Halloween Party -5yr- Fogger & Cobwebs

We just had a halloween party for my 5 year old daughter.  Special thanks to this site for great ideas.  I had a blast with this one and it was well worth the extra effort.  The great thing about throwing a halloween party is every thing you buy can be reused over each year.  Warning this is a quite lon description but hopefully it gives you some ideas.  

For food we had all sorts of theme items, I kept them tame though as the kids are still small.  In small witchs dutch kettles I had meringe bones (fragile but turn out great)dipped in chocolate, and eyeballs made from rice krispie treats with a cream saver and a skittle to form the eye ( the strawberry cream savers make the eye look bloodshot.)  I also made boogers on a stick( pretzel rods and green dyed cheese whiz), had chocolate mice with licorice whip tails and set them on a plate of shredded wheat to look like hay, used berries from christmas holly sprinkles for eyes, were just the right size, most of the kids thought they were real they looked so good.  Also had chips and veggies with orange and green dyed dip, finger jello and brownies cut out in halloween shapes, and lots of gummy worms and caramel eyeballs to add to the effect. I put the bowl of punch on top of dry ice in a witch's cauldron, looked cool.  My last and favorite treat was cupcake cyclopses.  I baked cake in colored ice cream cones, topped it with a peanut butter cup and orange and green hair all around top, then cut a caramel eyeball in half and stuck it to the side of the cone, caramel stuck so well I didn’t need icing to keep it on.  

For decorations I moved out all the furniture in my living room and put down plastic, then brought in straw bales around the perimeter of the room and then wrapped bales with plastic so people could sit on them.  Sounds crazy but wasn’t as messy as you think wrapped with plastic.  It solved my seating problem, added greatly to the effect and the kids had more room to play games.  My cd rack is mounted to the wall so I made it a standing coffin, wrapped it black plastic complete with dracula and red tissue behind him to look like inside of coffin.  I had more hangings of jointed frankenstiens, skeletons and witches and put caution- monster zone tape across them.  Hung ghosts from the ceiling as well.  Downstairs we made a haunted house out of hallway and the laundry room.  Hung black plastic, walmart sells it in rolls fairly cheap and it only took three rolls.  Had a fogger I had got on clearence, worked great, spooky music playing as well as glow in the dark bones,glow in dark cobwebs, spiders and bats were hung from strings.  We also blocked it off so when the kids came into the house they could hear spooky music and see fog but could nt see any more, the whole party they kept asking what was down there. We put caution-haunted house printed tape across front door and around house. It was awesome.  Some kids were too scared so its best to have an alternate route for them.  This house took them to the back yard to play additional games.  

As for activities we decorated pumpkin shaped sugar cookies, great starting activitie while kids are still arriving.  We also decorated orange balloons with jackolantren stickers I got from oriental trading which they kept as favors.  I made costume prize ribbons out of foam paper and glitter and attached ribbon with the stapler.  On each one I wrote generic things like scariest costume etc and gave them out with a prize.  All the prizes I got were from oriental trading like bubble necklaces, yo yos and tattoos.  Their were 17 kids so we didn’t get through as many games as I had planned but I will give you my plans anyway.  We played guess the ghost where you take a kid out of the room, then cover another in a sheet and they have to guess who is the ghost, I had the kids say costumes, not names since not all kids knew each other.  We played freeze dance to monster mash and when they were done they got to grab candy out of a cauldron for 10 seconds with a grabber (another toy from orient. Trading, 10$ for 12 but the kids had a blast grabbing out candy. We played the donut on a string game TIP use sturdy donuts like old fashioneds and from entemans not fresh baked so they don’t fall off the string, keeping them cold helps too. 

Then we went through haunted house to back yard where I had more decorations and hay bales set up.  We played the spider web game.  I had rolled up individual balls of black yarn, 1 for each child and sealed the end with scotch tape, each child took their ball tied it loosely around their waists then took turns throwing it while standing in a circle to make a web, at first I had them throw one at a time then towards end of roll had them throw them at the same time.  Big hit, looks like a real web,then they had to get out of it which was funny to watch.  The last game we had time for was a popcorn relay race.  I cut two slits in orange plastic cups put elastic through and tied knot inside cup to make a loop to put around their shoe.  Kids were seperated into 4 groups , first kid filled cup with popcorn from a large cauldron, had to put cup around foot and walk about 10 feet to a small cauldron, dump in popcorn,run back and give cup to next kid until their cauldron was full.  Very fun, by this time it was time to go. 

Here are the rest of the games I had planned.  Mummy wrap game with the toilet paper,  pumpkin toss game, but for a twist they were going to use the fake hand treat bags that say stuff when you push the button.  Got them last year on clearence for 1$ a piece, also pin the wart on the witch.     For treat bags I made mummies out of white lunch bags by criss crossing with a black marker making mouth and eye area different colors and then attaching googly eyes.  Turned out great, daughter could help, and were inexpensive.  Each child picked one at beginning of party, I put their name on it and they filled it with prizes and candy.  This party was a ton of work but everyone was so impressed and had such a good time it was worth it.  Definitely a labor of love.  Spent about 150$ total, mostly on food and prizes.  Had lots of decorations from last years clearence sales.  Spent a lot of time searching online for ideas so hope you can use some or all.