Carve, Paint or Decorate Pumpkins - What would Halloween be without carving pumpkins? If you choose to carve them, don't forget to bake and eat the seeds - yummy! If you'd rather not deal with the mess of carving, there are so many other ways to decorate this fall staple! In addition to the obvious alternatives like painting, why not try melting crayons? Check out this post from Momspark.net for a how-to! You could even grab some duck tape - there are a lot fun prints out there and use that for creating a funny or scary jack-o-lantern! Simply pull off a piece and use scissors to get the desired shape. Then stick it on, that's it! Check out this post from Duck Tape for some awesome ideas!
Tell Ghost Stories - Use stuffed animals or puppets to tell ghost stories! The kids can take turns adding spooky elements to create a shared story. Or if you have a book of fairy tales on hand (really any book will do!), an adult or big kid could have Theo the Raven Puppet "read" the story from behind the couch or our Doorway Puppet Theater. This is a great way to encourage language and inspire creativity and imagination! Want to up the "Creepiness" factor? Dim the lights and incorporate our Terra Kids Flashlight to create even more of a sense of thrill and suspense!
Play a Board Game - No matter what time of year it is, board games are always a hit! Check out Cloaked Cats where players try to unmask each other among all the velvet-pawed guests. They'll try to play their cat cards skillfully, draw the right conclusions, all while trying to reveal as little as possible about themselves. The player who can deduce the most information about the other players wins! If memory games are more up your alley, try Hedgehog Haberdash where players need to draw leaves with the right colored points out of the leaf bag. But be careful! The wind can blow the leaves around so that even leaves you thought were safely yours fly away again! The first player to completely decorate their hedgehog with leaves in their color wins the game. Expecting an older crowd? The Key Series is a trio of logical deduction games for 1-4 players ages 8 and up. Each game has 9 different replayable "case" puzzles to solve. Unlike many "escape room" type games, Murder at the Oakdale Club, The theft at Cliffrock Villa and Sabotage at Lucky Llama Land boast an infinite number of unique puzzle solutions.
Transform into Mummies! - Pair up each child with an adult and one roll of toilet paper. It's the most fun if you can put each pair into a separate room for the mummification process. Then, get your roll-on! Use the entire roll to cover each child like a real mummy! The giggles spilling out from each room will be contagious! When everyone is finished, gather in a common room together at same time. The kids will get a kick out of seeing each other covered head-to-toe in toilet paper! This is one activity that every family should have materials on hand for -- Just make sure you don't use your last roll on this project - hehe! And don't forget to snap a group photo to creep out Grandma!
Research Creepy Things - Head to the library and get books on "creepy" things like bats, spiders, eye balls or brains! Learning about these things will help them to seem less creepy to kids! Did you know? The largest type of bat is called a Pteropus. It is also known as a "Flying Fox" or "Fruit Bat". These type of bats are very important to the environment as they help to pollinate over 500 species of plants such as mango, banana, guava and agave through a process called chiropterophily!
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