Making plans for the near future seems impossible at the moment, given the current situation, especially for events like Halloween. Under normal circumstances Halloween would involve a lot of trick or treating at various neighbour’s houses. Now it must be something a little more low-key to protect everyone’s well being.
In that interest, here’s 5 suggestions from us on how to still have a horrifically fun Halloween while staying in your own haunted mansion.
Halloween Movie Night
In doing this in place of your normal Halloween your kids get all the usual benefits of Halloween. For instance, gorging on all the treats that they want and getting to spend family quality time.
By watching family-friendly films this truly helps establish the fun spooky atmosphere of Halloween. Without of course having to interact with anyone.
In our next post, you will be able to see a list of our top 10 Halloween film suggestions for the whole family. So if you are interested in doing a night like this do stay tuned.
Make your own Halloween treats
This could be part of a general Halloween themed meal or maybe just part of your movie night. But this is something fun that the whole family can do together.
Online you can find many recipes that range from a beginner level to those requiring a bit more of an artistic flare.
There’s even some scarily sumptuous savoury option in this list too for those of you who don’t have a sweet tooth.
Here’s a list of links to great sites with lots of options of how to make some delicious sounding recipes:
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/collection/halloween-recipes
https://www.olivemagazine.com/recipes/family/best-halloween-recipes/
https://realfood.tesco.com/gallery/10-scary-savoury-halloween-treats.html
https://www.countryliving.com/food-drinks/g3498/halloween-appetizers/
https://www.countryliving.com/food-drinks/g1194/halloween-treats/
Make your own Halloween Decorations/Decorate the house
One Idea for making your own Halloween decorations is to make a family wreath. Wreath forms can be purchased online for about £10 and from there you can use things that you can find in your home to build it up. Or, if you can always build the frame of the wreath yourself. You can find some links to wreath making ideas at the end of this section. Another couple ideas would be to make some paper bunting with some string or ribbon and have your kids draw fun Halloween designs onto them. At the bottom of this section you will also see a template for making skeleton garlands if you want to take this to the next level.
The third and final idea is to go out on a walk and grab some pine cones that you can paint all different colours to bring some autumn flare into your home.
Of course for more ideas please do take a look at some of the options in the links below:
https://www.countryliving.com/diy-crafts/g1951/diy-halloween-wreaths/?slide=45
https://www.womansday.com/home/decorating/a28912657/skeleton-garland/
Halloween Games Night
After a long first month back to school and a long lockdown you might be needing some extra family fun and we’ve got just the solution with some cost effective Halloween games.
What about pumpkin or ghost bowling?
For this all you need is some toilet paper rolls and the instructions suggest using craft paper cut outs to create faces. But using a marker to draw faces onto the rolls will work just as well. You can roll up a piece of paper to use as the bowling ball or you can dig up a ping pong ball or tennis ball. Of course, it might be best to do this somewhere where no valuables are around!
Here is a link with full instructions:https://who-arted.com/2013/10/31/halloween-games-for-kids-pumpkin-bowling/
Another idea which uses toilet paper is inspired by a blog post from chickenbabies.com as this mum set up streamers across her hallway as a maze for her children to try and find a way through. This is something that could very easily be done through using toilet paper instead of the white streamers and buying a pack of spiders from a pound store. (Here is the link to the original post https://www.chickenbabies.com/2011/10/lair-of-spider-queen.html)
To use up the rest of those spiders another great idea is to do spider races. Now that might sound a little strange but this essentially entails putting a plastic spider on a flat surface and rolling a scrap piece of paper into a straw to blow through. You then go against members of your family trying to push the spider along with only the breath through your straw. Whoever gets to the finish line first wins!
Here’s a link to a blog post detailing what to do: https://www.stillplayingschool.com/2015/10/spider-races-halloween-games-kids.html
Halloween Family Costume competition
All this entails is creating Halloween costumes using the items of clothing and supplies that you have around the house.
In case this gets messy might be best to do this with older clothes or even through re-using bits of old Halloween costumes.
After you’re all dressed up the whole family anonymously votes for who they think has the best costume (without voting for yourself of course). Whoever has the most votes wins!
