Culture
13 Halloween Party Games to Get You in the Spooky Spirit
At your next Halloween party, play these new and fun games that are great for kids and adults alike.
Halloween Game: The Hanging Tree
In the original version of this Halloween game, there were 12 red apples and 1 green apple to match a poem said while spinning the children around. For a small group of children, you don’t need so many. Hang the apples by long strings from a tree branch (by twisting the strings you disguise where the green apple is). For each child’s turn, blindfold him or her, untwist the apples, and set the youngster toward the branch. If he or she picks the green apple, he or she wins a prize (and the apple). Put up a new green apple and give another child a turn. Give these DIY Halloween decorations a try to make your home look super festive.
Halloween Game: Pass the Pumpkin
Have one fewer small pumpkins than players. Sit youngsters in a circle. Play Halloween music while they pass the pumpkins around the circle. When the music stops, the player without a pumpkin is out, but he gets to take a pumpkin with him. The rest of the players continue to play until there is a winner, who will get a prize. Once you’re done playing any of these Halloween games it’s time to carve the pumpkins! Try these pumpkin carving patterns to take your jack-o’-lantern to the next level.
Halloween Game: Balloon Sweep Relay Race
Set up a course that zigzags across the yard (or playroom). Use colored rope tied to stakes (or chairs) to mark it. Divide the guests into two teams. Give each team a small broom and a blown-up balloon. Each member of a team must sweep the balloon around the course and back before the next member goes. The team to have every member finish the course first wins. Having trouble coming up with a costume idea for your kid? Try these cheap DIY kids’ costumes that basically anyone can make.
Halloween Game: Pin the Tail on the Black Cat
Hang up a large picture of a black Halloween cat without its tail. Give each guest a tail with a piece of sticky tape on its base. One by one, blindfold the guests, turn them around, and then set them off toward the cat picture and see where they put the tail. The guest who gets the tail closest to its rightful place wins.
Halloween Game: Halloween Story Game
Include the beginning of a ghost story in your party invitations and ask each child to come to the party with an ending to tell. Hear all the endings and let the guests vote for the funniest, the weirdest, and the spookiest. Need some ideas? Pick from these ghost stories from the haunted places in the world.
Halloween Game: Guess the Ghost
Have one child leave the room to be “it.” Then let another child hide under a white sheet. The remaining children will change places with each other. Call in the missing child and see if he or she can name the ghost by figuring out who in the group is missing. The child who played the ghost then becomes “it” and leaves the room.
Halloween Game: Build a Scarecrow
Divide the guests into teams. Give each team a pile of old clothes (including hats), pillowcases for heads, newspapers or hay for stuffing, ropes for tying, and markers for making faces. Give each team 15 minutes or 20 minutes to make a scarecrow. Give prizes for the silliest and the scariest and hang them outside. This is what Halloween looks like at the happiest place on earth.
Halloween Game: Mummy Wrap
Divide guests up in pairs; give each pair a roll of toilet paper. One team member will be the wrapper, the other will be the wrapped mummy. The first team to use up its roll wins. Or you can give each team two rolls of toilet paper and after the mummy is wrapped, he or she must wrap his partner. The first team to empty both rolls of toilet paper wins.
Halloween Game: Identify What You Feel
This is one of those Halloween games many people remember from childhood. Line up five opaque plastic dishes and cover them all with a black cloth. Let each guest stick a hand in each dish, under the cloth so that the contents can’t be seen, and try to guess what it really is. You can tell the guest that the first dish holds guts (the insides of a pumpkin) and see what he or she guesses. The second dish is said to hold brains (damp coarse sponge). The third is said to hold veins (cold, cooked spaghetti). The fourth is said to hold cut-off fingers (cocktail sausages) and the fifth to hold skin (pieces of a soft flour tortilla). The person who guesses the most actual contents wins.
Halloween Game: Apple Pass
Divide guests into teams and line each team up. The first in line for each team is given an apple under his or her chin. Without using any hands, the apple must be passed to under the second team member’s chin and from that chin to the next until all the members of the team have held the apple. If the apple drops, it must start at the beginning again. The first team to successfully pass the apple down its row of members wins.
Halloween Game: Doughnut Race
Divide guests into teams. Hang as many doughnuts as guests from a tree limb or a clothesline by a string. Without using hands, each guest must catch and eat a doughnut. The first team to finish its doughnuts win.
Halloween Game: Bobbing for Apples
This is probably one of the oldest Halloween games on record. You fill a large tub with cold water and set it on the ground or the floor of a porch. Float some clean, stemmed apples in the tub and invite guests to try to catch an apple with their teeth—no hands allowed. Anyone who gets an apple deserves a prize.
Halloween Game: What Am I?
Have the kids draw Halloween-themed pictures on a piece of paper and tape them to each guest’s back (without the guest seeing what it is). While others can only give yes or no answers, each guest must guess what he or she thinks is drawn on the paper on their back. Next, find out the history behind 14 spooky Halloween superstitions.