Toddler Halloween Party Ideas

[SilverSabre25]

My DCKs range in ages from 12 months through my DD who turns 3 at the end of October. There are a total of 6 of them including DD. I decided to do a Halloween party for everyone on October 28th and am starting to plan it. The party doesn't really have a set time yet, nor do I know if I will set a time--it might be an all day sort of thing.
So far I have:
-A "make your own Jack-O Lantern" kit of foam stickers I got from Target--simple little foam Jack-Lanterns
-A container of foam stickers that are pumpkins, ghosts, and bats that I was thinking of getting a print out of a "haunted house" for them to stick the stickers on and color
-Doing some Halloween songs and fingerplays
-I was thinking of baking cut-out sugar cookies (letting the kids help with the baking and cutting out) and then letting them each decorate the cookies with frosting and sprinkles--and letting them take several cookies home with them (like for mom and dad)
-making playdough (orange with pumpkin pie spices in it) that they can each take home with them.
-I asked the parents to bring the kids in costumes so I'm going to be doing pictures of course, and maybe a "parade" around the neighborhood or something

I'm interested in some ideas for games to play, or food ideas for lunch and snacks, or anything really...I'm new to this party planning thing!

edited to add: I'm not necessarily going to use ALL these ideas this year or for the party itself! Some might get used in the weeks leading up to Halloween. It's my style to gather half a million options and then pick and choose what I want to use! Plus, I'm likely to be doing this again next year and it won't hurt to have a nice database of ideas for these things.

[ddnanny13]

One snack idea would be puffcorn (the seedless kind) and take spray butter and add a little food coloring to make it "monster food."

[AfterSchoolMom]

Halloween "hot potato" with a little fake pumpkin (use kid friendly halloween music)? I used to play that with my toddlers and they loved it.

Also, there are a TON of halloween/pumpkin themed books out for story time.

[gkids09]

I also do a Halloween bean bag toss..I get two or three of those plastic jack-o-lantern candy buckets, and then I filled some Halloween socks with rice (or beans, can't remember), tied them together, and that's our bean bags! The kids LOVE this game, and we have used regular buckets and stuffed turtles, fish, etc when it's NOT Halloween! lol
Another one I do is find the bones...Sounds a little strange, but I just get a bin and fill it about half full of rice (or mac noodles, or whatever you wanna do.) I don't cook it, because my dck are in their costumes too, and that would be gross. I get plastic bones from Dollar Tree from their Halloween decorations and stick them down in the rice. The kids can dig for them as long as they want. If you have a sand/water table, you could just add the bones there too...
We have done a REAL jack-o-lantern before too, where the kids can dig the seeds out if they want to, but I always do the knife of course. I used the mini pumpkins one year to make each kid. The stem was the nose.
You could use the pumpkin seeds for counting, or roast them, or dry them out and plant them maybe? I don't know if that would work or not. Never tried it!
Well...That's it for not I think. Hope it helps a little! Our Halloween party is always on Saturday afternoon, and we do all our games/activities outside, and the parents all come and bring something for the party. So some of the things we do may not work for your day, but maybe some of it will!

[SunflowerMama]

These are some great ideas!

We'll definitely do the bean bag toss with the jack-o-lantern bucket (what a great idea!!) and decorate cookies. I'll also have the kids come in costume.

I also just purchased a few sets of crafts from oriental trading.

A majority of my dcks are 3-4yrs so we are going to do a Halloween necklace craft, a photo frame craft and then I'm going to get everyone a little pumpkin and I got a set of jack-o-lantern faces that just stick on the pumkins so you don't even have to worry about carving. I think all of that will keep us pretty busy that day.

Just a side note: For those of you having the kids come in costume what are you going to do about naptime? I'm sure some costumes are probably not too comfy so are you just asking parents send the costumes with the kids to change in and out of or will you just have them nap in their costumes?

[QualiTcare]

i never wanted to send my kids in their costumes because i was afraid they'd be ruined by the time it was time to go trick or treating. after a couple of years i had some collected so i could send them in old ones or i'd go to the dollar tree and get some junk they could just wear at daycare.

the 3 year olds could use those little mini pumpkins and do a race (or an obstacle course type thing with cones if you don't do races - i don't like races) and they could push the pumpkins with their noses. i had school agers do that once and they thought it was hilarious - and it was.

[SunflowerMama]

I just made a flyer for the party with the activities we'll be doing that day.

I emailed all the parents, attached the flyer and made sure they were all ok with a Halloween Party and didn't have any objections.

Hopefully they will all be ok with it because I think it's going to be so much fun!! I just saw the Halloween sugar cookies I want us to make at the store last night.

[SilverSabre25]

Awesome suggestions and ideas, thanks everyone! I'm getting very excited for it...I'm such a big kid, lol. I think that one thing I'll serve is some of the Cinnamon Vanilla Applesauce I'm getting ready to make today or tomorrow. That will be healthy and fallish to go with the not-so-healthy things we'll be making and having.

[MarinaVanessa]

I'm also one of those big kids lol. I LOVE Halloween and Christmas, not because of the costumes and gifts etc. but because of the decorating! I love making crafts with the kids and putting them up for display.

Pumpkin/tissue craft: I print out pumpkin templates onto orange paper for each kid and let them cut it out (or pre-cut for the smaller ones), they glue them onto paper of whatever color they want and then squish and glue pre-cut 1" orange squares of tissue paper onto the pumpkin. Super easy, super fun and I love putting them on the front window. Sometimes we skip gluing the pumpkin onto paper and just hang them from the ceiling.

Spider handprint/fingerprint craft: The kids press their hand (everything but the thumb) onto black paint and press it onto orange or purple paper and then do the same with their other hand to make a black spider with four legs. Then they make fingerprints around the big spider and draw legs on them to make one big spider and lots of baby spiders. They finish it off by gluing googly eyes onto the big spider and we hang them up when they dry.

Spider web craft: cook noodles and then have the kids dip the noodles into a bowl of glue (add white paint to the glue so that it dries white like a web). Have the kiddos make a spider web by laying the noodles out onto wax paper (after dipping onto glue). When it dries the noodles peel right off and can be hung. I give the kids black spiders to glue onto the webs and then we hang the webs from the wondow or ceiling. Also makes for a great decoration.

These are just some of the things you can have the kids do to prepare for and decorate for your party. The kids love that they helped make the decorations, then after the party you can send these home with them.

We have done a mummy wrap in the past. You give the kids rolls of toilet paper and they wrap each other up like mummies. They had lots of fun.

[missnikki]

How about little tissue ghosts:
Place a kleenex over and around a tightly wadded-up piece of paper, then tie it closed with floss. Draw a little pair of eyes, and an oval for a mouth saying "OOOh". You can make a ton of them and hang them near vents and windows so they 'float ' when there's a draft.

I also have used a clear plastic food glove, and filled the fingertips with candy corn (looks like fingernails) and filled the glove with popped kettle corn, and tied shut. Cute snack idea.