Halloween Parties

My favorite halloween book is The Little Old Lady Who was not Afraid of Anything. I used to teach preschool/kindergarten and this book was a favorite at Halloween time! Here is a link so you can view the cover:
http://www.target.com/gp/detail.html/602-###-###-####-###...
To get good ideas for crafts, try the Oriental Trading Company (www.orientaltradingcompany.com). They have alot of fun foam crafts that are easy to put together with glue and last a long time. The kids also love making them and they are cheaply priced.
Good Luck with your party!

I have one suggestion for a very simple craft. Each kid gets a Tootsie Pop and a tissue. You put the tissue over the Tootsie Pop and tir it under the bulp of the succer with either a string, a pipe cleaner, or a twist tie. Then draw a face on the tissue. They will have made a little ghostie. They are very cute and easy.
HTH
S.
Avon Unit Leader
Start your own business for only $10, ask me how!
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Hi S.,
Two years ago, I ran the Halloween party in my daughter's room. I had a game station and a craft station. I made Bozo buckets and decorated them in orange and yellow with black silhouettes of cats, witches, pumpkins, and ghosts. We played freeze dance with spooky music, and we did the Monster Mash. For the book, I read 5 Little Pumpkins. What made it special was I wrote each page on poster board and had the kids hold up the pages as I read it. I illustrated it with 3-D pictures and cut out shapes that I glued on. It was a big hit. The snack was sugar cookies that the kids decorated themselves. It was fun and again easy.

For the craft, we made ghost magnets and jack-o-lantern magnets. We glued on eyes, used glitter glue, and stickers for decorations. It was fast, easy, and they could take them home and use them on their fridge. I used construction paper and lamenated them for each kid, but now you can buy the soft plastic already made pumpkins, ready to decorate.

It sounds like a lot, but really it took me one evening to assemble everything. Have fun!

Spider Web Brownies
Make brownies in the Rectangular Baker according to package directions. Frost with whipped topping using the Easy Accent Decorator and Large Spreader. Drizzle melted chocolate (your Micro Cooker will make this easy) in circles over the Cool Whip. Drag the Cake Tester through chocolate to look like a spider web.
Fruity Witches' Brew
Mix grape and orange Kool-Aid in Quick Stir Pitcher, float gummy worms on top.

Goblin Frosties
Using the V-Shaped Cutter, cut off the top 1/3 of an orange crosswise to make a hat. Scoop out pulp with Small Stainless Scoop; make a face on the orange with black licorice or fruit roll-ups. Fill shells with lime sherbet, mounding above rim. Place "hats" on top of sherbet at an angle. Stick maraschino cherry with stem in hat with toothpick. Place in freezer until ready to serve.

Jack 'o Lantern Cake
Mix 1 spice cake mix according to package directions. Bake in Small Batter Bowl. (1 box will make two small batter bowl cakes). Put 2 batter bowl cakes together with orange frosting, making a pumpkin shape. Ice the entire cake using Large Spreader. Make pumpkin face using licorice. Decorate with candy corn, licorice and assorted Halloween candies.

Scary-Face Pizza
Using your own or refrigerated pizza dough, bake on Large Round Stone. Using Ultimate Slice and Grate, cut pepperoni slices, green pepper and onion. Slice black olives using Egg Slicer Plus. Make zucchini slices with Crinkle Cutter. Use sliced meats & veggies to decorate to look like a Halloween Scary-Face. Or, use pita pocket rounds and everyone can decorate their own Scary-Face Pizzas!
Finger Sandwiches
Using the Utility Knife, remove crust from two slices of thinly sliced firm-textured bread. Spread some of your favorite chicken salad onto one of the slices with the All-Purpose Spreader. Top with the other slice of bread. Cut lengthwise into 3/4-inch wide logs. With the Utility Knife taper one end of each log to form a point. Attach a sliced almond to this end with some softened cream cheese, making fingernails.

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds
4-1/4 cups raw pumpkin seeds (about 4 pumpkins -- you may want to ask your friends to share the seeds from their pumpkins with you.)
1 tablespoon cooking oil
1 teaspoon salt
In a medium mixing bowl combine pumpkin seeds, cooking oil, and salt. Spread mixture onto a waxed-paper-lined Bar Pan. Let stand for 24 to 48 hours or till dry, stirring occasionally. Remove waxed paper Bar Pan Toast seed in a 325º F oven for 35 to 40 minutes, stirring once or twice. Let cool slightly. Pat seeds with paper towels to remove excess oil.
Package 1/4 cup of the seeds in each bag or place seeds in the center of cellophane wrap, then bring up edges. Tie closed with ribbon.
Makes 16 (1/4 cup) servings.

I have more ideas if this does not help.
Rhonda

When I have a playdate with my son's friends (3-5yr olds) I always refer to www.familyfun.com!! It's a fab site for getting party ideas!! I just had a wonderful Halloween party Saturday with their pumpkin carving/painting party! Have fun!!!
Mom to four "monsters"

We're having a party at home and we're having the kids make cracker spiders. The idea was in Family Fun, except that I'm going to use sweetened cream cheese instead of peanut butter. You need ritz crackers, those tiny pretzel sticks, and raisins as well as the peanut butter or cream cheese. Spread the PB or CC on the cracker and put 4 pretzel sticks on each side for "legs." More spread on top, and put a cracker on top like a sandwich. Use a little of the spread as glue, and use the raisins for eyes.

The Family Fun website has more ideas too: http://familyfun.go.com/parties/holiday/minisite/hallowee...

A mom just posted a similar questions so also check archives...

DLTK.com - check out

Crafts - paint a mini pumpkin, create ghosts with black construction paper and cotton balls, create skeltons ith q-tips and construction paper
Games - pin the nose on the pumpkin, hot "pumpkin" (like hot potato)

Fifth grade - maybe decorate your own cupcake? maybe create a halloween story (one kids starts off with one sentence and then next kid adds on another sentence and so forth). Then read aloud once complete and give the kids a copy.

This isn't halloween related but fall related.... do a leaf hunt outside.

Good luck and have fun.

Game Ideas

Pumpkin Bowling - Great for Classrooms and Parties
Supplies: 3 small pumpkins, 30 empty 2 liter clear soda bottles, 1 can white spray paint, 1 permanent black marker, a bag of gravel or pebbles{placed in bottom of bottles}

Ask friends and parents of the guests to save empty, clean 2 liter soda bottles for your party. Give them a date of at least 1 week to have bottles turned in by. Spray paint the soda bottles white and draw eyes and mouths on the bottles once dried. Add about a cup of sand or pebbles in each bottle so they will stand without falling over.

Divide students and guests into several teams of 3-8 kids each... line up and take turn at bowling over the Ghosts ! The small pumpkins are the bowling balls I did this 2 years ago-- they LOVED it ! The kids that got a Strike, received another attempt to bowl a strike. If they did bowl another strike they received a prize.

Rolling Pumpkins Relay
Line up into 2 teams. The first person passes the pumpkin over his/her head to the next person in line. The next person passes the pumpkin under his/her legs to the next person, and so on. When you get to the end of the line the last person runs up to the front and starts it all over again. Whoever has the first person that was in line at the beginning of the game in the back of the line WINS.
Spider Web Party Game - Variation
Gather all the children round in a large circle and give them all a ball of wool each. Try to use different coloured wool as this makes a much more interesting web. Get each child to tie the end of the wool loosely around their waist. When everyone is done, each person throws their ball of wool to anyone else in the circle, preferably all at the same time. They then put the wool around their waist and throw it to someone else. This carries on until you run out of wool. To add a little spice, they can wrap the wool around legs, arms, etc. At the end what they have created is a massive multi coloured spiders web which they can't get out of very easily. Hours of fun and entertainment and if you're really lucky they will spend the next hour trying to free themselves!

Ghost Bingo
Supplies:
• Orange posterboard
• Inexpensive Bingo game (You should be able to find one for under $6.00 at a discount store)
• Black Marker, Scissors, and Ruler
• Candy corn
Preparation:
Cut out as many Bingo cards as you will need from the orange posterboard. Use a black marker to draw the grids and numbers. Use the Bingo cards from the game you bought as your guide. Instead of BINGO, print GHOST at the top. Draw a simple pumpkin for the Free Space.
Game Play:
Call the game using the balls from the Bingo game you bought. Don't forget to substitute the GHOST letters for the BINGO ones. You'll get the hang of it quickly!
Children use candy corn to mark their cards. When a child fills a row, he yells, 'Boo!' Play several games and give prizes to the winners.

Hi S. -

My friend and I just threw our kids' class a party this weekend. We had string cheese fingers as one of the snacks. Cut a string cheese in half, notch out a little at the end and place a small piece of green pepper for the nail. Put two sets of three lines each at the top and bottom for knuckles. They came out really cute!

For a craft, we did paper plate pumpkins. We gave the kids plain white paper plates and had them color them and then glue on the eyes, nose, mouth, stem and leaves with a glue stick. We had those cut out prior to the party. We also did bats that way.

Most of the games we did were outside games, except one. We tied a pretzel to a string and held it in front of the kid's face. They had to eat the pretzel without using their hands. It was pretty funny and the kids loved it.

Good luck with your party! I hope some of these ideas help.

K.

I now a 10 year old and she likes all types,but if they are a tom boy or a boy you could do a surprise halloween party and tell them that you do to much so we are not doing a party this year and take him/her over a friends and go home.Then, call all they're friends moms and tell them to come over at the time and when you bring her in the people should be in a basement or something hiding.Next, tell her to put on her costume because she wants to remember the day you didn't have a party then when she comes everybody will come out, but yuo should still decorate with spiders,beware signs,and keep your lights on for tricker treaters during the party.