Halloween Party :)

RoxieW

Am planning a huge halloween party for my sons birthday :j. I'll be hiring a big hall, disco and bouncy castle but I need some halloweeny themed ideas for games etc? I'll have about 40 kids to entertain and some games that the dj can do would be good. Also, food and drink ideas and any good party bag ideas would be good as I dont really want to give the usual tat we get in party bags. For small parties I normally buy each child a book but obv I cant do this for 40 kids.

All ideas very much welcome - I want it to be FAB!

Rockporkchop

How old are the children? I was looking at the Book People website this morning and they have quite a few Halloween themed books which would be great as a party bag gift. It would only work out at about 1.00 per book.

http://www.thebookpeople.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10051&storeId=10001&productId=166646&langId=100&categoryId=71156&parent_category_rn=&catEntrySection=about&reviewTypeRef=review.type_user&reviewStatusRef=review.status_live&fromPage=category#extraFeaturesMenu

minerva_windsong

Food wise, this is what my mum used to make for us at Halloween, or at least what I can remember:

- Witches' hats (ice cream cones with the bowl bit at the top cut off, painted with dark chocolate and stuck onto Jaffa Cakes)
- Gravestone sandwiches (pieces of bread cut in gravestone shapes with slices of ham or cheese on top and RIP in ketchup. You could also make them into ghosts)
- Finger sandwiches (sausages, almonds stuck in them for fingernails - it could work without for kids - and covered in ketchup. Might also work as a sausage toast, which is a sausage rolled up in a piece of bread and then toasted under the grill - easier for little hands)
- Brains (spaghetti in mushroom sauce. Also works with tomato sauce/ketchup for guts)
- Slime (green jelly)

Also Nigella Lawson has some amazing recipes in her book Feast for fantastically disgusting-looking Halloween party food.

hobbesy_2

I'm planning a non-hallowe'en related 40th at the minute, and have founds load of inspiration here - http://www.marthastewart.com/halloween-workshop-signup really worth a look around the site

RoxieW

thanks - the kids are generally between 5 and 7

MoonRose77

How about guess the body part game, apple bobbing, doughnuts on strings, sweets in flour - erm trying to wrack my brains to remember all the games I have done each year.

Drinks wise - how about doing a bats blood (red fruit punch) or a witches brew (green) and make a couple of severed hands by freezing water in a glove.

Depends on how far down the scare route you want to go as well - eg this year we are doing a meat market/chop shop idea and going the whole way with body parts, hearts, livers things like this (age range here is 6-16)

Have used these sites to get ideas as well
party games
halloween food ideas

cdsmiler

You can get black spaghetti/pasta too which always looks great (black worms!!) but might not be suitable to cook up for 40 kids!!

I've done the floating coloured ice hand in punch (moulded in a rubber glove), and also a jelly one! Jelly one is a bit more awkward to get out - You'll definitely be cutting the glove away!

LJM

probably not a very clean game but we play bowling obviously the pumpkin as a ball and lemonade bottles as the pins,we do this but lay out a huge sheet palstic underneath it is great fun,you could do it in teams.you could do a wall game along lines of pin tail on donkey something like pin the nose on the witch etc

dogcat_2

I'm doing a halloween party for my daughter next week...much smaller scale though. I too am going to do pin the nose on the witch. I bought a few scary halloween theme tunes...as Im gonna do the party myself (no DJ). I bought lots of decorations from the pound shop and also WH Smith they were even cheaper than the pound shop! I've bought squeezy skull sweets, coins, eyeball bouncy balls, skeleton stress balls, and themed balloons for the party bags which I bought very cheaply at WH Smiths. I'm gonna make some green Jelly and have bought cherryade to drink. Will have to think of some more games though!

jackomdj

I bought a load of cheap toilet roll for DD's party last year & we played "wrap the mummy".

Also made a game where you put your hand in a container & guessed what was in there....we had spiders, snakes & some body parts in gelli baff.

I will try to remember the other games...

laurel7172

I have a set of biscuit cutters that I used to use for pumpkin pizzas, bat biscuits, sandwitches (geddit) etc etc. I think they might have been from GLTC, but they're widely available now.

The cheapest, quickest and easiest thing I ever did, though, was to take a packet of Cadbury's white chocolate fingers and some red food colouring, then paint on nails and knuckles. Instant severed fingers.