Halloween is one of those holidays that can be just as much fun in the weeks leading up to it as it is on October 31.
Between pumpkin patches, spooky movie nights, Halloween baking, neighborhood walks, crafts, games, and all the ridiculous things you can do with a bag of googly eyes, there are plenty of ways to turn October into a month of family fun.
And you definitely don’t need to spend a fortune doing it.
I’ve put together 100 fun family Halloween activities, including plenty that you can do at home with things you probably already have. Pick a handful for Halloween weekend or turn the list into an October bucket list and see how many your family can complete before Halloween night.
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Halloween Activities to Do at Home
1. Have a Halloween Movie Night
Let everyone choose a Halloween movie, pile blankets and pillows on the couch, turn off the lights, and serve popcorn in Halloween bowls. Younger kids might prefer Hotel Transylvania or It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, while older kids can handle something a little spookier.
2. Decorate the Front Porch
Bring out pumpkins, fake spiderwebs, bats, skeletons, and whatever other Halloween decorations you’ve collected. Give the kids some creative control instead of trying to make everything Pinterest-perfect.
3. Make a Halloween Fort
Build a giant blanket fort in the living room and decorate it with battery-operated fairy lights, paper bats, and Halloween pillows. Use it for movies, stories, or an indoor Halloween picnic.
4. Have a Flashlight Scavenger Hunt
Hide Halloween toys, candy, glow sticks, or little prizes around a darkened room and let everyone search using flashlights.
5. Tell Spooky Stories
Turn off most of the lights, grab a flashlight, and take turns making up spooky stories. For younger kids, keep them silly rather than genuinely scary.
6. Create a Halloween Countdown
Make a paper chain with one link for every day remaining until Halloween. Tear one off each morning.
7. Have a Halloween Dance Party
Create a playlist with songs like “Monster Mash,” “Ghostbusters,” and other Halloween favorites and have a family dance-off.
8. Play Halloween Charades
Write Halloween words like witch, vampire, pumpkin, zombie, spider, ghost, and skeleton on slips of paper. Take turns acting them out without speaking.
9. Play Hide-and-Seek in the Dark
Turn off the lights, hand the seeker a flashlight, and play a slightly spooky version of hide-and-seek.
10. Have a Halloween Pajama Night
Everyone puts on their Halloween pajamas, makes a special snack, and spends the evening watching movies or playing games together.
Pumpkin Activities for Families
11. Visit a Pumpkin Patch
Make picking your pumpkins an event instead of grabbing them at the grocery store. Many pumpkin patches also have hayrides, corn mazes, farm animals, and fall treats.
12. Carve Jack-o’-Lanterns
Stick with classic faces or challenge everyone to create their own elaborate pumpkin design.
13. Paint Pumpkins
Pumpkin painting is particularly good for younger children who aren’t ready for carving tools. Need inspiration? Try these painted pumpkin ideas for kids and adults.
14. Decorate Mini Pumpkins
Give everyone a few mini pumpkins and supplies like washable paint, stickers, ribbon, googly eyes, and markers.
15. Have a Pumpkin Decorating Contest
Create categories such as funniest pumpkin, cutest pumpkin, weirdest pumpkin, and spookiest pumpkin so everyone can win something.
16. Roast Pumpkin Seeds
Save the seeds from your jack-o’-lanterns, wash them, season them, and roast them on a nonstick sheet pan for an easy Halloween snack.
17. Make Pumpkin Volcanoes
Put baking soda inside a carved-out mini pumpkin, add a little dish soap and food coloring, and pour in vinegar for a bubbling Halloween science experiment.
18. Play Pumpkin Bowling
Use empty plastic bottles as pins and a small round pumpkin as your bowling ball.
19. Have a Pumpkin Rolling Race
Find a safe grassy hill and see whose pumpkin reaches the bottom first.
20. Make Pumpkin Slime
Mix up orange slime and add Halloween glitter, plastic spiders, or pumpkin confetti. For more squishy fun, see these spooky Halloween messy play ideas.
Halloween Crafts for the Whole Family
21. Make Paper Plate Ghosts
Paint paper plates white and add black eyes and long strips of tissue paper underneath.
22. Create Handprint Spiders
Paint hands black, press them onto paper, and add googly eyes once the paint dries.
23. Make Toilet Paper Roll Bats
Paint cardboard tubes black, attach paper wings and eyes, and hang them around the house.
24. Cut Out Paper Bats
Make dozens of black paper bats and create a giant swarm flying across a wall.
25. Make Halloween Window Silhouettes
Cut witches, cats, pumpkins, and ghosts from black paper and tape them inside the windows.
26. Create Milk Jug Ghosts
Draw ghost faces on empty milk jugs and put battery-operated lights inside.
27. Make Popsicle Stick Monsters
Use craft sticks, paint, yarn, pom-poms, and googly eyes to create ridiculous little monsters.
28. Create Halloween Rock Art
Paint rocks like pumpkins, ghosts, eyeballs, monsters, and black cats.
29. Make a Family Halloween Banner
Give everyone several paper triangles or rectangles to decorate, then string them together to make one big family banner.
30. Create Monster Bookmarks
Make silly monster bookmarks from cardstock for October reading.
Halloween Food Activities
31. Decorate Halloween Cookies
Bake sugar cookies shaped like pumpkins, bats, ghosts, and cats and let everyone go wild with icing and sprinkles.
32. Make Monster Cupcakes
Decorate cupcakes with colorful frosting (a set of piping bags and decorating tips makes it easier), candy eyeballs, gummy worms, and sprinkles.
33. Build Halloween Pizzas
Use olives for spiders, pepperoni for pumpkin faces, and strips of cheese to create mummy pizzas.
34. Make Mummy Hot Dogs
Wrap hot dogs in strips of crescent dough and add tiny mustard or candy eyes.
35. Create a Halloween Snack Board
Fill a big platter or wooden charcuterie board with popcorn, crackers, cheese, fruit, cookies, pretzels, candy, and other orange, black, green, and purple foods. Want more spooky party food? Check out these Halloween appetizers.
36. Make Caramel Apples
Set up caramel, chocolate, sprinkles, crushed cookies, nuts, and candies so everyone can decorate their own apple.
37. Make Ghost Bananas
Cut bananas in half and add chocolate chips for tiny ghost faces.
38. Make Clementine Pumpkins
Peel clementines and stick a small piece of celery into the top to make an easy pumpkin-shaped snack.
39. Have a Halloween Hot Chocolate Bar
Serve hot chocolate from a hot cocoa carafe with marshmallows, whipped cream, sprinkles, chocolate chips, crushed cookies, and Halloween candies.
40. Make Halloween Popcorn
Mix popcorn with melted chocolate, candy eyeballs, sprinkles, pretzels, and Halloween candies.
Outdoor Halloween Activities
41. Go on a Halloween Decoration Walk
Walk or drive around the neighborhood and look for the best decorated houses.
42. Have a Halloween Photo Scavenger Hunt
Create a list of things to find, such as a giant spider, inflatable ghost, skeleton, black cat, jack-o’-lantern, witch, and gravestone.
43. Visit a Corn Maze
Work together to find your way through instead of immediately checking the map.
44. Take a Fall Nature Walk
Collect colorful leaves, pinecones, sticks, and acorns that can later be used for Halloween crafts.
45. Have a Backyard Ghost Hunt
Hide small white ghosts around the backyard and send everyone out with flashlights to find them.
46. Play Glow Stick Tag
Wait until it gets dark, put glow-stick bracelets or necklaces on everyone, and play tag.
47. Make a Backyard Obstacle Course
Include jumping over “gravestones,” crawling through a spiderweb, carrying a pumpkin, and running like a zombie.
48. Have a Halloween Picnic
Pack orange and black snacks, Halloween cookies, hot chocolate, and blankets for a chilly October picnic.
49. Go on a Leaf-Pile Monster Hunt
Hide small Halloween toys inside a pile of leaves and let the kids dig through to find them.
50. Decorate Your Driveway With Chalk
Cover the driveway with giant pumpkins, ghosts, monsters, spiderwebs, and Halloween messages.
Halloween Games for Families
51. Play Pin the Spider on the Web
Draw a giant spiderweb and make paper spiders for everyone to try to place while blindfolded.
52. Have a Mummy Wrapping Race
Divide into teams and race to wrap one family member in toilet paper.
53. Play Halloween Bingo
Create cards featuring pumpkins, ghosts, candy, witches, spiders, bats, and other Halloween symbols.
54. Have an Eyeball Spoon Race
Use ping-pong balls decorated like eyeballs instead of eggs.
55. Play Witch Hat Ring Toss
Use inexpensive witch hats as targets and glow necklaces as rings.
56. Play Spider Races
Give everyone a plastic spider and a straw. Players must blow through the straw to move their spider across the finish line.
57. Have a Candy Corn Relay
Race to transfer candy corn from one bowl to another using spoons.
58. Play Pumpkin Tic-Tac-Toe
Use orange and white mini pumpkins as game pieces.
59. Have a Monster Freeze Dance
Dance to Halloween music and freeze whenever the music stops.
60. Play Halloween Would You Rather
Ask ridiculous questions such as, “Would you rather sleep in a haunted house or spend the night in a graveyard?”
Halloween Night Activities
61. Go Trick-or-Treating
Sometimes the obvious activities are the best ones. Let the kids choose the route and enjoy seeing everyone’s costumes and decorations.
62. Hand Out Candy Together
Take turns answering the door and guessing costumes.
63. Set Up a Candy Station
Decorate a table or wagon at the end of the driveway with a chalkboard easel sign and turn handing out candy into part of the Halloween fun. Prefer a parking-lot party? Try a trunk-or-treat instead.
64. Have a Post-Trick-or-Treat Candy Picnic
Dump everyone’s candy onto a blanket, sort it, trade favorites, and eat a few pieces together.
65. Do a Halloween Candy Taste Test
Choose several candies and rate them from best to worst.
66. Have a Family Costume Theme
Dress as characters from the same movie, superheroes, classic monsters, animals, or another shared theme.
67. Take Halloween Family Photos
Take a family photo (or snap an instant one with an Instax Mini camera) before everyone heads out for the evening. Do it every year and you’ll eventually have a hilarious collection.
68. Make Halloween Glow Bags
Fill small bags with glow sticks, flashlights, reflective bracelets, and a snack for trick-or-treating.
69. Leave a Halloween Surprise for a Neighbor
Put together a small anonymous Halloween treat in a cellophane treat bag and leave it on someone’s doorstep.
70. End the Night With a Halloween Movie
After trick-or-treating, change into pajamas, grab some candy, and finish Halloween with a movie.
Halloween Traditions to Start
71. Create an October Bucket List
At the beginning of October, let every family member choose a few activities they’d like to do before Halloween.
72. Buy One New Halloween Decoration Every Year
Let the family choose one new decoration together and slowly build a collection.
73. Have an Annual Pumpkin Night
Choose one evening every October for carving pumpkins, roasting seeds, eating treats, and watching a Halloween movie.
74. Read a Halloween Book Every Night
Gather Halloween picture books from home and the library and read one before bed throughout October.
75. Create a Family Halloween Time Capsule
Add photos, drawings, costume pictures, and notes about everyone’s favorite things that year.
76. Make a Halloween Breakfast
Serve pumpkin pancakes (an electric griddle makes a big batch easy), orange fruit, ghost-shaped toast, or another silly Halloween breakfast.
77. Have an Annual Costume Photo Shoot
Take pictures in the same location every year to see how much everyone has grown.
78. Create a Halloween Memory Book
Add a page every year with photos of costumes, pumpkins, decorations, and favorite Halloween memories.
79. Let the Kids Decorate Their Bedroom Doors
Give them paper decorations, removable stickers, and streamers and let them transform their doors for October.
80. Have a Halloween Eve Party
Make October 30 its own little celebration with pizza, pumpkin carving, Halloween pajamas, and a movie.
Silly Halloween Activities
81. Draw Monsters With Your Eyes Closed
Everyone gets paper and markers but has to keep their eyes closed while drawing their monster.
82. Have a Toilet Paper Mummy Fashion Show
Wrap yourselves in toilet paper and walk the “runway.”
83. Create a Monster From Random Craft Supplies
Put craft materials in a box and give everyone ten minutes to create the strangest monster possible.
84. Bob for Donuts
Hang donuts from strings and try to eat them without using your hands.
85. Have a Pumpkin Face Contest
See who can make the funniest jack-o’-lantern face with their own face.
86. Make a Spooky Family Video
Film a short haunted-house movie or ridiculous Halloween commercial starring the whole family.
87. Invent Your Own Halloween Creature
Combine two or three creatures to invent something completely new, then draw it and give it a name.
88. Have a Monster Walk Race
Race across the yard while walking like zombies, vampires, Frankenstein monsters, or witches.
89. Play Mystery Touch Boxes
Put harmless items inside boxes and have players reach inside without looking. Cold spaghetti can become “witch hair,” peeled grapes become “eyeballs,” and gelatin becomes “monster guts.”
90. Have a Halloween Joke Contest
Everyone finds or invents their best Halloween joke and performs it for the family.
Easy Last-Minute Halloween Activities
91. Color Halloween Pictures
Print a stack of Halloween coloring pages, spread out the crayons and markers, and color together.
92. Make Paper Ghosts
Scrunch tissues or white paper around cotton balls, tie them underneath, and draw tiny faces.
93. Play Halloween I Spy
Look around the neighborhood, grocery store, or your own decorations and take turns choosing Halloween objects for everyone else to find.
94. Draw Jack-o’-Lanterns
Give everyone a blank pumpkin outline and see how differently they decorate their faces.
95. Make Shadow Puppets
Use a flashlight and your hands or cardboard cutouts to create bats, spiders, monsters, and ghosts on the wall.
96. Have a Halloween Story Chain
One person begins a story with a single sentence. Each family member adds another sentence until you’ve created one completely ridiculous Halloween adventure.
97. Make Candy Creatures
Use wrapped candies, googly eyes, pipe cleaners, and tape to turn Halloween treats into tiny monsters.
98. Have a Halloween Trivia Night
Ask questions about Halloween movies, candy, traditions, pumpkins, costumes, and spooky animals.
99. Create a Halloween Treasure Hunt
Leave clues around the house that eventually lead to a small Halloween surprise, movie-night basket, or bowl of candy.
100. Let Everyone Choose One Halloween Adventure
Finish your Halloween bucket list by letting each family member choose one thing they really want to do. It doesn’t have to be elaborate. One child might choose the pumpkin patch while another wants Halloween cupcakes and a movie at home.
The point isn’t to complete all 100 activities. It’s to find a few things your family genuinely enjoys enough to want to do again next year.
Make Halloween About More Than One Night
Halloween can easily become a rush of finding costumes, buying candy, carving pumpkins at the last possible second, and getting everyone out the door for trick-or-treating.
But some of the best parts happen before October 31.
Pick five or ten activities from this list and scatter them throughout October. Have a movie night on a Friday, visit the pumpkin patch one weekend, decorate cookies after school, and take a flashlight walk around the neighborhood.
Those little traditions are often the things kids end up remembering long after they’ve forgotten exactly what was inside their trick-or-treat bag.
And if your carefully planned family pumpkin-carving night ends with pumpkin guts on the floor and someone refusing to touch the inside of a pumpkin?
That counts as a Halloween memory too.
