It’s the spookiest time of the year! Halloween can be a fun event for children, with scary and exciting decorations on home fronts, dressing up in costume, and of course – free candy!
For Autistic children or children with sensory issues, Halloween may be a tricky time to navigate (pun intended), with concerns of uncomfortable costumes, scary decorations, and unfamiliar people ringing the doorbell shouting “trick or treat!”.
To help prepare your child for Halloween festivities, it can be helpful to share a social story well beforehand that shows what they can expect to happen on Halloween and why people go trick or treating.
There is a huge range of frightfully fun activities for children to partake in this Halloween to help make the season fun for all. We’ve put together the ultimate guide for festive and fun activities to do with your children this Halloween.
- Halloween Guessing Game
Find some spooky or creepy foods and hide them in boxes with holes for little ones to feel so they can’t see what’s inside (empty tissue boxes work well).
After some ideas? Use cooked spaghetti for witches’ hair, peeled grapes for eyeballs, popcorn kernels for teeth, and baby carrots for toes!
2. Spider Pick
The spider-pick involves hiding plastic spiders in a bowl of uncooked rice.
Then your little one can use their hands to find the spiders lurking within!
A great simple sensory activity perfect for Halloween.
3. Halloween Charades
Charades with a spooky twist!
Simply act out anything with a spooky theme – such as a ghost, skeleton, spider, etc. while people guess what you are acting as.
Can be played with 2 or more people.
4. Pin the Spider on the Web
A spooky version of Pin the Tail on the Donkey ‒ draw a spider’s web on a big piece of black cardboard using white pens or chalk, then attach a piece of double-sided tape to a cardboard spider.
Kids then take turns to stick the spider on the web, blindfolded.
Whoever ‘pins’ the spider closest to the centre of the web wins!
5. Pumpkin Decorating
For a sensory, crafty activity help your child decorate the outside of a pumpkin with different textured objects.
Simply glue things like feathers, beads, uncooked rice and pasta, sequins, and sponge to the pumpkin in a cool pattern for a unique Halloween decoration that doubles as a sensory toy.
6. Witches’ Cauldron
Help your child make their own witches’ brew! All you need is a toy cauldron and different ‘ingredients’ they can add to create their own magic potion.
Some ideas include cooked rice with pink dye to recreate the look and feel of maggots, fill a bowl with coloured water beads for make-believe magic jewels, or get a box of bone-shaped dog biscuits to recreate spooky skeleton bones they can crush up.
This sensory activity is fun and interactive!
7. Paper Plate Masks
Get crafty this Halloween and help develop your child’s fine motor skills with this creative activity.
Simply gather paper plates, string or elastic, scissors, colouring pens or pencils, crayons, and any other crafty items you’d like to decorate with.
Cut out some eye holes and holes for the string in the paper plate and let your little one get creative!
8. DIY Skeleton Puzzle
Target your child’s problem-solving skills with this spooky DIY puzzle!
Create your own skeleton puzzle by printing out a picture of a skeleton and sticking it to a thick piece of cardboard.
Then, cut the cardboard into a few different pieces and challenge your child to recreate the skeleton.
For more fun Halloween activities to do at home this Halloween, visit https://www.peanut-app.io/blog/halloween-activities-for-kids
Here at Freedom Social Skills, we provide a number of Social Skills Classes for children aged 3 – 18 years.
Students learn new social skills through a variety of fun and engaging activities, including Minecraft Classes, Art Classes, Imaginative Playgroups, and more. These classes are run by our trained professional team of staff who confidently assist in the development of socialisation and communication skills.
Does this sound like something that could benefit your child?
