Halloween Party -7yr- Activity Stations

For my 7 year old daughter's Halloween party we had an amazing time celebrating the fun of Halloween without too much scary stuff.  There were about 20 kids there including my daughters.  In advance I made 4 groups of 5 kids.  Upon arriving, each child received a nametag which  identified their group and their name.  The groups were pumpkins, bats, spiders and ghosts. They were printed off the computer with a kids graphics program I have. 

There was an adult supervising each group who was labeled the "head pumpkin", "head bat" etc.  In my kitchen I lined up labeled favor bags which stayed there empty but open, so after each activity, the kids could put their loot in and it would be safe until the end of the party. We set up the house and backyard with several Halloween stations and we rotated the kids after 15 minutes at each station. 

The first station was a pumpkin cookie decorating table in the dining room.  I purchased large ready made gingerbread cookies at Wal-Mart in a kit complete with Halloween colored icing and a few candies.  I added sprinkles, baking candies, m&m's etc. The kids each had their own tube of icing and had a ball decorating the giant cookie.  When the kids were done- we plastic wrapped the big cookie and put it in their labeled loot bag.

The next station was a caramel apple station in the kitchen.  Each child got his/her own apple and a sheet of caramel.  I don't know if you've ever seen these- but what a great idea.  At our local grocery store I picked up a caramel apple making kit.  TO my surprise and delight I didn't have to melt caramel or do any cooking to make this treat. I wanted to keep the stations as simple and neat as possible.  Anyway each kit was about $3 and contained about 8 thin sheets of caramel and 8 Popsicle sticks.  All you need to do is wrap the sheet of caramel around the apple and put the stick in.

Next was a variation of bobbing for apples in the living room. We tied apples from long strings coming down from the ceiling. With hands tied behind their backs they had to bite into an apple by reaching up with their mouths or down depending on the length of rope that the apple they wanted was on.  I was surprised but all the 6 & 7 year olds got an apple without any help except the odd time the adult had to steady the apple. 

The next station was out on our back deck.  The idea of this one was very simple.  The children took turns tossing Halloween sized candy bars into one of those plastic trick or treating jack o lantern buckets.  This didn't take the whole allotted 15 minutes so they did it again and again each time moving the tape marker back farther to see who could get the candy in the bucket from the farthest away. 

Next and last station was a spooky booth in our side shed.  We put a long table in there with about 5 different large bowls.  The kids took turns dipping hands in each bowl while the adult let them know what was in the bowl bowl 1 was peeled grapes but they were described as witch's eyeballs.  Bowl 2 was cold cooked spaghetti, described as witch's brains.  The guts of some poor soul was a bowl of spinach- canned- very slimy and disgusting.  The bowl of slivered almonds  were fingernails and a bowl of thickened but not set Jell-O (warm) was the bowl of blood.  Wet naps were available after this station.  Each person got a home made sticker badge after this station saying: "I survived the haunted shed." Every kid took part.  After the stations were complete and the apples, caramel apples, decorated cookies, and Halloween sized chocolate bars were tucked away in the loot bags- we ate from a Halloween table full of goodies on our back deck.  The weather was nice enough for the kids to eat outside.  On the patio table we had an orange tablecloth.

Strewn all over the table were the following: Cupcakes with a blob of chocolate icing in  the center-black shoestring licorice sticking out and M&M's for eyes for spider cupcakes.  Transparent plastic gloves full of popcorn and tied at the top- (the kids loved these I bought a box of these gloves from the store manager of a local SUBWAY $5 for 500 (what will I do with them all?).  They look great stuffed with popcorn. Oreo cookies also dressed up to look like spiders with the licorice legs and M&M mini eyes tootsie pops with pipe cleaner legs and googly craft eyes to also look like spiders…a huge bowl of punch with a floating frozen hand in it. (made from one of those plastic gloves filled with water, sealed and frozen.)I then cut off the plastic- it was shaped like a frozen hand and I put it in the punch bowl. Before I knew it the parents were there and the kids were excited about the fun games and fun food…then they remembered their treat bags.  Each child went away with all they had earned and made in the games as well as each child received a  Crazy Bones plastic coffin that I bought at a local Party store for 10 cents each.  (Crazy bones are out now so I guess that's why they were so cheap).  But the purple and black coffins fit the Halloween theme.  Inside each one I put free fries coupon for Burger King, a plastic skeleton, some chocolate skulls and some gummy worms.  They were fastened tight and put in the children's loot bags. Whew!

This party took a lot of preparation.  My house is small and that's why we organized the "station" idea so that there wouldn't be more than about 5 people in a given area.  I needed to enlist several adult volunteers in advance to be group leaders.  The 20 spider tootside pops and cupcakes and Oreo cookies were easy but time consuming.  However, I love stuff like this and the kids had a blast...I hope you can use some of these ideas.  Good luck- and by the way- I'll now be hunting this site for Halloween ideas for next year- any ideas?