Help! Need an Emergency Halloween Craft!

By Chrisjob

Friends,

I just recieved a special request to take a group of teenagers to do a service project at our local YWCA Family Center: a housing facility for families who are temporarily in need of a home. We were asked to provide activities for the children of the families for an hour and half tomorrow afternoon.

Though the Family Center has an excellent playground (a dragon made of recycled tires, and a pirate ship!), the weather is unpredictable, so I need to plan an inside activity.

Please suggest ideas for a halloween craft (or crafts) that would appeal to kids of a variety of ages, and that uses readily available materials.

Thanks!

Tagged:
halloween craft service charity fall october

Did you like this article?

October 20, 2007

2 comments | 868 views |

Chrisjob's blog (736 posts)

Featured Writer
Subscribe to this blog
Member since: 01/22/07
About: Feel free to have a peek at my website: ChrisMGardner.com

More by Chrisjob

Comments

» All comments

optimist

October 20, 2007

I ran out of space so here is the rest of it:Flour castle – pack ordinary flour into a basin then tip it out onto a tray to make a ‘castle’. Stand a coin on edge in the top. Contestants take turns with a table knife or plastic ruler to slice off chunks of ‘pudding’. Whoever makes the coin fall has to retrieve it with their teeth – make sure they know this before they compete. You could use a suitable sweet (candy) instead of the coin. If you line the tray with a large sheet of paper first, it is easier to get the flour back into the basin for another go.Rummage race. Have some simple clothes, eg a large pair of wellies (rubber boots), a large pair of gloves, an apron, a woolly hat, the same for each team. Contestants are in teams of say 4. Each contestant has to put on the clothes, run to the other side of the room, pick up one of 4 objects (a ball, a skittle etc) and run back with it, take off the clothes and the next person in the team has to dress in them and fetch another object, until all the objects have been fetched, first team to finish wins.

optimist

October 20, 2007

As well as crafts you could play old fashioned games – some are very traditional for Halloween. Bobbing for apples – does this need a description? Have a dish-washing bowl filled with water on the floor (on a towel!). Float small apples on it (you need at least 4 or 5 inches of water under the apples) and let contestants try and grab an apple with only their teeth. Have some towels and a couple of spare tee shirts available, and don’t allow horseplay.Alternative: swinging apples – tie a string to the stalk of an apple and have a taller person hold it up. Contestants have to try and take a bite out of the apple, if they succeed they win the apple, if they don’t they get it as a consolation prize!Fan the kipper: cut a page sized simple fish shape out of a magazine page. Have a stack of ‘fans’ ready – about four double pages of a broadsheet newspaper folded into quarters. Space the contestants across the space and have them fan their fish along a shortish track. First home wins. It is much harder than it looks as the fish tend to ‘stick’ to the floor by the downward pressure of the fan – there is a knack to it!