Children's Halloween Party

Children’s Party

By Poppie

Halloween conjures up images of haunted houses, trick or treating, and ghoulish monsters.  Sometimes it can seem a bit scary for the little ones.  I wanted to host a Halloween party that the children would remember but not be frightened to participate in.

My daughter’s birthday just so happens to be November 1^st so we decided to have a Halloween party last year to celebrate her birthday.  We wanted it to be fun but not scary so these are a few things I did to ensure the children had a great time. 

She had all her friends come in costume.  To avoid scary masks, we specified on the invitations that it would be easier to eat cake and ice cream if there was no masks.  We had a contest to see who had the best costume which was awarded with a "Best Costume" trophy. 

For decorations, we took toilet paper rolls and folded one side in to make ears and made various creatures with them.  We had a cat, the Where the Wild Things Are monster, a bat, and an owl.  We set them by a black cauldron that I placed various piñata toys and candy in.  Each child could grab what they wanted and put in an orange sack to take home.  We also made “potions” out of lemonade and soda that we stuck in thin vases and labeled with ingredients such as “Potion Number 5 – snake tails, bat wings, sugar, spice, and everything naughty”.

We dimmed the lights and lit the jack o lanterns in one room to create ambience for our guests while they ate cake and brains (okay, green Jello shaped like a brain).  Painted mini pumpkins were sporadically placed around the room to go with our glowing centerpieces. 

For drinks, we had another black cauldron with punch in it and dry ice to create a spooky effect.  The drinks were served in paper cups with cute, glittery spiders or pumpkins stickers placed on them.

We played pin the spider to the spider web.  I had taken a pumpkin carving tracer sheet of a spider web and traced it on a paper plate.  Then my girls painted the web and little spiders that we cut out and numbered with sticker numbers.  Each child was blind folded and placed their numbered spider on the web.  The closest to the center of the web was the winner.  The prize was an oversized chocolate bar.

This was such a fun party, that my daughter wants to do a similar party this year as well.  We’ll change a few of the decorations for a fun twist and add a theme this year to limit which decorations we decide to put up and stay on budget.   This party is no trick to do and quite a treat for the children!