Halloween Games

Many children love Halloween. We assume it's because Halloween means candy but many children love more than just the abundance of candy at Halloween time. They really get into the spooky side of the holiday and enjoy the displays of goopy brains and squishy body parts.

For that reason. Halloween games can be really fun. The goopier you make it the more the kids will get into it.

Let’s start with a feely game. This fun game can be found on store shelves but you can easily create it yourself. Make some jello and fill it with a variety of items, like gummy worms, small candy and other items. You can even color the jello to make it too dark to see what's inside. Tell the children to root around in the bowl of jello (the ‘brain’) to figure out what's in it. It's messy but kids love it.

Kids also love the spaghetti game. This game is messy too so be sure they are wearing play clothes or at least a smock. Make a big bowl of spaghetti and fill it with all kinds of items, like plastic bugs, gummy worms and other things that feel a bit strange. Make the children feel around in the bowl of spaghetti and identify the items they feel. Once they are done and cleaned up, have them list as many items as they can remember. Whoever gets the most correct items listed gets a prize.

Another popular game is again an item identifying game. Take a cardboard box painted black both inside and outside, carve a hole in the top just large enough for the children to get their hands in, and fill the box with a variety of items. The things you put in can be related to Halloween or not. You can even include some items that might feel like body parts or brain matter to make this goopy and silly. Have the children guess what's inside the box and award the box itself with all the things in it to the child who guesses the most number of items correctly.

Most kids love making up stories and Halloween is a great time to let their imaginations run wild. Have them spend a bit of time writing out the scariest story they can think of. Some children might need some help not to get carried away making it ridiculously grotesque. Once the stories are written each child will read the story with as much dramatization as they can muster. For variety mix the stories up so no one reads their own then once the story is read, everyone has to guess who wrote the story. The writer should play along so no one knows it was their story. The winner is the child who wrote a story so intriguing and unusual that nobody knew it was his or hers.

Kids love the word find games when you give them a word or words relating to a holiday. Give them Halloween-related words and ask them to find as many scary words as they can. For example, you might give them the word "Halloween" and see how many scary words they can make from the letters. Or you could give them a series of words and let them rearrange the letters in all of the words to create scary words, or even create a story from the scary words. Put a time limit on this game and award a prize for the child who creates the most words in the least amount of time.

These are just a few ideas for Halloween games. Your possibilities are almost endless if you let your imagination go. And remember adults like to play too.