Alternative Halloween Ideas

Looking for Halloween Ideas because you’re not going ‘trick-or-treating’? Look no further! I have compiled a list of a lot of popular activities fun for any age especially if you’re on a budget! It’s not about how perfect everything turns out as much as it is about what they experience and how they feel at the time of the activity! Don’t worry if the product doesn’t turn out like what is produced on Instagram or Pinterest but it’s the expression on your child(ren)’s face!

Food/Treats

Pumpkin spice pancakes

https://thesaltymarshmallow.com/perfect-pumpkin-pancakes/

Or regular pancakes

• Decorating them
• Ghoulish pancakes
• Putting batter in a squeeze bottle and making various shapes, mostly ghosts or spiders since they’re easier.
• Using silicone cookie cutters on the pan to keep the shape if you have Halloween themed ones

Rice Krispie treats

• Melt some marshmallow and add rice Krispies
• Allow the kids to shape anything they want
• Use orange and black candies for decorations

Cookies 

• No Halloween themed cookie cutters? “Dress them up” instead or make shapes by hand
  • They don’t have to be perfect, it’s for Halloween! 
• Using store bought or your own icing, get some bulk store sprinkles/toppings and design them any way you want

Games

Black and orange streamers

• Putting it around the house on ceilings as ‘lasers’
• Use a playroom or a room and wall to wall with ‘lasers’
  • Game of leave the room without touching the ‘lasers’
• Putting treats on the bottoms of streamers – if they hold, if not, sticking them on walls
  • Hide and treat – scavenger hunt style
    • Indoors or out
    • Mini pumpkin baskets and hide around the house
    • Or just hide around the house
    • Use rooms in the house and let the kids “knock” and get a “treat”
• Plastic spiders or pipe cleaner ones
  • Racing them – blowing with straws and a baking sheet or just tape on a table
  • Sensory with beans or rice or popcorn kernels
    • Optional: Tongs
    • Sort them into numbered cups or colors
• Styrofoam balls
  • Decorate like eyeballs with a mix of glue and paint
  • Use them for a game – aim for the laundry basket (can be decorated)

Sensory activities

• Container full of cotton and add spiders to the mix
• Food color and rice/pasta
• Water and color – paint or color tablets and add some random Halloween dollar store items
• ‘Dirt’ and worms
  • Ground up graham crackers or cookies and put some gummy worms in…make some rice krispie tombstones
  • Put it into a ‘pot’
• Ice – freezing something halloween into a block or zipbloc bag of water with food color 
• Using gelatin or jello and extra gelatin to keep the shape
  • Either as a Halloween item itself or ‘hide’ a melon/jelly bean eye in it

Going on a nature/Halloween walk

• Some homes still have decorations so you can see which house has which witch
• Collecting leaves for a collage at home
  • Getting mactac and putting it on windows, then sticking anything on them for a more decorative feel
    • Mactac is a clear adhesive that can be purchased from the dollar store, walmart or target
  • Or just using glue and glue it to construction paper

Crafts

Cutting out Halloween decorations and putting them around the house. 

• No stencils, no problem, they don’t have to be perfect. 
• Or use a printout
• https://www.firstpalette.com/printable/halloween-characters.html 

Craft ideas with googly eyes and glue 

• Using pipe cleaners
  • Make spiders
  • Make webs
  • Pumpkins 
  • Skeletons 
• Using Pom poms
  • Scarecrow heads
  • Pumpkin heads
  • https://www.itsalwaysautumn.com/halloween-pom-pom-pals-easy-kids-craft.html 
  • No pompoms? Make your own with yarn
  • https://www.adventuresofadiymom.com/2014/02/how-to-make-pom-poms-from-yarn.html 
• Using Tissue paper/Kleenex ghosts
  • Take a sheet of tissue paper and crumple it up into a small ball. Take another sheet of tissue paper and wrap and tie it around the bunched up paper (using an elastic band or twist tie), to create a ghostly head. Now, draw some scary eyes and maybe a mouth too, on the tissue paper.
• Paint or draw a Halloween themed picture
  • Sidewalk chalk a picture outside
• String any of it up or hang it around the house for homemade decorations
• Adding popsicle sticks – Halloween puppets
• A box and flashlight
  • Shadow puppets

Mask making

• Paper plates
• Construction paper
• Hole puncher
• String
• Scissors
• Paint
• Markers 

Make a witch’s hat

• Construction paper
• Staples
• Glue
• Any type of decorations
• Make sure it fits around the head and measure out the size

Experiments with food color

• Do experiments with it
  • Food colour in food
  • Food colour in cornstarch and water
  • Food colour in simple slime
    • Clear or white glue
    • A little liquid laundry detergent
  • Food colour with orange and black paper towels for walking water.
    • https://funlearningforkids.com/rainbow-walking-water-science-experiment-kids/ 
  • Simple playdough
    • Water, salt and flour with a bit of food colouring
    • It’s an experiment, it doesn’t have to be perfect! I even normally let the kids do what they want and if it doesn’t work, no biggie, they’re happy with the sensory aspect
    • https://stayathomeeducator.com/absolutely-perfect-no-cook-scented-play-dough-recipe-without-cream-tartar/ – if you want to try something scented as an option
  • Food colour in baking soda or vinegar 
    • ‘Witch’s’ brew
    • Using an eye dropper and mini muffin tray
    • Q-tips

If you’re not afraid to get down and dirty

• Paper mache pumpkins
• Blow up a balloon. With a mix of half and half glue and water, paper towels or toilet paper, let them make their own!
• Decorate with paint and whatever you have around your house

Pumpkins

• Want to carve one? Get a big one for yourself and let the kids play with the guts while you carve something out.
• You can get a mini one and allow the kids to paint it alongside you.

Dress up for dolls or stuffed animals

• Using old clothes or anything not needed anymore, decorate them so that they look like they’re going out
• Even getting mini bags and letting them ‘trick or treat’
• Halloween tea party
• Set up a kid’s only area for them to feast on 
  • “Finger” cookies
    • https://www.canadianliving.com/food/baking-and-desserts/recipe/creepy-witch-s-finger-cookies 
    • https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/frightening-fingers/ 
    • Jam can replace the red gel
    • Cake mix can even be used if you don’t want to make from scratch.
    • How?
      • Use half of the mix and add more flour with almond extract optional
        • White cake mix works well
  • Grape “eyeballs” – get them to peel the grapes
  • Melon “eyeballs” – use a melon baller or spoon and get the kids to help with that
  • “Finger” celery sticks – similar to ants on a log but with a nut at the end instead and even some ‘jam’
  • Marshmallow ghosts
    • Can be microwaved or slightly ‘baked’ for a toasted effect
  • Pretzel “ghosts”
    • Pretzels dipped in melted white chocolate
  • Tangerine ‘pumpkins’
    • Peel a whole tangerine and stick a piece of celery on the top as the ‘stem’
  • Banana ‘ghosts’
    • Cutting the banana in half, using chocolate chips – add them as the eyes and a mouth

Paint

• Stamping with sponges – make shapes with them
  • Makeup remover sponges
  • Cotton balls
  • Apples
  • Leaves