Creative Play Halloween Party

Looking to celebrate Halloween with lots of friends and a healthy helping of creative play? I'm sharing five fun activity stations which are perfect for preschoolers and beyond.

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These activities will be used for children aged 2-5 years old at our preschool Fall Family Fun Day. With that in mind, I wanted to keep things relatively simple and very hands on! I always think it works best to offer variety so that children can follow their interests. It is also important to me that these are activities which do not need to be 'manned', although younger kids will obviously need to be supervised with any of the loose parts. It's nice to allow children to have the freedom to explore, I didn't want there to be strict instructions or expected outcomes. Hence open-ended play and the freedom to create were key.

Station 1 - DIY Halloween Play Dough Kits

Play dough kits are great for big groups of children to enjoy. Sure the colors might get mixed and the kit definitely won't be returned in the same state, but there will be so much imaginative play! In fact I would be really disappointed if the kit wasn't a total mess by the end!

I decided to make character themed kits using our Safari Ltd. Toobs figurines rather than anything too spooky. You can read all the details about each kit and the recipes used in the full DIY Halloween Play Dough Kit blog. Each of these character themed kits, along with a few fun spider ones (see below), can be used by 2 or 3 children at a time. I will set the IKEA GLIS containers out on a large table with IKEA SMULA trays to create individual work spaces.

Station 2 - Fall Sensory Bins

Sensory bins are ideal to use for activities with big groups of children. They naturally encourage kids to play collaboratively, using their communication skills and building their confidence to explore new sensory materials. I always love listening to conversations as the kids play! I've got four bins prepared, all stored in containers from Walmart of various sizes.

Apples 'n Oats - oats, green and red pom poms, baking accessories from IKEA, wooden scoops from Amazon, small wooden bowls and stainless steel scoop from Biddle and Bop.

Pouring Pumpkins - black beans and red lentils as the sensory base, pumpkin pots from Party City, and orange and black plastic scoops also from Party City.

Bones, Beans and Diggers - a mixture of dried beans and rocks, plastic bones and mini cauldrons from Party City, and a selection of construction vehicles from Walmart.

Spooky Sorting Bin - some nice bright rice and chickpeas with Halloween themed pom poms (Michaels), silicone molds (Walmart), wooden characters (Target), and plastic scoops (Party City).

Station 3 - Haunted Towers

This is such an easy one to set up but it's open-ended nature makes it a winner! I used black and orange Hefty plastic cups from Walmart. This is a simple invitation to engineer a tower with the cups. Little hands will be working hard for fine motor development, and as the tower grows, they will start to require more gross motor skills as well. This is a really good one for different ages to collaborate on. In the picture below you can see that I added tea lights for my kids (I won't be using this for the event just in case a child is unsupervised).

Station 4 - Superhero Masks

Again this is nice and easy to set up and avoids too much mess (important when kids will be in costumes!). I found these neat plain white kids' masks on Amazon and thought they were just the right size for decorating. The children will have a variety of Kwik Stix, Thin Stix and Wonder Stix to use to decorate their masks. Kwik Stix products are perfect because they are bold marking tempera paint sticks but they are washable and dry in 90 seconds!

For this area I also ordered a fun superhero city backdrop and some capes from Amazon to make a photo wall. I'm sure the kids will love using their masks for some serious superhero play!

Station 5 - Invitation to Make Creepy Claws

Whenever I organize activities for large groups of kids I always think it is fun to cover a big table with paper and have a simple art prompt for them to be inspired by. With it being Halloween I decided a fun one would be to get them to trace their hand and turn it into a creepy claw with warts, nails, hair and whatever else they can imagine. I tend to use the IKEA MALA roll of paper as it is a decent quality but not too expensive. Again I will put out a selection of Kwik Stix products, as well as their Magic Stix markers.

Most of the items used in these activities can be repurposed and used again after the event for more fun and play. I really enjoy helping to organize events like this because it is a great way to share creative play with children and parents. I always find it fascinating to see the different ways that the activities are played with.