Monday night was the Room Mother meeting at my son's school. I had volunteered to be a room mother, though not HEAD room mother, since it our first experience with kindergarten and class parties, etc. So I met the head room mother and the other room mothers, and I am really happy with our group. They all seem pretty laid back and fun. We started discussing the Halloween party and asked if anyone wanted to be the chairperson for it. My friend Aimee nominated me, she knows I go crazy about Halloween. I accepted and now I need to start researching some games, easy projects, and other fun ideas for the party. I am super excited, because as I said, I go bonkers for Halloween. (I am putting out my decorations this week!)
We have about an hour for the party, including the costume parade
Here is a list of things we need for the party~
- candy/treats for the treat bags
- supplies for games
- supplies for crafts
- halloween music
- halloween book/story
- healthy snack/drink
- halloween plates and napkins
- decorations?
- coloring pages (someone else will have to print/copy, my printer is having issues)
I already have a few ideas on some projects~(from Family Fun.com)
Spider Pops
CRAFT MATERIALS: |
 | Black pipe cleaners |
| Lollipops |
| Googly eyes |
| Glue |
Time needed: Under 1 Hour |
1. Holding all four pipe cleaners, center them at the base of the pop and wrap them around the stick once so there are four legs on each side.
2. Bend the pipe cleaner ends to form eight feet.
3. Glue on googly eyes.
Stage a spooky scene by assembling a colony of these winged creatures made from miniature pumpkins and craft foam.
BAT-O-LANTERNSCRAFT MATERIALS: |
| Black acrylic paint |
| Ornamental (miniature) pumpkins |
| Black and white craft foam |
| Hole punch |
| Glue dots |
| Black duct tape |
| Toothpicks |
| Wooden skewers |
Time needed: About 1 to 2 Hours |
1. Cover your work surface with a drop cloth or newspaper, then paint the pumpkins. Allow them to dry completely. (DO THIS AHEAD OF TIME!)
2. For each bat, snip two identical eyes from the white craft foam and use the hole punch to make pupils. Adhere the eyes to the pumpkin with glue dots.
3. Cut matching pairs of ears and wings from the black craft foam (our wings are about 6 inches long). Attach the ears by taping a toothpick to the back of each one, leaving about 1K inches of the toothpick exposed, then inserting it into the top of the pumpkin.
4. Finally, tape a skewer to the back of each wing, leaving a 2-inch point exposed, and push it in place.
at your child's school party or to visitors on Halloween -- fun and festive treat bags like the one below will surely do the trick.
i love this craft, but would it be dangerous to have skewers on the bus ride home? Maybe we could put the bats in a bag and place them in their bookbags.
Scarecrow-head bag/treat bag
CRAFT MATERIALS: |
| colored markers |
| lunch-size paper bag |
| white crayon or chalk |
| goodies |
| stapler |
| raffia |
Time needed: Under 1 Hour |
1. To make one, simply use colored markers to draw scarecrow-style facial features onto a plain brown lunch-size paper bag.
2. Use white crayon or chalk for eyes and teeth.
3. Fill the bag with goodies, then staple the top closed, adding a bundle of raffia for hair.
Mummies/spoons
Party guests are sure to get wrapped up in this activity: crafting mini mummies to take home as favors when the festivities are over.
CRAFT MATERIALS: |
| Wire snips |
| Wooden craft sticks |
| Wooden craft spoons |
| Glue dots |
| 1 square yard of muslin torn into 1-inch-wide strips (this should be enough for at least 7 mummies) |
| Small googly eyes |
Time needed: Under 1 Hour |
1. With the wire snips, trim 2 craft sticks to 2 1/2 inches for the arms and 2 more to 3 inches for the legs. Attach an arm and a leg to each side of a wooden craft spoon (or plastic spoon) using 1 glue dot per limb.
2. Stick the end of a muslin strip to the skeleton with a glue dot and wrap the rest of the length around the wood, using another dot at the end. Wrap 4 or so more strips around the skeleton in this way. Use glue dots to attach googly eyes.
And a few ideas for games~
Which is Witch Game
Use this quiet game to settle the throng before refreshments at a party. The outcome will tell you which partier is the most clairvoyant.
| WHAT YOU NEED: |
 | Cauldron (a bowl) |
| Walnut shells (one fewer than the number of kids) |
| Green or yellow paint |
| Tally sheet |
| Pen |
| Witch's hat |
HOW TO PLAY: 1. Halve and hollow out the walnut shells. Paint the inside green or yellow (one color inside each shell).
2. Players sit in a circle, in the center of which is a cauldron with seven walnut halves (for a party with eight children) lying flat-side down inside it so no one can see the colors. The person who is "It" wears the witch's hat for dramatic effect. All the others pick a walnut half, keeping the color a secret. From his seat in the circle, "It" tries to guess the color of each child's walnut. As he goes from player to player, he gets help from the walnut holders, who try to help him psychically "see" their color by thinking hard about it (green, green, green...). After he guesses, right or wrong, each walnut holder reveals her color to him. An adult or older child sits nearby to tally up the number of rights, and then the game starts over with the next "It." When each player has had a turn at being "It," the player who had the power to "see" the most colors correctly wins.
Mummy Wrap Game
Twist your guests into a frightening frenzy with this simple game that has kids writhing with delight.
| WHAT YOU NEED: |
| White crepe paper(Toilet paper)
|
| Spooky music |
HOW TO PLAY: 1. Divide the kids into teams of two and give each pair a roll of white crepe paper. Instruct one member of each team to race to wrap his partner, mummy-style, at the sound of the music (play something devilish, such as "The Monster Mash"). Kids must use up the whole roll, avoiding the head and wrapping arms separately from the torso.
2. Once wrapped, the mummy hops to a finish line, holding his arms to his sides and trying not to break any of the wrapping.
3. Award the winning team, reverse partners' roles and then start again with fresh rolls of crepe paper.
(not sure if we have enough room in the class to do the race, but maybe we could do it in the gym.)I Went Into a Haunted House: Students sit in a circle. Student A says "I went into the haunted house and saw a witch". Student B contines: "I went into the haunted house and saw a witch and a black cat". Continue around the circle...
Pass the Pumpkin: Ss sit in a circle. Provide a plastic pumpkin for children to pass while the teacher beats on a drum or plays some music. Children pass the pumpkin to the tempo of the music. Alternate between fast and slow. When the music stops the child who has the pumpkin stands and takes a bow. Continue. Pass the Vampire Bat: Supplies: one straw for each child / bat shapes cut out of tissue paper. How To Play: Divide the class into 2 teams and line up each team. Sts pass the tissue bats down the line, teammate to teammate, by inhaling and exhaling on the straw to hang onto or release the ornament. No hands! The first team to successfully pass the bats up and down the line wins! (TP: V: bat, straw, line up, pass. AA: Before the game you can get the students to make the tissue bats).Who am I Ghost?: Blindfold one student. The other Ss stand in circle around the blindfolded student. Spin the student around and then stop him/her facing another student. S says "Whooooooo (like a ghost). Who am I?". The blindfolded S must guess who that student is and call out his/her name.Treat ideas~ (from teachnet.com)
One of my room helpers brought this
treat for our Halloween party. Take an orange and cut the top off as you would a pumpkin. Scoop out the inside as best you can. Then add chunks of fresh fruit. Put the top piece back on and put a wooden stick in the middle for the stem. Draw a jack-o-lantern face on the outside. My room helper put each of these in an individual baggie with a plastic spoon. The children just loved these!!!
Witches Brew~ adorable
This activity works well in the month of October. On the first of the month, bring in a large, black pot that resembles a witches' pot. Inside the pot there is a slip of paper that reads: "I am the Witch of the West and I am out gathering ingredients for our halloween brew." On designated days, place the bags containing ingredients in the pot. The ingredients should be placed in a pot, inside a plastic bag so that no smell escaped. Place plastic bags within brown paper lunch bags and have appropriate names printed on the outside of the bag. On Halloween, empty all the bags and stir the brew.
We could do this at the party, one of the room mothers could be dressed up as a witch, and could do this all at once, and then fill each child's cup with some. healthy and FUN! 1 C. Blood Drops - Red Hots
1 C. Owl Eyes - Peanuts
1 C. Cats Eyes - Peanut M&Ms
1 C. Chicken Toenails - Corn Candy
1 C. Colored Flies - M&Ms
1 C. Butterfly Wings - Fritos
1 C. Earthworms - Corn Curls
1 C. Cat Claws - Sunflower Seeds
1 C. Ants - Raisins
1 C. Snake Eyes - Chocolate Chips
1 C. Cobwebs - Triscuits
1 C. Lizard Gizzards - Shoestring Potatoes
1 C. Bat Bones - Pretzels
Taken from Open the Door for Reading
I am totally open for ideas and suggetions! If you are an experienced room mother, let me know what has worked for you, or what hasn't! Feel free to use any of these ideas for your own parties!
They had me turn the print many times to view it at different angles, and they took turns telling me what it looked like! Then came the project. We threw a drop-cloth on the floor and the kids took turns dumping watered down tempera paint onto watercolor paper. They would tip the paper to make the paint run down and create drips and splashes, 3 colors total. They used sponges and brushes to gently cover the entire page and just let the paint soak in some spots and saturate the paper. They also decorated greeting cards using this same technique, for our school's spaghetti supper auction. This is definitely a messy project, maybe even an outside one. Have plenty of paper towels on hand and a space cleared off to lay the finished project to dry overnight. 
