Suggestion for Halloween Games

Make a mummy - have the children wrap one of the kids in toilet paper. They usually have a fun time doing this & it shouldn't be scary for the 3 yr old.

Sorry but that's all I have for younger children.........Enjoy the party, I think we may end up sleigh riding at my daughter's fundraiser! They are calling for 4-6 inches of snow!!!!!!!!

That is such a huge age difference -- 6-years! And in the big scheme of things the older child is almost a tween. The poor 9-year-old might not be too thrilled to participate in a game with toddlers which may seem too childish or unchallenging. He'll probably do the games if you ask, but he probably won't enjoy himself.

Perhaps make the older child a "helper" and have him oversee some games for the toddlers. He can be the caller for a game of Simon Says or the "Blind Man" in Blind Man's Bluff. Maybe have him tell a pre-approved ghost story to the toddlers (don't want it to be too scary) or encourage the 9-year-old to bring a friend along of the same age to balance things out.

Cooking a simple treat or simple craft might be okay. But if he's like my 9-year-old, he'll probably be more interested in doing his own thing and leaving the toddlers to doing their own thing.

flashlight tag

flashlight scavenger hunt

Paint pumpkins or build a scarecrow.

Read a Halloween story to them or tell a story.

There's a Winnie the Pooh DVD where Pooh explains that since Piglet is afraid, they'll celebrate a "Hallowasn't." No need to watch a video during a party, but get the older ones to realize that everyone needs to feel safe and secure during the party. That goes for the costumes, too. No scary masks and no sneak attacks.

Make shadow puppets. I've seen instruction books at the library, but advice must be online by now.

Have a Halloween puppet show.

Have a Halloween parade.

Build a haunted house out of blocks.

My wife is going to do "Pumpkin Bowling" this year.

You get a few of those minature pumpkins and some water bottles. You half fill the bottles and set them up like bowling pins. You roll the pumpkins at the bottles to see how many you can knock over.

Good luck to you and yours.

You have some great ideas. I just wanted to tell you that you just have to plan it and if one of the 3 year olds gets scared, it isn't your fault. Don't worry about it or feel guilty about it if it happens. It is the child's choice to participate or not. Don't even try to beg the child. Focus on the kids that want to have fun.

One of my girlfriends hosts a Halloween party every year, and one of the activities every year is the "pumpkin toss". She has a tall plastic Halloween pumpkin (the one for trick-or-treating) and wooden clothes pins. The person who can throw the most clothes pins into the pumpkin wins a prize. She has different distances for different age groups, and usually will have a prize for each age group.

I'm doing a party with a very diverse age group, and I bought two of those plastic skeletons. I'm going to have the little kids go "dig the bones" up, and the older kids pop the skeleton back together.

I'm also going to do eye ball carrying races by age. And maybe some mummy wrapping.

a dab of Vaseline on the nose, stick a cotton ball on it....& let them run to the finish line. I know that this really doesn't work with the age difference, but it's still fun! We call it "ghost races".....

get a bag of those mini pumpkins & let the kids use them for ball tosses into a plastic pumpkin or a witch's kettle.

Or use the mini pumpkins for knocking over 2 ltr bottles filled with sand. OR you can use a big pumpkin & let them roll it....for bowling.

I would seriously consider doing just activities instead of games! Even a pinata would work!.....enjoy.....

I'm attending a Halloween party tonight and have been put in charge of games--it's very wide age range.
Two that I think will work well for all ages are:

Ghost Waiter: Relay race run while balancing a balloon on a paper plate. Run down, around a cne & back keeping the balloon on the plate. (Maybe the 3 yr olds could use a smaller balloon?)

Candy Corn Relay: Relay race run with a spoonful of candy corn taken from a bin and dumped into a halloween pumpkin bucket at the end of the course. First team to empty their bowl into the pumpkin wins.

You can also do the T. P. Mummy Game where each teams wraps O. member as a mummy with toilet paper....first team done wins!

my kids love this game
put different things into 3-5 different bowls like slimy spaghetti noodles (make more slimy with veg oil), cold peas, etc. my kids always get grossed out, but not too scared :)

We do a party every yr in the park for 0-10 yrs. 2 favorites are pumpkin on a spoon race (make it hard for older kids with running backwards and having to do turns and stuff and little ones focus on just keeping pumpkin on spoon), tie marshmallows on a string and hang them and they put hands behind back and eat off string (they LOVE this for some reason), sack race, and scavenger hunts. Have fun!