With temperatures dropping and the cost of living rising, at-home crafting is the perfect thing to entertain children during half-term. Our Halloween-themed activities are suitable for all ages and abilities and use items you may already have or can purchase inexpensively. Encouraging children to go outside, use their imaginations and get creative, our activities are educational as well as fun.
Engaging children in activities can be a challenge, but with some simple resources, you can bring some focus to your Halloween crafting this year. Our family-friendly activities help to enhance coordination, and inspire children to think, explore, discover and imagine.
Activity 1: Decoupage Pumpkins
You’ll need: scissors, glue brush, sponge or cloth to wipe away excess glue
Decoupage involves gluing coloured paper cut outs onto an object to decorate it. A fun and therapeutic activity for any age or ability, decoupaging pumpkins is an alternative to carving. Save the environment and your purse by cutting old magazines, greetings cards, wrapping paper, fabric or wallpaper into strips. Use PVA or spray glue to stick your chosen cut outs to the pumpkin, and cover with a layer of varnish or PVA glue to seal.
Encourage children to choose a colour theme for their cut outs -colour recognition is a key cognitive developmental step for young children, helping them to recognise and identify objects. This helps their descriptive language skills, which in turn encourages clear communication and understanding.
Activity 2: Stick Puppets
You’ll need: craft or lolly sticks, colouring pens and/or paint, scissors glue, shoe box
Make your own Halloween-themed stick puppets or bookmarks by decorating lolly sticks. Simple, printable outlines for ghosts, cats, bats or pumpkins can be found online – just print or draw the shape, cut it out and glue to the stick. Making characters inspires children to tell stories. Creative storytelling promotes brain development and imagination, develops language and emotions, and strengthens relationships, so encouraging children to do this through play is a great way to aid their learning.
If you’re feeling adventurous, or for older children, you can even make your own stick puppet theatre by laying a shoebox on its side, decorating spooky scenery and cutting a slit in the bottom of the box to put your stick puppets through.
Activity 3: Leaf Ghosts
You’ll need: leaves, white paint, black paint (or pen), scissors, sticky tape or blu tac
Encourage children to go outside and gather some fallen leaves. Sycamore leaves work well, as their shape can be used to look like a head and arms. Pat the leaves dry with an old towel, paint white and leave to dry. Use paint or a black pen to draw three black oval shapes for eyes and a mouth. Cut off the stem and make the ghost’s head round. Make a collection of ghosts and decorate windows or doors at home.
Being outside is an important aspect of learning through play - the fresh air, moving around and being able to investigate the world around them is critical for children’s development and well-being. Wearing old clothes or waterproofs means children can get muddy and enjoy themselves.
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