By Elle Cecil
As spooky season bears down upon us once again, keep your kids entertained with these fun Halloween-themed craft activities to decorate the front gate or windows at home. This Sunday October 31 is a great time for you and your kids to spend some quality time getting creative. Many of these activities will encourage your child to develop their fine-motor skills and hand-eye coordination – they’re learning and improving but they’ll think they’re just playing and making some Halloween decorations! Bonus points if you dress up with your kids in something like a fairy or pirate costume to get even more into the spirit!
Paper pumpkin decorating
Print out some pumpkin cutouts or trace some pumpkins onto orange paper for your kids to cut out. They can then decorate the pumpkins with markers, cellophane, tissue paper and other craft items. Ask your child how many different kinds of faces they can make – happy pumpkins, scared pumpkins, angry pumpkins, the list goes on!
Ghost garland
Have your child draw some spooky ghosts on different coloured paper and decorate them how they’d like. You can then holepunch the top of each ghost and have your child thread some string through each hole, so that they can hang up their ghost garland like a scary decoration just for Halloween!
Toilet paper roll crafts
Collecting empty toilet paper and paper towel rolls will give your kids infinite opportunities to create new and creepy characters. Monsters, ghosts, creepy crawlies and even more spooky friends can be decorated just how your child wants, and they can collect them as each roll is finished up!
Paper mache pumpkin
This one may be more suited to older children – it’s a bit more messy and hands on! Blow up a balloon and wrap string or rubber bands around it to simulate the shape of a pumpkin. You can then show your child how to rip up strips of newspaper and paint it onto the balloon with a mixture of equal parts flour and water. Tell them that like anything, making their pumpkin will take patience as they wait for each layer of newspaper and glue to dry. Once the entire pumpkin has a few layers of dried newspaper, your child can paint and decorate the pumpkin to their liking. They can also do this with other shapes and characters for Halloween!
