Party Fun and Games

After all that decorating, when the time came for the actual party, the real fun began. I found the neatest game ideas on-line. We started with a build-a-scarecrow game where the kids had to find, stuff, and assemble a scarecrow. To make it easier, instead of making the scarecrows sit or stand, we traced Nicky in chalk on the sidewalk like a crime scene and they assembled the scarecrows lying flat.

We had each kid make a craft when they first arrived to hold their loot throughout the evening. I found black and orange tote bags at Michael's, and then printed a bunch of Halloween coloring pages. Then, the kids traced the pictures in fabric crayon and ironed them on the totes to make trick-or-treat bags.

We played a walking variation of Musical Chairs called Spooky Walk, where the kids landed on Halloween symbols on the floor, and then I drew symbols from a pumpkin to determine who was out. We wrapped kids in toilet paper for the Mummy Wrap.

Everyone loved the "Trick or Treat" game where you had to draw a pumpkin card from a bucket and perform whatever trick was written on it. Unless you were lucky and your card just said treat! I made the tricks as embarrassing as possible: dance like a ballerina, sing "the itsy bitsy spider", do the chicken dance. The only thing more amusing than the game was playing it again with my seventh graders at our Halloween party. The embarrassment factor definitely went up! We watched a "scary" movie (Goosebumps, about as scary as Blue's Clues in my opinion, but the kids ate it up) while they ate, and finished off with Bingo as the parents began to arrive. I was SOOO glad I put an end time on the invites, but it was really great fun. I was also glad we rented extra movies to entertain the stragglers while we cleaned - my house was back to normal (with a few extra decorations left up for fun) by the time the last guest left, which was a great relief!

Anyway, I think the kids enjoyed it. And while Nicky didn't recant his statement that "Aunt Cyndy throws the BEST parties" maybe we can come in second place!