Halloween Party Fun for Young Children!

Hey, there!  I'm Brittany blogging from Precious Steps Preschool!

 I'm a former daycare director and preschool teacher turned stay-at-home-mom.  Tonight I helped host a Halloween party for my boyfriend's parents and all the kids the house could hold!  These are some fantastic ideas for you to use in your classrooms if you are having any kind of Halloween themed parties.  Just the right amount of creepy with not too much scary.

 I'll start with the food since that's my favorite part!  This is the classic Oreo dessert recipe that you can find on a number of search engine results, but the recipe is always pretty much the same.  I made a double batch to fill a lasagna pan (a little bigger than a 9x13) and there was even enough left over to keep in the fridge for a special snack for my kiddos later.

Layer the Oreo dessert in your tray and sprinkle remaining Oreo crumbs on top.  I usually use Milano cookies as the "tombstones" but I couldn't find any at the store this time, so I improvised!  I ended up going with the Vienna Fingers cookies by Keebler and they worked just fine!  Use gel writing icing to write some "RIP"s on the top and stick them into the dessert.  I added gummy worms to further creep the scene, but you can get really creative and even use a candy corn "picket fence"!

 Next came the hot dog "mummies."  Take a can of crescent roll dough and lay the entire thing out in a big triangle.  Cut them into skinny strips and wrap them around the hot dog, leaving a small space for the face.  Bake them in a 375 degree oven for approximately 12-14 minutes, or until the dough is just browning.  When they come out, use the same black gel icing that you use to pipe the RIPs on the "tombstone" cookies in the dessert, and pipe two black eyes onto them.  Voila!

Here's some of my kiddos in their costumes.  Ava is first, with my darling boyfriend, Sterling, giving her bunny ears as a photo-bomb.  Next is Aurora, who attended the party right after ballet class, so we went with a "Frankenstein Ballerina."  Third is Terra, who is pretty much the cutest witch I've ever seen!

As for activities, we played Halloween themed music and did several rounds of musical chairs!  Sadly there were so many moving people that I didn't get a clear picture, but I'm sure you know how to set that up!  We just looked up some quick videos for Monster Mash and Witches Brew, etc. on the computer and used that as our music.  Easy peasy to do in any classroom, even using your phone!

 The biggest hit of the night was the hayride!  We made several rounds all over the many acres on the property.  This would definitely be more challenging to recreate in a classroom, but where there's a will, there's a way!  When we went back inside due to it getting chilly and starting to rain, the kids were piling onto the musical chairs arrangement and pretending they were still on the hayride.  They really used their imaginations and screamed out things like, "Oh no! It's a zombie!"  or "Look, there's a witch flying in front of the moon!"

 For decorations, these luminaries were super fun to make, and they really set the scene in the backyard; lighting a path to the bonfire we had going.  We cut out crescent moons, bats, etc. into the bags and placed a candle inside.  Cheap and easy!

I found the above spiderweb garbage bags craft on hgtv.com.  I didn't have a ton of faith in my ability to recreate such a masterpiece, but it was easier than I thought!

 Start by taking a garbage bag and laying it out flat.  Cut off all four seams, leaving you with two big rectangles.  Work with one rectangle at a time and first fold the bottom left corner to the top right as high as you can, matching up the sides.  The corners won't match up because you are working with a rectangle, not a square.  See where the excess bag sticks out to the right and cut that strip off.  Then take your triangle and fold it in half two more times.  It'll look like the shape above.

Then take some clear tape and carefully tape the side of the bag that is open layers (not the folded seam) front to back to get them to stay in place.  Do this gently because you will need to remove the tape to open up the web.

Then take a permanent marker and draw the lines that you see in the above picture.  Basically one thick line up the middle with bows draping out to each side.  I find that the webs turn out better if you make these bows a little thinner.

Then cut out the areas in between the bows and discard those pieces of the bag.  When you're finished, remove the clear tape from the other side, and open it up!  Voila!  Spider webs!  I loved how cheap these were to make because you get TWO webs out of ONE garbage bag!

Thanks for stopping by!  I hope that you got some fun ideas and creative snacks to use at your classroom Halloween parties, or even at home!  You can see more of how I use my preschool background in our household of early learners, ages 7, 6, 5, and 4 right here on The Primary Pack on the 18th of every month!