Fun activities to entertain your grandchildren for Halloween

Halloween is nearly here. If your grandchildren will be spending Halloween with you this year, it’s never a bad idea to have a range of fun activities prepared. From decorating the house and carving pumpkins to watching a scary film, there is a lot that you can enjoy together. This guide highlights a number of fun options to consider in order to make this Halloween one to remember.

Seasonal crafts

Getting creative when spending time with grandchildren is always a good idea so this Halloween, why not try some seasonal themed crafts? This is a favourite idea of Karen from The 3am Diary, who shared her top suggestion for a Halloween activity to enjoy with grandkids:

“We are huge fans of seasonal crafts, particularly using leaves found on scavenger hunts. Lily loves to collect leaves on our walks, which grandparents are able to join in with if they're mobile, and then they can do the crafts when they get back. Favourites here are seasonal wreaths, using the autumn leaves on a circle of paper to make a wreath, even adding other nature treasures like pinecones and conkers. We also like to make a hedgehog out of leaves - simply by drawing the outside of a hedgehog and covering the body with the leaves to look like spikes. Grandparents can help to draw the outline and then they can together stick the leaves on.”

Lavania, from the family blog The Amazing Adventures of Me, is also a big fan of crafts at Halloween, sharing: “Our favourite Halloween activity is arts and crafts which are fun for all of the family. We have made all sorts of spooky creatures with toilet roll tubes, with the addition of some of our craft box essentials and of course googly eyes.”

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Pumpkin carving

Pumpkin carving is a classic Halloween tradition and grandparents can have great fun creating some scary faces with grandkids. Of course, depending on the age of the child, you might want to do the carving yourself and just have the kids design the faces by drawing on the pumpkin with a pen.

Claire, from the blog Life, Love and Dirty Dishes, spoke about her tips and suggested pumpkin carving after first picking one up at a local pumpkin farm: “The best Halloween activity must be going to a local pumpkin farm and choosing your pumpkins to carve. You can get some great photos whilst you are there to treasure forever. And when you get home, you get to carve the pumpkins and drink hot chocolate. You could even roast the pumpkin seeds and munch on them!”

Baking

If you have been having fun carving pumpkins with the grandkids, why not make use of those tasty pumpkin seeds and baking something nice to eat? This is the recommendation of Jo from the blog Tea and Cake for the Soul, who said:

“Pumpkin carving is a favoured Halloween tradition, but it can often be quite tricky for younger children and older adults. Why not teach your grandchildren how to be waste-free and have a fun baking session with the inners of a pumpkin?

“It's easy to roast seeds which are super healthy, make a pumpkin soup for supper, or bake some treats by making pumpkin muffins or pumpkin cookies. You could even use some Halloween themed cookie cutters.”

Decorate the house

Decorating the house at Halloween is a must if you have grandchildren visiting. They will love putting pumpkins in the window, cobwebs in the corners, and any other creepy bits and pieces you can think of. You could take things a step further by making the decorations with the kids. This is something that Jo from A Rose Tinted World recommends grandparents to try:

“I love to do all manner of crafts in the run-up to Halloween, and a fun activity for the kids is to make Halloween decorations such as pom-pom spiders, yarn spiders webs or scrap Halloween wreaths. Not only are these fun but they help decorate the house!”

Watch a spooky film

Many people love to sit down and watch a scary movie on Halloween, and while you don’t want to frighten your grandchildren, you could consider an age-appropriate spooky film to enjoy together. Do a little bit of research, turn down the lights, grab a bowl of popcorn, and enjoy a bit of light-hearted fun together. Movie review website Rotten Tomatoes has collected a great list of Halloween films to consider for children and if you are unsure if a film is suitable, find out the movie’s age rating before pressing play.

Halloween films for children

• Goosebumps
• The Addams Family
• Frankenweenie
• The Nightmare Before Christmas
• The Dark Crystal
• Ghostbusters
• Casper

Build a scarecrow

Scarecrows are classic Halloween iconography and can be a fun thing to build with your grandchildren. If you have a garden at home and the weather is decent, gather the necessary items and have fun making something scary. All you really need is some old clothes and to stuff them with newspaper, with a bit of string to tie things together and to keep it upright. Let the kids get involved and choose from the old clothes available.

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Go trick or treating or just dress up 

Of course, trick or treating is a tried and tested Halloween activity to enjoy with your grandchildren. If you are not sure about knocking on the doors of strangers, you could always pay a visit to a friendly neighbour you know or visit a family member’s house with the kids.

Part of the fun with trick or treating is dressing up in a spooky costume so if you don’t fancy going out, spending time with the kids dressing up and creating costumes can be just as fun, especially if you let the grandkids get involved with making their own costumes.

Enjoying the fun of creating costumes and dressing up is something that Carly from the family blog Mom of Two Little Girls recommends for grandparents to enjoy with their grandchildren. She shared:

“My daughters (8 and 10) absolutely love dressing up for Halloween. They spend months deciding on just the perfect outfit. Much of this decision making is done with grandma and grandad who are way more fun and indulgent than I am. When Halloween comes around, they love to share their outfit creations with their grandparents in a series of spooky Halloween staged photos, before we head out trick or treating. It's become a fun family tradition that both the kids and grandparents cherish.”

Grandad Kevin, who is the founder of Metro Precision Painting,  spoke about his favourite Halloween activities to do with his grandkids. He shared how dressing up is a key part of the holiday and taking photos of their amazing costumes can be a lovely way to remember the occasion:

“Every year, for Halloween, my family does something unique. It's fun to me because I get to see my grandchildren really take on their Halloween persona. The experience is one that they'll never forget. They are completely transformed into the person that they are pretending to be. At the end of our evening together, I take pictures of them in costume so that they can cherish this memory forever. For example, last year my granddaughter wore a beautiful princess dress. She was so cute, but she wanted to be scary too. She grabbed a plastic mask from one of her siblings' bags and wore it out trick-or-treating.”

Halloween scavenger hunt

If trick or treating isn’t something you want to do or if you are looking for something else to enjoy outdoors, Sarah-Marie, from the family blog Tired But Crafty Mummy, suggests organising a Halloween scavenger hunt: “My boys love Halloween. For them, it’s much more than just a time for trick or treating. They love going around our village admiring all the decorated houses and seeing what they can spot. This Halloween Scavenger Hunt is a perfect activity for grandchildren to have a go at with their grandparents.”

Halloween activities to enjoy with grandchildren

• Seasonal crafts
• Pumpkin carving
• Baking
• Watch a spooky film
• Decorate the house
• Build a scarecrow
• Go trick or treating or just dress up
• Halloween scavenger hunt

Hopefully, the above suggestions have given you a few ideas for ways to spend Halloween with your grandchildren.

READ ALSO: Tips and advice for grandparents

If you are looking to make your home safer in the future, deciding to install stairlifts can be a smart option. Stairlifts give you the security, access, and peace of mind to continue enjoying your home long into the future and allowing you to invite the grandchildren over for many more Halloweens to come.

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