Hi Ladies~
Thanks in advance for reading my request!
So it seems like so many holiday request for party ideas are for the primary grades. (I've search on Mamapedia a lot already and I'm still in need of Halloween games/activities. Another mom is in charge of the food. One mom is in charge of a story, but she feels they are too old for that and she wants to just do games with me. (Together we have 45 minutes.) I , however, think telling them a scary story would be fun. I think she just does not feel comfortable memorizing a story and being a storyteller ...... say in a dark classroom with a flashlight on. Last year in 3rd grade I search and found a scary (somewhat) story that included using food to explain the story.... you know the one where the kids feel the grapes that are said to be the eyes, the nooles are the brain, etc... Well they LOVED it and I improvised and did not look at my notes. I just memorized as much as I could. Do you have another story that you could suggest for this age? Not a real cute type for "little kids" and not too scary where it's disgusting, etc...
What about games? I help out every year and I just know the kids would like some new activities. We've done the mummy game for a couple of years already. I don't want to bob for apples or donuts. That could become unsanitary and dangerous since they have to race to eat. We've done so many candycorn, pumpkin ..... you name it, relay race games. We only did one scavenger hunt game for a holiday party. They loved that but that took a lot of time for a mom with a lot of creativity to put together. We've done so many primary type games and I think the kids would be bored of it .... you know the hot potato/ pumpkin game, pin the nose on the jack o'lantern, etc... They've made slime in first and second grade.
If you have any thing exciting for this age group, I'd love for you to share and if you can specifically direct me to a website for different ideas, I'd love to know about them. I've already google it, but I keep coming across the same games that they've placed since preschool.
The two of us are going to share our ideas in a couple of days. I thought maybe we could tell a story together where I do the storytelling part and she chimes in once in awhile with scary noises that she makes or plays from a CD. We've been girl scout leaders in the past together and have enjoyed planning the games together. We will be sharing our ideas with each other in a couple of days. I look forward to reading your responses. Thanks so much! (The room mom doesn't mind if we share our time. The room mom is doing the craft and snack.) All of the kids (preK- 5th) parade around school before the afternoon parties start.Robyn~ we did the minute to win games last year for both parties and I know the kids like them a lot.... I just wanted something different to plan.
Swap with her. Play to both your strengths. You do the story, let her do the games. Everybody wins
Instead of a scavenger hunt, how about a Treasure chest filled w/sand & hide gold coins, plastic toys, plastic rings etc? Just make it a huge treasure chest. You don't have to fill the entire thing w/sand. Fillup bottom w/something so only top has to be filled w/sand.
Make pirate hats, decorate w/skulls, felt sword cut outs etc & give every child a pirate name.
How about making a psuedo haunted house for the room for them to go in? Adults make it. Make it easy. Huge cardboard boxes put together (abt 3 of them), spray painted black, a few cut out windows. Big enough for them to walk through bent over.
How about some spooky haunted house music? You know those types with the chains etc playing in the background.
I like the idea of reading the story but if it's the other mom's job & she doesn't want to do it, then I'd let it go.
The feel game: you have different stations (about 4) w/a table, a cardboard piece on the table so they can't see what's behind it, 2 holes cut out for their hands w/gross, squishy stuff they have to feel but can't see. Totally gross but some kids like it. Yuck. I still remember that game though. They used pumpkin guts w/seeds, cooked spaghetti noodles for brains etc. (yuck) :)
what about minute to win it type games? Go on the minute to win it website and adapt a few games using halloween props. My 4th grade boy LOVES minute to win it and most of the games are simple enough for 4th graders, but not preschool simple.
Last year I found a game that my daughters class LOVED so maybe it will work for your party. On a notecard (or something similar) I wrote out a Halloween word (Haunted House, witch, costume, Frankenstein, etc.) along with a clip art picture of the word (you might not want but we used because it was for younger kids who might not read as well). Each child would have one taped to their back and then the kids would have to ask questions of their classmates to guess who/what they were that was Halloween related - they found this hilarious and asked some of the silliest questions - (for those that were harder or that seemed that the kids weren't close to getting, I would chime in with a helper clue i.e. its an animal or a place thats scary, etc). Our class was broken up into stations with 4 groups of 6 so we had each child go one at a time but they had a time limit of only one minute so they could move to the next station as a group after they had each had a turn. Hope this is a new idea and one you haven't used before.
Hi J. - hope this helps you a little!
Assemble a Skeleton Relay:
5 or 6 Plastic Jointed Skeltons (from dollar store all the same color)
4 large rubbermaid bins (or boxes) filled with shredded paper
Cut the Skeletons apart place one full body (in pieces) in each bin and add random pieces from the other two skeletons in there as well (to make it more challenging) fill with the shredded paper to bury the bones
Divide class in to 4 teams and they relay over to the box dig around find a bone bring it back , next person goes and so on until they have enough pieces to assemble their skeleton.
Pumkin/ Bean Bag Toss
5 or 6 plastic pumpkins
2 or 3 Bean Bags
Prizes for each pumpkin - Vampire teeth (a great prize I remember the kids in my daughters fourth grade class LOVING them) - Stickers - Tattoos - Candy - Pretzel Packs - Bouncy Balls -
Put Prizes in the pumpkins and spread them out in a random pattern the kids can toss 2 or three bean bags in to the pumpkins and they get what ever prize their bean bag lands in.
Freeze Dance
Play a Halloween Music CD and the kids dance until the music stops then they freeze - anyone not frozen sits down and helps spy others that did not freeze (or just let them all play and dance)
I would probably skip the story myself - but In Third Grade I read "Tell Me a Scary Story.... But Not TOO Scary!" by Carl Reiner it is a very cute book, I read it but it does come with an audio cd you could play.
or
I have played this story/ game at Baby Showers. It is a game where you pass something to the left or right whenever the story teller says Left or Right in her story. Here is a link to a Halloween one you could Jazz up a little: http://www.epilogsys.com/scoutingweb/SubPages/HalloweenWr...
Good Luck!
We did Halloween Bingo where we made cards with pictures of Halloween images in the squares. The adult picked pictures out of a bag and the kids put a marker on the square with the picture.
Seems like such an old fashioned and simple game but the kids didn't want to stop playing! Funny how that goes! I guess everyone of all ages loves Bingo. It's always big with Senior Citizens too!
The mummy game is a blast. You divide the class up into groups.
One child is the mummy and the others are the wrappers. Each group gets
A roll of toilet paper and they have to wrap their mummy as best as they can. The first team to wrap their mummy wins! The kids of all ages love this game. The biggest thing is toilet paper. You cannot use cheaper toilet paper, ie Scott, it ripps off after a couple if sheets and the kids get frustrated. I have found that northern works great. Of course that's more expensive, but it's worth the extra cost. Also, you can let more than one child have a turn from each group so it takes up lots of time, but the kids have a blast!
