Halloween Activities for Child Care Providers

Happy little kid boy on a harvest festival, painting with colors a pumpkin. Child celebrating traditional festival halloween or thanksgiving.

Halloween is the most exciting holiday for some children. It is filled with candy, games, exciting decorations and an invigorating sense of suspense. If you are a daycare owner or childcare provider, you can use these ideas for Halloween Activities for all ages to create a day of silliness and excitement without any fright or anxiety.

Face Painting

Children of all ages love to have their faces painted, and it should not be too difficult to find an area face painter who will fit into your budget. Let the children choose from a poster board of favorite animal faces or designs. If you want to keep this activity even cheaper, invest in some paints and reusable face painting stencils, and do it yourself.

Pumpkin Painting

Although carving a Halloween jack-o’-lantern is hard work even for adults, painting is much easier for children of all ages. Let your children paint faces on the pumpkins or decorate them with polka dots or stripes. Stencils could also work quite well for older children. For very young children, you may prefer to decorate with washable markers to avoid messy spills and splatters.

Trunk or Treat

If you are looking for a larger and more memorable activity, you may want to get the parents and children involved with a fun trunk-or-treat. Of course, a trunk-or-treat activity will really only be possible if you have a large enough parking lot at your child care center. You may also want to consider scheduling this special time on a day shortly before Halloween to give children time to trick-or-treat in their own neighborhoods as well.

To hold a trunk-or-treat, ask parents to decorate their cars or trunks. Consider creating a theme for the year, such as the Old West or animals. Also, give participating families instructions about how scary decorations can be, how much room they will have when setting up and whether there are any prizes

Remember safety comes first – be sure to check out Halloween safety tips.

Halloween Crafts

On Halloween, keep little hands busy with fun crafts that children can take home with them. Consider designing foam Halloween masks, creating pumpkins out of paper or making spooky slime that can be taken home in a resealable bag. If you are not particularly crafty yourself, you can find plenty of activity kits at craft stores and online.

Halloween Party Games

Choose out-of-the-ordinary games that are loads of fun to make this a truly special day. While there are numerous games that you could create, the following list includes some party favorites to which you can add a Halloween spin.

-Halloween bingo

-Pin the tail on the Halloween cat

-Feed the monster beanbag toss game

-Pumpkin piñata

-Halloween charades

-Halloween scavenger hunt

Halloween-Themed Treat Time

No party is complete without delicious treats. However, try to stay away from primarily sugary treats, and instead use mainly fruits and vegetables to create trays of foods shaped like pumpkins and colorful fall leaves. You could also serve hot dogs wrapped in puff pastry dough to look like mummies or apple slices coated with peanut butter with mini marshmallows between the slices to look like teeth.

Halloween Activities do not have to be expensive to create the festive fun that you want at your child care facility. Instead, a small investment in materials, many of which can be reused the next year, and a little creative thinking is all it will take for you to plan a memorable holiday for your little ones. As you begin your planning, consider how many children are at your facility, what their ages are and how much extra help you can get on Halloween.

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