One of the first events that always makes us feel that winter is here is Halloween. The shops are full of all kinds of fabulous outfits and ghoulish treats.
Whilst trick or treating isn’t for us (well it’s far too cold!), we do love a good Halloween party.
Toddlers will love the dressing up aspect of Halloween and we’ve found loads of great reasonably priced outfits in lots of high street chain stores/supermarkets. However, if you’re on a tight budget, here are a few of our ideas to make your own costumes for your little ones:
Mummy
Wrap your child in white bandages. Use white face paint to finish off the scary look. The stiff-legged walk helps to complete the effect.
Ghost: Use an old white sheet. Cut to length so that it’s short enough not to trip a little one up and cut eye holes. Cutting armholes will help keep the sheet in place.
Skeleton
Use an old black tracksuit or black leggings & t-shirt. Cut out ‘bones’ from a white plastic bag and attach with craft glue. Use some face paints in black and white to complete the look.
So once your child looks the part ... it’s time to start some party games!
Lots of Halloween games can be adapted for preschoolers, they just need to be not too scary and age appropriate. We particularly love the following games as they encourage good listening & great co -operation.
Monster ‘Stop & Go’
Play Halloween music and have the children dance around like monsters & zombies.
When the music stops the children have to stop dancing and freeze.
With older preschoolers, the first child to move is out, and the game continues until only one child is left. With younger children – it’s almost impossible to have children who are ‘out’ – so just have lots of ‘winners’.
Pin The Face On The Pumpkin
Toddlers may not like to be blindfolded so try just putting your hands over their eyes.
Using a large piece of orange paper draw a big pumpkin. Draw triangle eyes and nose with a black marker, an X where the mouth should be and pin to the wall.
Cut separate pumpkin mouth/ teeth templates (one for each child) and get the children to decorate their pumpkin mouths. Put some blu tac on each child’s pumpkin mouth. Then, in turn, spin each child around, making sure that he/she is facing the pumpkin at the end. Cover their eyes and have them try to stick the mouth onto the pumpkin where they think it should be.
The child with the mouth closest to the X is the winner.
Wrap The Mummy
This one is a favourite Halloween game that’s easy to prepare. Ideally you need 2 teams and 2 grown ups. The object of the game is to see which team can wrap their grown up with toilet paper the fastest. At the end of the game, the grown up breaks out of the toilet paper making appropriate zombie noises etc…
We’d love to hear your suggestions of more Halloween themed games for toddlers .
Over the last couple of weeks, lots of our little Talking Tots will have been coming along to class in their finest Halloween costumes – and helping witch find her friends in our fun vocabulary building game. Come and join our language boosting fun!. Click here to find a class near you.
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