Fun Halloween Kids Games and Crafts

Halloween is really a children’s holiday when it comes right down to it. At least, it is as we celebrate it in America. Of course adults can have fun too, but the magic of it lives in children’s imaginations. With that being said, you can understand why it is important to make sure your children have lots of fun. One of the ways you can ensure this is by creating Halloween kids’ games and some DIY crafts.

Don’t get me wrong, just dressing up and eating candy is fun enough. There’s no special need to do any of these ideas, but if you want to add a little spice to liven up the typical do-da of the season, then the ideas I listed here might be for you! Most of these ideas require little to no budget, which is the whole point of this blog, so yay us. I also suggest you take a quick looksee at this article here which covers some other great ideas to make the most out of your Halloween when it comes to your budget.

Outdoor Halloween Kids’ Games

Games I Played as a Child (or wanted to)

My favorite Halloween kids’ game I played as a child was a doughnut eating contest. It’s really not a Halloween only idea, but it seems the only time I’ve ever played this is at Halloween parties? Weird. Anyway, you can take a long wooden stick or pole, and use some strings long enough that it reaches your kids’ faces. Tie a simple glazed doughnut to the end of the string, through the middle. The goal of the game is to seem who can eat their doughnut the quickest with their hands behind their back, without the doughnut dropping! It’s pretty difficult.

Bobbing for apples is an oldie but a goodie when it comes to Halloween kids’ games. I ALWAYS wanted to do this when I was younger, but I never went to a parts that did it. If you don’t know what bobbing for apples is, you get a big ‘ole bucket and fill it with water, then fill it with apples! The goal of the game is for kids (or adults) to catch an apple with their teeth with their hands behind their back. It’s all about coordination. If you’re worried about germs, I found one mom (on a blog found on my pinterest) that used individual pails of water and apples for each child.

Games That I Found Online

Potato-sack races are also really fun. If you can’t find a potato sack for whatever reason and your children are young enough, you can also use old pillowcases. To add to the fun, have the kids decorate their sacks with Halloween-themed decorations—paint would probably work best.

And lastly, who says you can’t reuse those plastic Easter eggs for Halloween kids’ games? If you have them lying around and you want to get use out of them more than one a year, decorate those eggs into pumpkins, zombies, bats, etc. and hide candy around your yard.

Indoor Kids’ Games

Not a Competition

While a lot of these Halloween kids’ games have been ones I remember from my own childhood, this one is one I found on pinterest. It’s called poke-a-pumpkin, and you can see the whole step-by-step process of making it by following this link here. It looks like this Halloween kids’ game could easily be doubled as a nice classroom game and neighborhood game. What I mean by the latter, is rather than using this just for your kids, you can have trick-or-treaters play it so long as you stand outside to supervise.

This one is by far by absolute favorite Halloween kids’ game. A Halloween-themed touch and feel game really gets your kids into the gross and scary spirit, and you can very cheaply accomplish this game by using food. This link here has a breakdown on how to make each touch sensation, and you can make this into an actual competition game by having the children try to guess what each item actually is.

More Competition-y

Pin the spider on the web! A lot of these games are twists on other games, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t fun. You can probably find a game like this at a party store, but you can certainly make this yourself. Just take a giant piece of paper or poster board and trace a web across it—or use black tape. Then, draw and cut out a little spider that can fit into the middle. You can use a bit of tacky on the back of it to make it stick, or if you want to get fancy you can cut a small piece of Velcro to use. You play this game by blindfolding the child, spinning them a few feet away from the web, and then face them towards it. The goal is to stick the spider the closest you can to the middle of the web.

Of course you can’t forget a Halloween costume contest. If most of the kids have purchased their costume rather than made it, you can judge based on how well they embody their costume rather than how they look, then add a special category for best made costume. Or, if you’re having a proper party, require that all the children make their own costumes at home and then base your contest after looks. I think it’s important not to just have one winner, and to make sure there are different categories for winning, such as best looks, best acting, creativity, etc..

Halloween Crafts

Pumpkin carving. Period. Now, obviously you should do this halfway through October so that way you can enjoy it for more than one day, but please, please, PLEASE carve pumpkins with your kids. It’s a great creative activity. Plus, you can bake the pumpkin seeds for a yummy treat.

On pinterest I found a cute spider web popsicle craft. I’ll like the craft here. What’s nice about this craft is that you can use them as decorations that your kids helped make, and you can hang them inside as well as outside. If you put up a Halloween “Christmas Tree” (which I don’t get, but whatever), then you can use the little spider webs as ornaments.   

And finally, my least favorite thing on this list. I wouldn’t list it, but I know kids are really into these slime things these days, so I thought it was especially applicable. I found a “pumpkin guys slime” recipe that I’ll link here. This might be more of an outdoor craft if you don’t want a mess everywhere, but you can have kids do their own individual slime projects, or you can do it yourself and hand them out as part favors if you’re having a party.

Final Thoughts…

There’s a lot of other ideas I didn’t cover, I basically just picked the ones I thought were cool enough to list (minus the slime one). Ugh. I hate slime. There’s tons of other ideas you can find online, so I suggest that if you don’t like my compendium, Google it yourself! If you’re more interested in just DIY decorations, I suggest you check out my previous article here on DIY Halloween decorations. I will be doing a DIY Halloween costumes article next, so stay tuned!