I was very excited to prepare some Halloween party crafts for kids this year! I have 2 sisters and a brother and until recently I only had one niece. Well over the last two years our family has grown so I now have four nieces and nephews – adding that to my own three makes 7 wee ones at our weekly Sunday dinners. So this year, since we have so many wee ones, we decided to have a Halloween Party.
Having taught Kindergarten, I had a few Halloween party crafts for kids in my bag of tricks. My challenge was to find crafts and activities that would be fun for all ages. Madeline is the oldest at 11 and Max is the youngest at 3 months. The others are all under 4. A diverse group to prepare Halloween crafts for – but I was up for the challenge.
I wanted the crafts to be simple, fun, and not too messy. Success!
I prepared 4 different Halloween party crafts for kids. One was specifically suited for babies, but the other 3 were fun for all! Here is what we did:
1. Sensory Sun Catcher Ghosts
This is a nice simple activity I did a few times in Kindergarten, but it is also great for toddlers. Since it uses cotton balls it is a nice senory activity that even big kids enjoy! To make these sensory sun catch ghosts we simply:
- cut clear contact paper into a ghost shape
- stuck one edge down to the table (by folding it back)
- popped on two googly eyes (eye side down to the table)
- covered with cotton balls. The babes just stuck and pushed, pulled and poked the cotton. It worked great!
- Then we flipped the ghosts over and stuck to a window. Cuteness!
2. Ribbon Jack-o-Lanterns
This activity is also simple and great for any age at all. Madeline made the above jack-o-lantern which is why it is so neat and tidy. Younger children could simply glue the ribbon anywhere they like. To make these Ribbon Jack-o-lanterns:
- Cut orange ribbon into pieces
- glues it to a paper plate
- trimmed the excess ribbon around the edges
- decorated the jack-o-lantern with googly eyes, a button mouth, and a green pipe cleaner stem.
3. Playdough Create-a-Monster
I saw this adorable spider play dough activity from Fantastic Fun and Learning. We decided to do a similar activity so I set up and invitation to create a Monster. This one was the biggest hit! We simply:
- Made a batch of the Ultimate, super simple, no cook playdough
- In a container gathered a variety of googly eyes, buttons, ribbon, and pipe cleaners
- Let the wee ones go nuts!
4. Jack-o-Lantern High Contrast Sensory Bag
This is an activity we made a head of time for wee Max. He is so tiny, but we wanted him to still be a part of our Family Halloween Party! So we created him a simple, high contrast, jack-o-lantern sensory bag. Madeline and I simply:
- Added shaving cream and food colouring to a Ziploc bag
- Added a few orange and black buttons, and orange ribbon
- Used a permanent marker to draw a jack-o-lantern face
These Halloween party crafts for kids were a hit at our family Halloween party! It was nice to have all of the wee ones of so very different ages sitting together creating and playing.
My wee ones are very excited for Halloween in just a few days! I am sure we will be doing a few of theses Halloween Crafts again in the days to come!
Thanks for the great Halloween ideas!! I love the contact paper ghost and the sensory bag for the baby! Simple activities with materials we already have on hand! Hooray! 🙂
I love the simple activities too Claire! Short and Sweet – but amazingly engaging too – a perfect mix!
Wonderful party ideas! Thanks for sharing them with Afterschool!
Thank you for stopping by Natalie!
Great ideas for a Halloween party! Thanks for linking up!
A tip for the contact paper: use painters tape to tape it in place for really little ones. I find they get frustrated with the contact paper moving around on them and one corner folded over doesn’t stabilize it enough for them. This lets even young toddlers or older babies participate!
Fabulous tip! Thank you Traci!