Everything Halloween

This is the plan I came up with for this last year’s Family Halloween Party. We decided to do a Halloween Carnival. It was our most ambitious party yet and required some advanced thinking, planning and preparation, especially in the creation of the Carnival games.

As we get more and more young nephews and nieces in the family we have to think more about the shifting demographic. What started out, when we moved here, as a mostly adult party has now become mostly focused on the children . . . and that’s great, because I love all my growing nieces and nephews. They can be very entertaining (and loving). So, the Carnival idea came out of that shift. We ended up missing a whole family due to sickness and it rained on our parade, quite literally, so things had to be adjusted (and a number of items were completely nixed) on the fly. Here was the plan though:

=== Halloween Party ===

— Games and Activities —

Play movie in background from the beginning.

— Ice Breakers —

Start as people arrive.

— Fortune Folder Coloring —

Template
Copies
Crayons
Mom’s kid table

— Foam Print Card/Luminary —

Scissors
Sticker Foam
Ball Point Pens
13 pieces of styrofoam insulation
Brayer
Ink
Our adjustable table

— Silly/Serious Halloween Story Write —

Attach pens to two notebooks.
Decorate the notebooks: Scary and Silly
Put instructions on first page of the notebooks.
One sentance to a page.
Each page labeled with a person.
Add your sentence and pass on to the next person.

— Competition —

Highest score gets first pick at the prize table . . .
All participants get to pick from the treasure box . . .

— Monster Hunt —

Dixie hide monsters day of the party
Team youngest to oldest, second oldest to second youngest, etc.
Teams share the eggs they find

Scorecard for most eggs, teams share same points

Official: Dixie

— Ghost Pitch —

3 decorated milk jugs filled with sand
3 softballs
Little pop-up table

Scorecard : 10 points for each jug

Official: Dixie

— Feed the Monster Toss —

Make monster with holes from styrofoam insulation
Make 3 "monster food" bean bags

Scorecard

Official: Myron

— Slap the Eye on the Monster —

Tape
Laminated monster poster
Laminated eyes
Blindfold

3 eyes labeled 10, 20 and 30
Bonus 50 points to the person closest to any of the eyes.

Scorecard

Official : Melanee

— Laundry Basketball Toss —

3 Laundry Baskets
3 Basketballs (any balls) Decorated

Scorecard

Official: Marc

— Sea Monster Hunt —

Pool
Balloons
Spears

Timer 60 seconds
1 point for every second not used

Scorecard

Official: Matthew

— Story Reading —

Dixie

— Dinner —

Hot Dogs
Buns
Relish Tray
Chips
Apple Cider

— Prizes —

In conclusion, we really went out of our way this year to find some fun prizes for the carnival. We had a ticketing system according to the amount of points that they earned in the games. I think they all had fun and came away happy. It was a great day, despite the rain and other problems we met with.

Happy Halloween!