual impact upon entering any room. Wildly creative, creepy and cost-effective, check out how to make them at Crafty Lumberjacks.
Monster Noughts and Crosses: All around the country, children have been painting stones and hiding them in parks or woods to be collected by other children. But for Halloween, how about painting stones in the vein of classic (and cute) horror characters - Frankenstein, Mummy, Ghost – for a game of tic-tac-toe.
Deep down, we all have the creativity to create great things.
Halloween Party Games
Did you know Halloween dates to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, over 2000 years ago? And in the span of two millennia, humans have created various devilish party games to celebrate the season with fear and cheer, from dressing up like mummies to pumpkin bowling, mystery bowls and campfire tales. Now, we know too well how monstrous a task preparing a Halloween party can be. So, to save you from those pre-seasonal jitters, we've selected five fiendishly fun Halloween activities or games the family will howl for.
Frozen Statues: Create a playlist of Halloween classics - we've got a bias for the Ghostbusters theme song. Guide your little monsters to the dance floor and follow two simple rules: Dance when the music plays and freeze like a statue when the music stops. The perfect game to play with prizes.
Apple Bobbin: You'll be surprised how fun a bag of apples and two tubs of water can be. The objective is to be the first to remove all the apples from the tub – with just your mouth. Make things easier for kids with smaller apples and by having less water in the tub. It'll be a splash!
Scary Quiz: How many bones in the human body? How does a witch get around? A good name for a black cat? How much do your family and friends know about Halloween? Play as individuals or set up teams to go head-to-head for the pumpkin crown. Find a set of questions online or go wild and create a list yourself!
Finish a Story: What's Halloween without spine-chilling tales that get bones rattling and jaws chattering? Let your imaginations play in the shadows of the coldest castles, spookiest graveyards, or stormiest nights. Keep it mysterious, starting with sentences like, 'On a dark, stormy night, Fred…'. Then task storytellers to take turns to create the story in the scariest, funniest or weirdest way possible. Stay family-friendly to dodge night terrors.
Take the game in new directions with a fold-over story. A sheet of paper for each storyteller. Next, you ask Halloween-based questions, such as the story character's name and the things they do, eat or the people they meet. After a question is answered, storytellers fold their paper to cover their answer and pass it to the person on their left. Do until you run out of questions or paper, then unfold to reveal your spooky story.
Witch Hoopla: Take black card, fashion witches' hats with Sellotape and stick them down on cardboard. Next, you need a hoop to throw over your hats. You can use a holed Frisbee, but if you're out of them, you can create a hoop from an old belt. Finally, place the hats all over the party area and score them based on distance/difficulty. Draw a line where players stand, and let the fun begin.
Bloodcurdling Events
After a weekend of baking and crafting, you might fancy leaving your home for a house of horror, a spooky boat ride or a trek through a maize maze. There's nothing like a hair-raising adventure to bring the family closer together. We recommend a quick internet search for activities in your area. But if you're stuck for inspiration, we do have a few spooktacular suggestions Muahaha… ahem, sorry about that…
Spooky Trails: National Trust and other woodland societies offer fang-tastic Halloween-themed trails under the moonlight. Find creepy bugs, discover haunting happenings, or grab popcorn for an unnerving movie night under the stars.
Creepy CarnEvils: If you're a family of thrill-seekers, you might pop to a pop-up carnival and hitch a ride on a ghost train, dodge ghouls on the bumper cars, or bag yourself a boo-tiful prize hooking a duck.
Alarming Illuminations: Avoid the shadows and save yourself from darkness this Halloween as you creep by and around a spectrum of lights, colours and oversized pumpkins, spiders and other flashing delights at a local light show.
Dreadful Drama: The world is a stage this Halloween, and there's a range of fright fest productions being held to commemorate the monster in the closet, scarecrows in corn fields and witches and their cauldrons.
Monster Mash: All hooked up on candy, there's no better place for kids to release energy than a full moon dance, with classic horror tracks, blood punch to quench your thirst, and a chance to dress in your scary best.
Trick or Treating
Do you remember how thrilling it was to dress in the scariest costume you could find before heading out into the lamp-lit streets of your quiet neighbourhood? Candy bag in hand, you take in the decor of local homes: pumpkins on doorsteps and eerie illuminations hanging on walls. It takes time plucking the courage to knock on a stranger's door to silently squeal out the phrase 'trick or treat'. Of course, you're always greeted with Halloween cheers and treats to start your eve with an adrenaline rush.
Trick or treat can be a blast or a way for children and parents to spend quality time together. It inspires children to develop communication and creative skills, and the reward is a delicious treat!
All Hallow Eve
Here at the college, we're crazy for Halloween. When it comes to helping students to learn from home, we're busy finding new ways to engage. We hope these spooktastic Halloween activities and ideas give you some inspiration. These activities were chosen because they're easy to do from home. Likewise, they're also useful away from home for those planning on attending events during the half term. Happy Haunting.