The best big kid Halloween activities are here! It's pretty easy to find little kid Halloween activities on social media (and our on post here), but we had a harder time finding Halloween activities for kids in elementary school - so we started our own list! We've got a potions class, realistic ghost hunt, practice trick-or-treating, cool crafts, and a movie night!
Potions Class
You can make this as structured or unstructured as you want - meaning that you could create actual potions they could keep (slime) or they could just freestyle their own 'potions' with special powers. We did mostly the latter in this version... basically we made a huge mess!
What You'll Need:
- Cheap bath bombs (crushed)
- Baking Soda
- Vinegar
- Food coloring
- Shaving cream
- Slime ingredients (full recipe here)
- Other optional ingredients: coffee grinds, plastic spiders, glitter, foam balls, google eyes,
- Tablecloth (!!)
- Plastic bones (for stirring), squeeze bottles, salt shaker
- Plastic glassware (we used Halloween wine and champagne glasses from the Dollar Store)
- Table decor (most of our decor was from the Dollar Store
We really only had one structured potion here - the slime. I set up a container with the Elmers Magic Slime liquid already in it on the table, and the kids added the glue and mix-ins. They stirred it with a plastic bone (obviously lol), and then we set it aside. That worked well! So I'd say, if you have a structured activity, do it first and do it together - as there are lots of other ingredients on the table and it gets messy pretty quickly!
After the slime, they became little mad scientists - mixing whatever was at their station into some pretty awesome and messy potions! It was key to have a mini place-setting for each kid (and shared supplies between every pair of kids) so they didn't have to reach across the table repeatedly. Although it ends up in a mess anyway.... We had salt shakers full of baking soda, squeeze bottles full of vinegar with food coloring, a bowl of shaving cream, a pile of crushed bath bomb pieces, a plate of old espresso grinds... you name it!
The kids had SO much fun... I mean who doesn't love a (somewhat) controlled mess... and this is one you could theme for all kinds of events!
Ghost Hunt
Going big here with an activity that can flex to be as absolutely spooky as your kids can handle!
What You'll Need:
- Fake (or real) candles
We started by walking around the house with our EMF meter (aka ghost finder). It gave off the ghost signal at a few locations (microwave, humidifier, fish tank). I decided to roll with the fish tank ghost. :) As any fish owner, we've had several fish perish in our tanks, and the kids definitely remembered that. So I made a big deal of all the beeping as we came close to the tank (water filter lol), and they immediately thought of their old fish.
(Note - We also recently lost LaSalle (our pup), but this whole thing seemed like a little too much to bring our beloved dog into... so a fish was the perfect victim here. If we hadn't had fish, we probably would have just hyped up the microwave signal and gone with a more generic ghost.)
Next step - making contact with your long lost fish. We got out the ouija board and a couple electric candles. We turned off the lights and closed the blinds, and we reached out to our dead fish. I explained that the ghost may (or may not!) talk to us using the board. I said that sometimes the ghost may spell out full words, but other times it may be a code that we have to unlock (like maybe it's just giving the beginning letter of each word in the sentence...). Then we put our fingers VERY lightly on the planchette together, and VERY VERY slowly... arrived at a letter. In our first session, we only made it to "I" and then Andrew had all kinds of thoughts about what his old fish (Flash) was trying to say... so honestly that is as far as we got - but he absolutely loved it! And frankly was pretty creeped out - so I thought that was a mark of success! ;)
Make a Ghost Light
You've likely seen this one on social (I first saw sibster do it on Instagram - she's awesome), and it's pretty simple but also fun (and a craft you'll actually want to keep on the shelves)!
What You'll Need:
- Air dry clay (you can make it or just buy it from Crayola!)
- Narrow vase or cup
- Ping pong ball
- Olive oil
- Electric tea light (optional)
Just roll a ball of clay and then press it down into a circle - cut along the edges as needed to get the circle shape. Place the ping pong ball on top of the vase or cup, add a little olive oil to the top of the ball (our first ghost stuck to the ball when it dried!), and then drape the clay over the top.
Once the clay is draped on the ball, push down on the clay, making sure to use your hands to create some folds. Try to keep the bottom pretty even all the way around (as it will eventually stand up on that bottom) but it doesn't have to be perfect. And once you have your ghost shape, cut out three little ovals (with a knife or a more professional clay tool if you have one!) for eyes and mouth right at the level of the ping pong ball.
Let it dry completely (at least 24 hours) before you move it! If you really want to add some pizazz, put an electric tea light underneath! And these are so cheap and easy that you can make a few (and improve your technique each time... see the one above almost fits into my Crate and Barrel collection... lol still cute though!).
Practice Trick-or-Treating
We've been using this one for years, but it was actually gets more fun as the kids get older, as they get more creative with their house (and can even build it themselves!).
What You'll Need:
- Buildable Cardboard Haunted Houses (or boxes)
- Markers
- Webs or other decor
We used these Halloween houses from Target, and there is another (non-spooky) version on Amazon as well. But if you don't want to spend the money and have boxes laying around, those work just as well once you do some stacking and cutting out of windows and a door!
We got two houses and split up into boys' and girls' teams (1 house per team), and they loved the competition aspect. I'm not kidding when I say that we worked on these for hours each day across several days - all for the promise of candy! William and Andrew went for the spooky look - basically drawing blood coming out of everything and creating a crazy backstory for each of the characters on the house. The girls wanted theirs to be sweet and perfectly colored ("no scribble scrabble!").
Once the coloring was (finally) done, the kids were somewhat independent in actually getting them built - they just needed a little help to make sure they stayed up. And the main activity was supposed to be them pretending to trick-or-treat (with a few real pieces of candy!) but really they were also just as happy to turn them into forts and keep playing all sorts of games in there.
Neighbor Boo Baskets
Alright we haven't gotten here yet... BUT we are planning to "BOO" our neighbors with little boo baskets! The way it works is that you get together a small gift (like slime supplies) and/or a treat. You bring it to a neighbor with a few copies of this sign (above) and a letter. The letter will tell them to hang the sign at their house and then instruct them to give a gift (and the rest of the signs + letter) to the next neighbor.... and on and on! My creative bff made a printable version below (thanks, Cassie!)... making it super easy!
Make a Glue Ghost
What You'll Need:
- Elmers glue
- Googly eyes
- Sheet protector
- Paper template (see below!)
Originally I saw this craft on social to make gift for tags, and I thought it was adorable so I freestyled a bunch of smaller ghosts.
But THEN Emily's PK teacher take it to a whole new level! She made a larger version that could be a coaster (or larger tag or really anything!) - and the kids did it themselves using a template! Genius! So I'm 100% using this idea now too, and I've included a similarly cute template below so you can enjoy!
Watch a Spooky Movie
Feeling like you need something easy?! We have a laundry list of movies that we LOVE for Halloween. Next year I'll make it its own post...but for this year, see below for the ones we like right now for the 'big kids':
Frankenweenie (a little more complex than your typical kids' movie - making it more of a big kid choice)
Nightmare Before Christmas (a TOP fav that carries us through the winter holidays too... it's fair to say you're familiar with this one!)
Coraline (good for very little kids or bigger kids - but the PK-2 kids in our house (and neighborhood) seem to find this too creepy when they're old enough to understand but young enough to be scared).
Monster House (another one that's animated but definitely scary enough for the 'big kids')
Hotel Transylvania (every movie in the series is so funny and flexes across the little and 'big kid' crowd!)
Haunted Mansion (definitely on the scary side - I'd say this borders on tween!)
If you want to make it extra special, take a laptop outside (or go extra fancy by using a projector) to watch the movie! And serve a special Halloween snack or dinner (you know we have LOTS of fall dinner ideas!) - and voila, a festive movie night!
Alright there you have it! As always, we'll keep adding to this post if we think of more kids for these 'big kids' to keep that Halloween spirit up all season!
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