im having a childrens' hallowe'en party- i need ideas/suggestions

[booyhoosboydoesntwearpants]

as the title suggests, i need some great suggestions fo a hallowe'en party.
im inviting around 12/14 children plus parents.

i had one a few years ago and everyone dressed up, we played a few games and i made party food like you would have at a birthday party but i want to to more themed foods/treats and games.

any suggestions would be brilliant

TIA

OK I would suggest looking in this months goodfood magazine and also delicious magazine as they have some ideas on food. Also the website good food might have some ideas under recipes and there is a halloween selection.

Things that are easy are green or red jellies with cream on top and an eye ball - looks horrid, just right!

Spider Muffins - Choc muffins with white icing and black spiders webs

Apple Bobbing
Pin the spider on the witches hat
musical statues

Cheese Fingers (cheese straws with pointy bit of olive on end as black finger nail)
Sandwiches cut into bat shapes/wizard hat/black cats (could use black bread)
Sludge Dip - Guacamole

hmm will keep having a think.

Marshmallow ghosts - stick 2 white large marshmallows together on top of each other.

Oh Jellies with halloween sweets in them - like spiders etc

we always have a cornflour mix...

mix up large bowl of cornflour and water with as much yukky food colouring as you like, the idea is that it is a swamp. Then throw in some plastic creepy crawlies

Dc's have to close their eyes and fish about for the creepy crawlies. (they seem to enjoy it)

When you fished out all creepies, you can play the smash the cornflour game, ie if you put your hand into it very slowly, it is liquid, if you hit it really quickly, it is solid.

Also apple bobbing, then straight after, ie same child, same turn, fish in a tray of icing sugar for sweets or something else small. Idea is to get their faces covered in icing sugar.

I also make a red frozen hand. Fill up a rubber glove with red water, or you can use jelly, freeze it, then carefully peel off and lay hand onto a tray/large plate of chopped up slime coloured jelly

sorry meant to ad, they fish in the tray with their mouths only in the icing sugar.

Nigella's Feast book has a few Hallowe'en recipes in it, if you can get a copy of that.

easy-peel oranges are good to have around and then you can play "making vampire teeth" with the peel

Mutant gingerbread men might be a good one - extra legs and heads etc.

(how old are these DC by the way?)

Also, you could blindfold the DC and get them to stick their fingers in various things - tell them that it's a newt's eye or something when really it's an olive, that kind of thing.

Or put various "disgusting things" under a cloth on a tray if you don't want to blindfold them. Cold Heinz spaghetti makes good entrails, for e.g.

hang doughnuts up by string at chin height. they have to eat doughnuts without using hands or licking lips.

i have no idea what makes this a hallowe'en game btw. it just always appears at hallowe'en parties i've been to...

can i ask a really silly question? everyone round here is still suffering from swine flu induced paranoia, and i'm a bit wary whether the local hv is going to get feisty about apple bobbing (all that sharing spit lol), and faces scrabbling around in icing sugar etc... she's already made the local toddler group throw away all their soft toys to prevent an epidemic... are there any games that don't involve sharing other children's slobber?

this is brilliant!!

I have just agreed to have some of DS1's friends over so they don't get roped ito trick or treating

you could also do the person by person horror story - everyone has to say a bit and then leaves it at an interesting point for the next person to continue the story.

I think the doughnuts thing is more Hallowe'eny because the jam is a bit bloodlike, is that it?

This is great. I'm hosting a party for some 18mo toddlers, and so many Hallowe'en things are no good for the little ones, either because they can;t do it, or they can't understand it! But I liked the pin the spider on the witch idea, paranoidmother, thanks!

We used to have peeled grapes (eyeballs), those fluorescent collar things, apple bobbing (that we'll adjust for the little ones), hands in disgusting intestines (spaghetti o's), etc.

Also, for atmosphere, try getting some cheesecloth and dyeing it black (Dylon is great stuff), to drape over stair banister, tack a few flet bats and pumpkins to it. (This at least won't frighten my little guests, but will please us parents ).

WingedVictory I'm also hosting a halloween party for toddlers and we're having marmite/vegemite sandwiches too cut into shapes instead of the black bread.

good food has nice ideas.

wow, thank you all, great ideas.

hadnt considered the saliva swapping so might bypass apple bobbing.

loads to think about now. thanks again

sorry i meant to say the children range between 1 and 5 years.

games are really for the older ones, 2/3-5 years.

Thanks for the suggestion, NezlLiquide!

BTW, our apple "bobbing" is going to be with hands only. If we are feeling really mean, we might add some oil to the water, but otherwise, it's up to the little grabbers!

Hello,
I've just joined Mumsnet. Amazed at all the fab ideas on here!

My son is having a halloween birthday party on Saturday (he will be 5) so thought I would add a few ideas that I've found:

1. Halloween crafts - I bought thesefor kids to do when they first get here.
   Just discovered this website and its really good- got loads of halloweeny stuff on there. I also got some ghost pencil kits to go in party bags for 22p each!

2. Mummy wrap game - kids split into teams and wrap one teammember up with a roll of toilet roll. Winning team is either quickest/or covers most with wrapping

3. Scary pizza faces - we are going to prepare 3 large pizza bases and the kids are going to make into scary faces with sliced olives, salami, pepper cut into teeth shapes etc.

4. Spider jellys these look great and so easy to do.

5. The usual Pass the parcel, Musical statues etc but with spooky halloween music (have downloaded some tunes like The Monster Mash, Ghostbusters, Dem Bones, etc)

6. Halloween balloons, Pin the tail on the black cat and more!

This is the first proper kids party we will have done and got 11 kids coming (including my 2) ranging from 1 to 8 and quite a small house! I'm hoping the weather is going to stay good so we can get them out in the garden if it gets too cramped. Wish me luck!