Discover 10 super fun family activities to make Halloween unforgettable.
Halloween approaches pretty quickly as soon as those fall leaves begin changing colours.
Sure, Halloween is great because children go door to door and get FREE candy, but there is so much more to it than just that.
One of my favorite things to do as a child was coming up with my costume idea, and talking with my parents how I was going to make my vision come true. I was lucky enough to be a competitive dancer which meant many many outfits in my closet from past competitions. It was so much fun putting them together and creating a totally NEW Halloween costume.
I still love that about Halloween because it doesn’t matter how old you are, you can still dress up and have a blast.
But beyond dressing up for trick or treating, there are so many more family activities for Halloween that you can enjoy.
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Family Activities For Halloween
Decorate The House Together
Get your house Halloween ready with some DIY home made decorations! Keep it autumn focused and choose to go creepy/ scary or fun and whimsical. Whatever your family prefers.
Start with the front door. If you wanted to go scary, you can make a giant spider by picking up a black ball of yarn and creating a web. You can then cover a bowl in black fabric or electrical tape, add some legs from pipe cleaners or extra wire you have around the home and finish it off with 2 giant googly eyes. You’ve got yourself a simple front door decoration that you created with the family.
If your kids are smaller, you can decorate your front door with a basket of apples and a pair of witches legs. Create the witches legs by wrapping 2 wooden dowels with stuffed striped tights. You can make it look like the witch fell into the apple basket. Super fun!
Decorate the inside of your home with a Dollar Tree haul of Halloween goodies or make your own decorations. Here are my favourite websites to make fun decorations with kids.
Have fun with is, and best of all, decorate as a family. You’ll share many laughs.
Have A Halloween Party
Host a small party for your kids and their friends. If your home is already decorated in full with super spooky Halloween decorations, then all you need to provide is some snacks and spooky music.
Here are some pretty cool snacks you can make that are Halloween themed. The strawberry ghosts are my favourite!
Decorate Pumpkins
Pumpkin decorating is a must-do every single year in our family. When the kids were smalelr we used the cookie-cutter method for the pumpkins.https://web.archive.org/web/20201006150258if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/81Qqn1xlxUg
Now that the kids are older, we just buy a simple stencil kit and they are able to handle the carving on their own- mostly.
Visit A Corn Maze
We have a couple of really fun Corn Mazes in Calgary that we visit a few times a year, and fall / Halloween is one of the best times to visit!
We pet some animals at the petting zoo, pick out our pumpkins for carving and stroll through a giant maze made of corn. There is something magical about a fall day at the corn maze with the family.
Hit Up A Haunted House
Do your children love haunted houses? The really cool thing about living in a big city is the number of people that love Halloween and take time out of their lives to put on Haunted Houses for neighbourhood kids.
This is free activity that we love to do every year as a family. A lot of times, Haunted houses will be listed online so we can choose which ones we want to check out
Create Lanterns
While lanterns can be made from pumpkins, I like to create additional lanterns from Mason Jars. I have quite the collection of old jars that I love to reuse at Halloween time.
Here are 10 awesome lanterns you can create, mostly from Mason Jars or Milk Just.
Watch Halloween Movies
There is nothing better than curling up on the couch with the kids and watching a good old Halloween movie. Here are 22 Best Halloween Movies For Kids to get you started on your family movie night.
Don’t forget to make the popcorn spooky by adding some chocolate chips and drizzle chocolate syrup in the bowl to make tiny little spiders in a bowl.
Play A Halloween Scavenger Hunt
Have a fun-tastic time with a Halloween Scavenger hunt. Grab some glowsticks and flashlights and create a spooky hunt in your own backyard.
For older kids, have them take photos of all the items they found and have them compare their photos afterward.
Here is how it works:
Download the printable scavenger hunt list or make your own with a pen and paper.
Grab your flashlights, glowsticks and notebooks.
Go hunting for the items on the list in your own backyard or down your street.
Make the Halloween scavenger hunt even more fun:
- For younger children, ask them to tally up how many of item they can see on one street of your neighbourhood.
- Go to a new neighbourhood and see what you can find on the list.
- Do the hunt while trick or treating
- If the kids are older, give prizes to the person who crosses off al the items first.
Tell Scary Stories
Do you remember some of the scary stories you used to hear as a child? Now is the perfect time to tell your own children these stories!
Here are ten scary stories you can tell to kids.
Play Games
Play fun games with your family. Try bobbing for apples, or making ghost poop (mashing marshmallows together with hands- it’s a messy one), or pin the wart on the witch.
Here are 22 Halloween Party Games you can play with your family.
The options are endless when it comes to Halloween. Get creative and think like your kids. Don’t forget to have fun together as a family.
Happy Halloween!
