55+ Halloween Activities for All Ages
As Halloween approaches, everyone begins planning their costumes and searching for spooktacular events & activities! Others may start planning their own costume parties and events.
Will this year be your Halloween party premiere, or will you continue your annual tradition of throwing a fright-fest for your friends?
Perhaps you want to plan a spooky celebration for your youngsters and their friends. Whether they are 5 or 15, there are plenty of sweet & superstitious activities to incorporate (even if they are just a little 'stitious)!
The best of both worlds is a scary party that friends & family members of all ages can enjoy. So, what are some Halloween party ideas for party-goers of all ages?
How Do You Plan a Halloween Party for All Ages?
Do you want to plan a Halloween party your family, neighbors, friends & their kids will enjoy? Here are some entertaining ideas that are equally sweet & spooky for all ages!
- Decorate! The decorations are essential, no matter what else you're planning. Decide whether you want to go with creepy decorations or a cutesy theme. Whichever you choose, this fabulous pop-up Halloween wreath will welcome your guests wonderfully.
- Halloween Decorations Scavenger Hunt: Divide your group into teams & hunt for Halloween decorations around the neighborhood. List 20-30 items to search for, including a jack-o-lantern, skull, ghost, and spiderwebs.
- Costume Contest: Hold a costume contest & issue ballots for all your friends to vote. Vote for the best adult costume, child costume, and family costume!
- Trick or Treat Tasting Game: Search for foods and candies that you can prepare to have the same texture as eyeballs (grapes & olives), brains (steamed cauliflower), toes (cooked baby carrots), etc. Guests will try the foods & guess what they're supposed to be.
- Devilish Drawing Guessing Game: Kill some time with this spooky version of Pictionary. Have each person or team draw the item they choose from a bowl of Halloween words or phrases. Give the winners extra treats!
- Move Like a Mummy: Jive like a jack-o-lantern, mambo like a monster, or do a spine-chilling salsa. How about a hocus pocus hokey-pokey for the kids? Everyone from your toddler to your grandma will enjoy dressing up & dancing.
- Punkin Chunkin: There are plenty of pumpkin tossing games perfect for parties. Create pumpkin bean bags to toss into a pumpkin-patch-painted cornhole board. Little ones can throw mini pumpkins, or you can invite families to build pumpkin-throwing contraptions for regular-sized pumpkins.
- Treat Bag Decorating: Gather a variety of stickers, markers, puffy paint, and glitter. Create a station for kids to decorate bags or buckets before trick-or-treating; invite parents to get involved in the decorating!
- Zombie Walk: It's a spooky spin on the already-sweet cakewalk! Invite guests to bring Halloween cakes & candies. Play music while guests walk around in a circle. When the song stops, everyone stands on the number closest to them; whoever is on the number drawn wins a treat.
- Creepy Charades: Fill a cauldron (or just a regular bowl) with names of Halloween characters & creatures to act out. Have families, couples, or individuals partner to guess the meaning of opposing teams' charades.
- Stew-Cooking Contest & Potluck: Add a savory touch to an otherwise sweet celebration. Invite families to bring their favorite fall stews & have everyone taste-test and vote for the tastiest. This contest takes care of dinner & gives everyone a fun activity to participate in together.
- Pumpkin Painting (or Carving): You can't go wrong with painting or carving. Gather various tools & provide pumpkins or remind guests to BYOP!
- Themed Party: If you want to streamline the festivities, you can opt for an artsy & crafty party, a party for Halloween-loving foodies, or a ghoulish family game night.
What to Write in a Halloween Party Invitation
When you want to invite your friends, neighbors, or relatives to get together and cackle, what can you write in your party invitations? You can share well-known Halloween phrases, quotes, and silly sayings like these 75+ spooky & sweet Halloween sayings.Your creativity will make your friends & family excited to get out, dress up, and participate in all of the "ghoul" activities you have planned. You know, like cool, but creepier.
Perhaps you want to create a unique text message invite using a platform like Punchbowl or Evite. These invitations can be a quick, informal way to invite your friends and keep track of their RSVPs.
For an extra artistic & creative touch, you can send an awesomely unique pop-up card to get your guests looking forward to (or, should we say, dreading) your spooky soiree.
13 Fun Things to Do on Halloween
Perhaps you don't want to throw a huge to-do, but you still want to have fun! No worries, there are many entertaining ways to spend Halloween at home. So what are some other ideas?
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Count down together. You can count down to Halloween for 13 days with Frizz the Wizard's Halloween Candy Mystery. This fun countdown activity gives kids a mystery to solve as they count down 'til Halloween!
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Make a festive meal: Cook spaghetti and eyeballs, jack-o-lantern stuffed peppers, mummy hotdogs, deviled egg spiders, or any other mysterious meals you can concoct.
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Have a Halloween movie marathon: Invite a few friends for a marathon of each of your favorite movies. Or, if you're celebrating with little ones, show Halloween classics, such as It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown or Frankenweenie.
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Make s'mores: Gather chocolate bars, marshmallows, and graham crackers, and enjoy time around the fire with spooky stories & s'mores.
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Pass out candy: Be the designated candy giver at your house. Dress up, pass out the candy, and don't forget to sneak some of your favorite sweets.
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Borrow a Halloween party activity from this list: Even if you're hanging out at home, you can choose one of the party activities & find a low-key way to mix it into your celebrations.
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Make & deliver pumpkin grams. Gather some mini pumpkins & decorate them. You order adorable & spooky pop-up cards ahead of time to give with them. They could say Have a bootiful Halloween or Ghostly Greetings! Leave them on your neighbors' porches or hand-deliver to friends & family.
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Go apple picking. Many apples are ready to pick in October. You can visit an orchard to choose your apples & find a recipe to make your very own applesauce, apple pie, or cider.
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Take a night hike. Enjoy freaking yourself out on your favorite trail when the sun goes down. Everything feels spookier on Halloween! (If you're feeling extra adventurous, take a stroll through the cemetery.)
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Color. If you want a super low-key Halloween, stay in for the night with a spooky coloring book. Turn on your favorite Halloween movie & relax.
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Visit a haunted house. If you don't want to plan a party, but you want to enjoy a fun Halloween tradition, check your area for a haunted house to visit.
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Take a terrifying trip. Search the nation's top Halloween destinations and plan a ghostly getaway. Some favorite spots to spend Halloween include Salem (MA), Savannah (GA), and Sleepy Hollow (NY).
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Photo swap. Remove your family's photos from the frames & insert pictures of monsters instead. You can switch them back on November 1st.
31 Fun & Spooky Halloween Party Activities
You can adapt many party activities for adults & kids alike, but some are better for one group. We have found the best-of-the-best Halloween party ideas, whether you're planning a party exclusively for the kids or grown-ups only this time.
Halloween Party Activities for Kids
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Pumpkin memory game: Make pairs of different jack-o-lantern memory pieces by painting paper plates orange & then adding different faces. Lay them face-down and invite kids to play this spooky & silly memory game!
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Guess how many: Fill a transparent container with candy corn & invite kids to guess how many pieces. The winner takes all!
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Backyard movie night: Choose a kid-friendly movie like Hocus Pocus, Casper, or Mostly Ghostly. Show it on a big screen in your backyard and offer kids cozy seating, blankets, hot cocoa, and popcorn.
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Visit a corn maze: Load everyone up for a corn maze adventure or a hay ride if you live near a farm offering these activities.
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Get crafty: Search Pinterest's thousands of crafty Halloween ideas to find an age-appropriate project for kids. The options are endless, from mason jar pumpkins to paper plate bats to pom-pom spiders.
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Camp under the stars: Invite kids to bring sleeping bags for a sleepover under the stars. Pitch tents, build a fire, enjoy s'mores, and tell ghost stories.
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Spider web cornhole: Paint cornhole boards to look like spider webs & add legs and faces to black beanbags to make them look like spiders.
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Decorate trick-or-treat bags together: Gather plain orange, brown, or black gift bags & provide lots of stickers, gel pens, puffy paint, and sparkles. Kids can design and decorate their bags to fill with candy when the time comes.
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Play with Playpop Explorers & Lovepop Play digital games: Collect all four sets of the Candy Bunch Collection & give kids the opportunity to learn about the art of pop-up cards with their new toys.
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Make matching t-shirts. Whether you use paint, tie dye, or bleach, there are lots of cool ways to decorate t-shirts for Halloween. Give the kids a fun craft to create, take home, and wear again and again.
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Mummy-wrapping competition. Give kids toilet paper & pair them up. See which duo can wrap the fastest & use up the entire roll first.
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Spider race game: Gather lightweight plastic spiders & straws. Kids race their spiders by blowing into the straw and moving them forward to "race" each other.
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"I'm going trick-or-treating, and I'm bringing" game: This is the Halloween version of the traditional "I'm going on a picnic" game. However, kids can name items to bring trick-or-treating, different costumes, or other Halloween-related characters or creatures instead of picnic items.
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Zombie tag: One child is "it," but the others are expressionless zombies. The child who is "it" must make one of the other children smile or laugh without touching them. They can make silly faces or sounds, but no touching! When someone cracks a smile or starts giggling, they become "it" next.
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Face painting: If you're artistic or know someone, you'll be the party host of the season if you offer face painting at your party. Complement their costumes or give them options like a black cat, jack-o-lantern, or ghost.
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Photo booth: Provide a festive backdrop & cute Halloween props for kids to take photos. Print them out, or snap Polaroids as party favors.
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Try a new cocktail recipe: Search for Halloween cocktails on Google & add a new recipe or two to your menu. Your friends will love your weird drink menu.
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Host a potluck dinner: Invite all of your friends to bring their favorite fall dishes & Halloween treats to share.
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Have a costume fashion show: Fashion a DIY catwalk & allow guests to flaunt their creative costumes. Set up lights and music to make the costumes (and your friends) shine in the spotlight!
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Murder mystery party: Plan a murder mystery party to give your friends a night to remember.
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Balloon popping battle: In this fun Halloween party game, guests race to pop balloons tied to other guests' ankles. This hilarious game will have guests tripping or treating.
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Who am I? Tape the name of a Halloween character or creature to each guest's back when they arrive. They can ask other guests for clues about who they are until they can correctly guess it.
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Photo scavenger hunt. Split everyone into teams & take photos or videos of their finds with their phones. Afterward, they can connect their phone to the TV to share their "treasures" with the group. Videos can include dancing with a trick-or-treater dressed as a ghost or singing a song to someone passing out candy.
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Tricky treat tree: Hang plastic pumpkins from a tree with treats inside, like boozy candies.
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Spooky karaoke: Offer a variety of songs, such as "Thriller" by Michael Jackson, "I Put a Spell on You" by Nina Simone, and "This is Halloween" by Danny Elfman. You can never go wrong with karaoke, and it's funnier and more frightful in costumes.
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The grave keeper: Designate one person as the grave keeper & have everyone else fall to the floor as the undead. If the grave keeper is looking at you, you can't move, or you're out. However, if they look away, you can continue to rise. The goal is to stand up entirely without them looking.
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Pumpkin weight guessing challenge: Have guests guess the weights of different pumpkins for prizes!
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Halloween truth or dare: Guests can answer questions about past Halloweens or choose to complete a spooky dare.
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Tarot card readings: If you have a friend who enjoys doing tarot readings for others, you can invite them to give free tarot readings for your party. Consider setting out a tip jar for them.
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Halloween A-Z game: Set a timer, give guests a paper with the letters A-Z listed, and have guests think of as many Halloween-related items as they can before time runs out. One point per letter for which they can think of an object.
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Mind reader: Choose a guest to write down answers to a series of questions or finish phrases. Then, have the other guests attempt to guess how they answered (or read the person's mind). Whoever guesses the most correctly wins!
Whether you celebrate at home with your family, at a party with friends, or by hosting a spooky event for your neighborhood, there are many ways to enjoy every fantastically terrible moment of Halloween.
The best way to celebrate is to share your enthusiasm with people close to you, especially people who love Halloween as much as you do (or even more)!
Say, 'Hey Boo!' with a super cute ghosts pop-up card, 'Love you to death' with a The Nightmare Before Christmas pop-up card, or browse dozens of other adorable & freaky pop-up cards from Lovepop's Halloween Collection. We hope your Halloween abounds with tricks, treats, and ghastly pop-up greetings!