It’s almost Halloween time, which means that all around the world, Classroom Parents will soon be a-scramblin’ for Halloween party ideas.
And then they’ll be scramblin’ for Valentine’s Day party ideas, and then they’ll be scramblin’ for springtime party ideas.
At least I was, last year–and I was only a co-room parent.
This year, I’m rolling solo for the big man’s Kindergarten year, and although it’s always a little juggling act, it should be a tad easier knowing that I’ve got one year under my belt.ย Granted, that one year hardly makes me an expert, which is why this New For Us Friday I’m sharing some of the resources we used last year to help out the ‘newbies’ and to offer the seasoned Room Parents a few new ideas this year.
And I’m sharing an awesome, totally free resources from our friends at Volunteer Spot, a company that I have really grown to love, not only for the organization it brings to my life, but for the fantabulous supports it has created for Room Parents everywhere!
Here’s the skinny:
Our Halloween Party letter
Help for Classroom Parents–the Halloween Party:
There’s no need to reinvent the wheel, and the Halloween party has been done in many forms for years and years and years.
But we can all stand to have some cool ‘new’ ideas each year so that our kids don’t get too bored, right?
The first thing I did this year was send a letter home with all of the kids in Owen’s class–something that looks like this class parent note — blank.ย
Feel free to download and adjust as necessary.ย ย I asked that his teacher email the document to the parents, and I sent a hard copy with the kids as well.
And here’s what we did last year for Maddy’s classroom Halloween party, and it’s what I’ll modify for this year, and it’s what I’ll probably do again next year when Cora hits elementary school (shhhhh!).
- Parade: The school does a parade, and all students participate. We helped them get dressed, then we shuffled them O-U-T.
- Snacks: We had a blast with this part.ย Spooky snacks are THE best. Seriously.ย But store-bought cupcakes and cookies are reallyย great, too. The kids probably don’t care. They’ll be overloaded with candy after Trick-or-Treat anyway.ย But for the classroom party, we had cupcakes, juiceboxes and water, and:
Boogers on sticks (cheese-wiz with green food coloring). . .
ย . . . ‘eyeballs’ (small powdered donut with gummy LifeSaver in the middle and a chocolate chip in the center) dripping with blood (gel icing). . .
. . . and ‘fingers’ — carrot sticks with almond slivers as nails (glued on with cream cheese)
made the kids totally creep out at the party.
- Games:ย With only a short amount of time to rock n’ roll, we had to get the fun on fast.
- Estimation Game: While the kids ate their snacks, we played a little estimating game with candy corn and spiders. The halloween party estimate game 2013ย can be downloaded here, and ll you need is a jar of candy corn and a jar of spiders!
The Estimation Game kept kids focused–and thinking!–during Spooky Snacks!
- Mummy Wrap:ย All you need are two (or more) teams of about 4-5 kids each, and a few rolls of toilet paper.ย Each team picks one ‘mummy’ and the team works to wrap him (or her) up!ย The teacher is the judge, and the best lookin’ mummy wins!
- Hot Pumpkin: Like hot potato, hot pumpkin requires a small, silly pumpkin or gourd, some crazy Halloween music, and kids sitting in a circle.ย They pass the hot pumpkin around until the music stops, and whomever is caught holding it is out of the circle. The winner is the last person without the pumpkin!ย *For more excitement, and to keep the kids engaged longer, we had 2 or 3 circles going at the same time
- Craft: Keeping it simple is the key here–so we bought a kit from the craft store, and the kids used Foamie stickers to decorate pumpkins and ghosts. Each child had his own set of supplies already separated into sandwich bag so it was easy to hand out crafts, and example crafts sat on every cluster of tables.
- Bingo: Bingo is a great end-of-party game, because it can be played over and over as needed, filling in space or skipping if you run out of time.ย You can use this Halloween GHOST! Bingo Board if you’d like.ย Feel free to download and share but please link back! Bingo away!
Need some more? Got a whole other party planned for you here: ย ย (No joke. . . you can thank me later! Just click the picture!)
Want a few more fun halloween party ideas?
- halloween class party
- more halloween class party ideas
- GHOST bingo!
- spider web craft
- pumpkin matchย
- halloween word search
- halloween ghost cookies
- boo! your neighbors
- alternatives to halloween candy
- halloween jokeย notes
- halloween learning
- hats, cats, and pumpkin grid game
- dinner in a pumpkin
- candy experiments
fyi: Affiliate links are used in this post, which means that every time you purchase something using one of our links, we get at teeny, tiny percentage of the sale. so. . . thank you for using them, friends!
Hi Amy – I love your site, thanks so much for all your great info!
Can you tell me where the Halloween Bingo Board is? I was hoping to create something like that for our class party, thanks!
therese
Therese!
I’m sorry–I must have forgotten to upload it to scribd when I sent this post live! Thank you, thank you, thank you for reminding me!! Here’s Halloween GHOST! Bingo for you, my friend!
Thanks Amy! Just signed up for the volunteer spot to organize my daughter’s class Halloween party. How simple!
Kelly!! YAY! So happy you are using it–let me know how it goes, my friend!!
great ideas! i’m room parent again for jack’s class, but in hoco, it’s totally hands off! it feels like the school says, we want your help, but not really! we have a list of food items that are allowed (because of allergies, which i appreciate, but i love your cute ideas!) and only room parents are allowed to come to the party to help. and the ‘party’ consists of eating the snacks. no games. nothing. i like your estimation games though–maybe i can ask the teacher if we can try them! -d
Oh man. . . so funny how different school districts can be SO different, even though they’re neighbors. I wonder–is it a county thing? school thing? teacher thing?
Cheers Amy,
I am a primary school teacher with a primary 3 class in Scotland (kids are 7). We are having a whole school hallowe’en dress up day next week so I thought I would make it a bit more special for the kids in my class.
Thank you so much for your AMAZING food ideas, I love them all and I am sure the children will love them too.
Thanks again
Craig
thank you, thank you my friend! SO glad I can help–and so excited to see what you come up with!! Happy Hallowe’en dress up day!!
Hi! you have such great ideas! Thank you for sharing them. When you played the estimation game and bingo. Did you give small prizes to the winners? jUst curious if that seems appropriate. Thanks
I think we gave small prizes to the winners, yes! HAVE SO MUCH FUN!!!