Halloween Games and Activities

Hangman may seem like an obvious game for Halloween, but I’ve never seen it mentioned by anyone before. It’s a fun game for small and large groups and easy enough to play that you can get the kids involved.

Basic hangman rules:

1. Draw a scaffold on a large sheet of paper or board for all your guests to see.
2. Place a dash under the scaffold for each letter of the word or phrase your guests are going to try to discover.
3. Guests call out letters, on their turn, and if the letter is in the word or phrase then place it in the correct dash space.
4. If the guest calls a letter out that isn’t in your word or phrase then you write the letter above the scaffold and draw a body part, beginning with the head and working your way down until a completed person is hanging there, in which case the guests lose.
5. At any time during their turn a guest may try to guess the word or phrase and win the game. If they guess incorrectly they are out.

Halloween variations:

• Use halloween words or phrases from well known Halloween movies like The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (Disney version) or It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown.
• Hang monsters instead of people; you could hang witches, mummies, sea monsters with tentacles, skeletons, vampires, etc.

This is a simple puzzle game that uses words of 9 letters. The letters from the word are arranged in a square of 9 boxes in word order, but not starting in the first square. You can enjoy these puzzles on your own, or use them in a party game.

To play in a party, print 3 or more of the following puzzles and give a copy to each of your guests:

• 9SquareMonsterSearch1.pdf
• 9SquareMonsterSearch2.pdf
• 9SquareMonsterSearch3.pdf
• 9SquareMonsterSearch4.pdf
• 9SquareMonsterSearch5.pdf

Whoever solves all of the puzzles in the quickest amount of time gets a prize.

Alternately you could place these puzzles on a chalkboard if you’d like to save paper.

Try making your own puzzles, but be warned: 9 letter words aren’t all that common. You’ll notice each of the words in the puzzles I’ve put above are pluralized.

Some ideas from Dixie that cover a wide spectrum of age groups, so be sure to look through them all.  

Creature Body Trace

You’ll need chalk or markers and large butcher paper or a sidewalk/driveway.

1. Trace a person’s outline using the chalk or markers.
2. Add horns, wings, hooves, etc. to make the outlines into fantastical creatures. 

This is a great way to decorate your sidewalk/driveway before your Halloween party.

Backwards Spelling Bee

1. Put homemade picture of monsters around the room.
2. Label the pictures if you are dealing with really young children.
3. Play “I Spy” to choose a monster.
4. Have the players spell the monster names backwards.

Spooky Fairy Tale Plays

Adapt a traditional fairy tale so it has “spooky” elements. You can be very mild with your additions (ex. add Count Dracula to the story of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” : he can count objects throughout the story, but do nothing else to change the fairy tale). On the other hand, you can be more daring and add characters that interact with the story and change the ending or the sequence of events (ex. add the monster Frankenstein to the story of “The Three Billy Goats Gruff” and he could live under the bridge with the troll, or he could come in contact with the goats before they walk to the bridge). The possibilities are many! Write out the script for a "Reader’s Theatre" play and have the parts read by different children.

Optional: Stage it. You can put on your play in an open area of a room, using simple/homemade scenery, props, and costuming. You could also make a puppet stage from a large cardboard box, cutting out the front top third to display the antics of the puppets (like a Punch and Judy show).

Alternate: Instead of using a script, improvise! The characters adlib their interactions. A narrator could decide recite the main points of the story and where/when the spooky character will appear.

We’ve provided a list of monsters below for use with these games:

Alphabet Hands

1. Choose 13 or so Halloween words.
2. Give each a sign language chart.
3. Give someone the list of words and ask them to fingerspell one of them.
4. The 1st person to name the word that was fingerspelled earns a point.
5. Reward the person with the most points at the end of the game with a favor.

Alpha Mixup

Print the list of Monster Names below and make a copy for each guest.

1. Playes choose a word from the list and then rearrange the letters in alphabetical order. For example: MONSTER becomes EMNORST.
2. After mixing up several words (decide on how many you will do before hand), players exchange lists with a partner and try to unscramble the words.
3. The first person to unscramble all their words yells out, "Alpha."
4. If they their words check out, reward the person with the shortest time with a favor.

Monsters to use in the above Games

• Angel
• Apparition
• Banshee
• Basilisk
• Bat
• Bigfoot
• Black cat
• Boggart
• Brownie
• Centaur
• Cerberus
• Chimaera
• Cockatrice
• Cyclops
• Devil
• Dracula
• Dragon
• Dryad
• Dwarf
• Elf
• Fairy
• Fey
• Fog giant
• Frankenstein
• Gargoyle
• Genie
• Ghost
• Ghoul
• Giant
• Gnome
• Goblin
• Golem
• Goon
• Gorgon
• Gremlin
• Gypsy
• Hag
• Harpy
• Hydra
• Hyena
• Imp
• Jack-o-lantern
• Jester
• Kelpie
• Knight
• Kraken
• Loch ness monster
• Leprechaun
• Mage
• Medusa
• Merfolk
• Minotaur
• Monster
• Mummy
• Nixie
• Ogre
• Owls
• Pegasus
• Phantom
• Pharaoh
• Phoenix
• Pirate
• Pixie
• Pooka
• Princess
• Sandman
• Satyr
• Selkie
• Siren
• Skeleton
• Sphinx
• Spider
• Spook
• Sprite
• Superhero
• Titan
• Troll
• Unicorn
• Vampire
• Vulture
• Warlock
• Werewolf
• Witch
• Wizard
• Wolfman
• Yeti
• Zombie