Musical Chairs – Decorate the chairs with spider webs and mini plastic spiders and play Halloween sound effects. Leave one or two chairs without the webbing and see just how many kids scramble for them instead of the web covered ones!



Pin the Nose on the Jack-O-Lantern – All you need for this game is a huge piece of orange poster board, a black Sharpie marker, a laminated nose shape and tape of some sort. Create a whole Jack-O-Lantern face minus the nose on the poster board, cut out, and hang on a wall. Place some tape on the back of the nose and let the kids try to stick it in the right place. You can modify this game to be Pin the Wart on the Witch, Pin the Mouth on the Ghost…whatever you would like.

Bobbing for Jack-O-Lanterns – On oranges, draw Jack-O-Lantern faces with a Sharpie marker. Place in a huge tub or wading pool of water and have the kids bob away!

Witch, Witch, Ghost! – Instead of the old standby “Duck, Duck, Goose", just add some Halloween characters and let the kids play. Any combination of ghost, witch, goblin, spider, black cat or other popular Halloween character can be used. If you don’t want to use scary characters, you can make it Pumpkin, Pumpkin, Jack-O-Lantern!

Guess How Many Candy Corns – In a container you purchase from a dollar store, place candy corns until it just barely will close. Have the party guests guess how many candy corns are inside. The person to guess closest wins the jar and all the candy corns inside! With bigger jars, you can put mini candy bars or lollipops instead of candy corns.

You can also use the costumes the kids are wearing at the party to create fun and exciting games. If someone comes to your party dressed like a princess, have them lead the game “Princess Says". Or if you have an Elmo, you can play “Elmo May I?"

When you plan a get-together with little kids, be aware that no game will hold their attention for more than 15 minutes or so. Prepare 3 or 4 different games, so you can switch off easily when the guests lose interest.