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Halloween Theme Classroom Party Tips

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Halloween Photo Stand-Ins

A FUN idea for your classroom party would be a personalized Halloween photo standin. Kids will love having their photo taken in one of these! Stand-ins can be personalized with teacher's name and make a great mememto for students. Choose from: Mummy, Skeleton, or Frankie & Bride themes.

Mummy Photo Standin

Skeleton Photo Standin

Frankie & Bride

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Decorating | Activities | Reading | Games | Treats

The following article - thanks to: Everything Elementary

Getting Started

INVITATIONS - Set the mood for your party with invitations that will give the children a sneak preview of your ghoulish plans, and you'll be assured that no-one will want to miss the fun. If you are sending out traditional paper or imprinted invites, consider sprinkling some Halloween confetti inside. As an alternative, consider attaching a computer generated or hand written tag to a flashlight, a ghost pop, a mini witch's hat, or glow bracelet.

Use your imagination! Use curling ribbon, satin ribbon, yarn or pipe cleaners to attach. Some theme suggestions: "Boo Bash", "Boo-Ware: We'll be having a frighteningly good time!", "Monster Bash", "A Ghoulish Gathering", or "Party at the Pumpkin Patch".

Halloween Decorating Ideas:

• Table Decorations - Use solid plastic tablecovers in black, orange, green and purple. Use our snack craft ideas to decorate tables.

• Balloons - Balloons make any room festive for very little expense. Use black, orange and purple colors with one or two Halloween theme balloons (pumpkin faces, etc.) tied in small groupings or hung from the ceiling.

• Haunted House - To create a haunted house, darken a bright and cheerful room to set the right mood, or to make a space feel more intimate and spooky, our black gossamer is the answer. The gossamer drapes and hangs so easily, it is ideal to use if you are attempting to divide an area into smaller sections for a haunted house effect. A clothesline strung strategically across the ceiling provides the ideal way to hang the gossamer. Start with a black light, a strobe light, and some graveyard gates and tombstones. Add lots of spider webs, some monsters and mummies dressed to frighten your guests, creepy sound effects, and some disgusting body parts to touch in the dark. Here are a few suggestions for some easy but revolting body parts: thick balogna = monster tongue, cooked spaghetti = intestines, pickles = knobby toes, peeled hard-boiled eggs = eyeballs, bowl of Jell-O™ = brain). EEEK…The best haunted house your guests have ever dared to visit!

Halloween Party Activities

• Costume Contest - Have a costume parade and award prizes for winners in several different catagories. Best Costume Trophy

• Monster Paws – Using plastic gloves, purchased at beauty supply stores or the deli counter, stick one piece of candy corn at the tip of each finger. Fill the glove with pre-popped popcorn, and tie with curling ribbon, yarn or with a pipe cleaner. Add a little tag with a message, and the hand can be used as a party invitation, table decoration, or favor.

  

• Cookie Decorating - Provide prebaked sugar cookies (or bake your own in Halloween shapes). Set out colored icing, sprinkles and candy corn for students to decorate their own cookies. This also doubles as a snack!

• Pumpkin Painting - Purchase mini pumpkins and provide tempera paints or markers for students to decorate their own pumpkins. This doubles as a party favor!

• Face Painting - If your school doesn't allow students to wear costumes to school...have them wear funny hats and recruit someone to paint faces.

• Creepy Crawlie Pop – For each pop, you'll need 2 black pipe cleaners, 2 wiggly eyes, 1 Tootsie Pop™, and a 4"X4" piece of black foil or black tissue. Wrap the black foil around the sucker, leaving the existing wrapper in place. Cut the black pipe cleaners in half, then center them at the base of the pop and wrap them around the stick, so that there are four legs on each side. Bend the pipe cleaners to resemble legs, then glue wiggly eyes in place. This is an easy craft idea, or a great little favor.

  

• Bugs on a Log – This extra-easy to make treat is a fun activity for little children, and then can be instantly consumed. Ingredients: Pretzel Rods, Peanut Butter, and Chocolate Chips. Dip pretzel rod into peanut butter, (about half of the pretzel should be covered), and then roll in chocolate chips. If you are allowing the children to participate, it is easiest to give each of them a plate with their own portion of ingredients on it. They'll enjoy the making as much as the tasty eating!

Reading Suggestions

• The Halloween Tree By Ray Bradbury
• Franklin's Halloween By Pauletty Bourgeois
• The Pumpkin Patch Parade By Liz Curtis Higgs

Pumpkin Moonshine By Tasha Tudor / Simon & Schuster Trade Sales It's almost Halloween and little Sylvie Ann has found the biggest, fattest pumpkin. But before she can carve it into a giant, crooked-toothed pumpkin moonshine(or jack-o'-lantern), she has to get it home.

More Halloween Books >>

Halloween Game Ideas

• Eyeball Relay – Before the party you will need to purchase at least 12 Ping-Pong balls. Using permanent markers, draw irises, pupils, and bloodshot veins on the balls. Divide your group into two teams. Players race around a specific course with a heaping pile of "eyeballs" (at least six), before handing them off to a teammate. Dropped balls must be retrieved before the handoff. The first team to complete the course wins. (Ages 5 and up—you may want to give players over the age of 12 more eyeballs to carry)

• Bobbing for Apples – This simple game, involving a water-filled tub brimming with floating apples, is a timeless, but forgotten favorite. Most of us enjoyed this game as children at school and church functions, and it will still delight children today, as does any game involving water. (Ages 4-12)

• Reverse Trick or Treat Game – Give each player a bag or goodie box with 10 pieces of candy in it. Have bags labeled with players' names, so they don't get mixed up. Let players know at the start of the game exactly when the game will be ending—this game can be played throughout an entire party if you so choose. The object of the game is to catch fellow players saying one of the following words: Halloween, Candy, Witch, Party, Ghost, Pumpkin

  To help players, post the words prominently on a board where they can be seen often. If someone is caught saying one of the words on the list, that person has to give up a piece of candy from their stash. The player with the biggest haul of candy at the end of the game is the winner! (Ages 7 – 12)

• Witch's Brew – Cut ten pieces of paper in Halloween related shapes, such as ghosts, bats, pumpkins, or spiders. The shapes need to be about the size of a Ritz™ cracker. Place the shapes in a pile beside a small bowl or witch's cauldron. Have straws available for each player, along with a stopwatch, or a watch with a second hand. Using the straw as a vacuum, each contestant tries to pick up the shapes and drop them into the cauldron. The player with the fastest time wins. (Ages 6-12)

Party Treats

• TASTY PLACE CARDS – Bake sugar cookies in the shape of rectangles, and let cool. With colored gel or frosting, write the names of party guests on the cookies, and decorate as desired. A miniature Snickers™ bar attached with frosting will make the cookie stand. This is a great table decoration, and a nice personal touch for a small group or classroom of children.

  

• FROZEN MONSTER HANDS – Fill plastic or latex gloves with red, purple or green punch, and either knot or fasten the end tightly with a twist-tie. Gloves can be purchased at most beauty supply stores, or deli counters. In a pinch, if you are visiting the doctor's office between now and Halloween, most are willing to spare a few. Place wax paper on a cookie sheet, and place "hands" on the cookie sheet. Freeze. When the hands are frozen solid, carefully use scissors to cut gloves away. Float the monster hands in a cauldron of punch. Your punch should be a different color for maximum fright effect!

• CRISPY POP – To make 16 pops, you'll need 1-12 oz. bag of Nestle's TollHouse Chocolate Chips™, 16 ready made Crispy Treats (or make your own if you have the time—cut into 2 ½" X 4" pieces), 16 pretzel rods, and some Halloween colored sprinkles. Cutting little holes with a knife, stick the pretzel rods into the narrow end of the Crispy Treats. Melt the entire bag of chocolate chips for one minute in the microwave, and stir. Dip the end of the "pop" into the melted chocolate, then sprinkle with festive sprinkles. Set pops on a cookie sheet covered with wax paper, and refrigerate until the chocolate sets. If you will be using these as take home favors, or sending them to school, cover the crispy treat portion with plastic wrap and tie with satin or curling ribbon.

  

• DEAD TREES – With scissors, cut one end of a black or chocolate flavored licorice stick to make the trunk and branches. Push the other end through a hole in the bottom of a peanut butter cup. Use chocolate frosting to cement the tree in place.

• BROWNIE SPIDER WEB – Using a 10" tart pan with a removable bottom, or a 12" pizza pan, bake one package of brownie mix according to the directions on the box. After the brownie cools completely, frost with one container of ready-to-spread vanilla frosting. Draw a spiraling circle on the frosted brownie with black gel frosting. Starting in the center of the brownie, "pull" a toothpick out to the edge of the pan to create the web effect. Garnish the web with one of our clip-on crawlie spiders. When you are serving this snack, have enough spiders on hand, so that you can add one to each plate. This same concept works equally well with individual cupcakes.

   

• HAUNTED TREE - Bake and decorate Halloween shaped sugar cookies, such as pumpkins, ghosts or bats. The ready-made Pillsbury Sugar Cookie Dough™ can be rolled and used to make cutouts if your time is limited. Put each individual cookie into a little plastic baggie (not zip variety), and tie with orange or black curling ribbon. Find a good-sized tree branch, tie the cookies with curling ribbon to the branches, and you'll have a boo-tiful centerpiece! For a truly special effect, add twinkle lights to the branches before adding the cookies.

• RITZY BITZY SPIDERS – Ritz™ crackers, peanut butter, pretzel sticks and raisins…all you'll need to create these creepy little critters. Spread one cracker with peanut butter. Break four pretzels in half for each spider, and add pretzel "legs" to the first cracker. Spread peanut butter on a second cracker, and place the peanut butter side down on the pretzel legs. Attach raisins with peanut butter, and…eeeek, your spider is ready to be consumed!

• WITCH'S BROOMSTICK – For this easy and healthy snack, you will need pretzel sticks, and a block of "orange" cheese. Most children enjoy mild cheddar. Slice cheese so that you are working with a piece that is ½" thick. Using a sharp knife, cut cheese into the shape of the base of a broom. Scrape with a serrated edge to give the appearance of bristles, then add the pretzel stick to the top as the handle. The cheese is so easy to cut with cookie cutters—try cutting out little pumpkin shapes and bats too!

  

• SEVERED FINGERS – Using peanut butter as "glue", attach a slivered almond to the tip of an uncooked baby carrot or grahmn sticks.

• SANDWITCH CUTOUTS – Make sandwiches using favorite ingredients, and cutout full-sized Halloween cookie cutter shapes. For ghost shapes, use white bread, and add raisin eyes. For bats, witch hats or monsters, try pumpernickel. Green olives, little pieces of carrots, or chocolate chips make gruesomely good eyes.

Serve up the treats on our Halloween theme paper products for an easy clean up!

Have a GREAT Halloween Classroom Party!

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