Party Planning For A Spectacular Halloween

Halloween Party Planning doesn't have to drive you batty.
Just pick a day or evening that you want to host the party and follow these easy steps.

Host a Halloween party for adults one weekend and plan a party for your children the next weekend.

Click on one of the links below to be taken to that section of the party helps: Children under 8       Children ages 9-11 Teenagers 12-14       Teenagers 15-17 Adults

Children under 8 years old:

Party planning for this age group is a breeze, they don't expect too much from you! Just have fun with them and do a few activities

Time and Length:
Plan this party for during the day on any weekend.
The party will last for about 2 hours.
Try planning it to for after lunch, but ending before dinner.
If more than 6 children will attend, have someone host with you.

Decorations:
Simple halloween items will be best for party planning for this age group, try not to have scary scenes set up.
You don't want anyone getting upset or scared!
Pumpkins, Witches and Bats hanging from the ceiling, ghosts hanging from lights and balloons floating in the air.
Halloween Party Supplies

Activities:
Party planning for this age group means making sure you have a DVD or Video to play for them!

Have a Costume Parade. Line the children up and have them march around in their costumes. Give prizes to each child.

Have a small pumpkin for each guest and allow them to color them using markers. (any age would love this)

Make Halloween Masks out of paper plates.
The children can draw designs on the plates. Either have them cut the eyes out or have a helper with you that can cut out the eyes.
You could also buy premade white face masks and just have the kids color them.

Make Ghosts out of lollipops. Each child gets a lollipop and a couple sheets of white tissue paper.Wrap the tissue paper around the lollipop and fasten with a piece of yarn. Draw eyes and a mouth to finish them.

Party Favors:
Glow Bracelets or anything that glows.
The pumpkins that they decorated.
Small Halloween toys.
Gift certificates for your favorite fast food restraunt. You can get booklets of them inexpensively at this time of the year.
Bubbles

Food:
Cupcakes decorated like pumpkins and ghosts.
Popcorn balls
Bug Juice (kool-aid, lemonade or punch)
Cookies
Cake
Halloween Recipes

Children ages 9-11:

Party Planning for this age group is a little more of a challenge.

Plan to keep them as busy as possible.
Learn some good jokes to tell them and ask them for some of their favorites.

Time and Length:
Allow about 2 1/2-3 hours when party planning for this group.
Planning to have this in the evening and on the weekend will allow more kids to attend.

Decorations:
Decorations for this age group takes seome creativity.
They like scary things.
Have severed hands and body parts scattered throughout the party area.
Halloween props

A head with no body sitting on the floor...,
bats and cats and witches hats scattered around the room.

At this age scary is good!

When party planning this group consider having some monsters show up during the party!
Just set it up before the party to have a couple people dressed as monsters. Have one monster there before the guests arrive.
Have the monster sit in a chair in the corner of the party area,(like a scarecrow) ignoring the children as they gather.
Once everyone arrives, the monster can make a slight movement every so often to see if the children notice!
If they come up to the monster he can jump out of the chair!
Have another monster arrive about half way through the party or have him standing at the exit door as the guests start to leave for the evening.

Activities:
This age likes to be active and competative:
A Costume contest with judging for the silliest, most creative, most colorful, scariest. etc....

Hang apples from the ceiling, one per guest. On the word "go" they eat the apple with their hands behind their backs. The person that can eat the most in 5 minutes wins a prize.
Party Projects

Make their own trick-or treat bag. Have a white pillow case for each guest. Make sure they have been washed and dried before the party. Let them create their own designs with fabric paints.
When party planning this activity,do it early in the party so they have a chance to dry by the end of the party.

Pop the Pumpkin Race:
Divide the guests into two teams. Have them line up in a single file. Put one chair per team about 15 foot from them. Give each child an orange balloon.
On the word "Pumpkin Squash" have the first person in the line run to the chair and pop their balloon by sitting on it. Once their balloon is popped, they run back to the line and tag the next person to go. The first team to have all their pumpkins squashed wins a prize.

Music adds mystery, sets the tone and can be either relaxing or jumpy. Don't forget the music when party planning. Have some Halloween music playing in the background for the party.

A Pinata that they can burst open.
Blindfold each guests one at a time and have them swing at the pinata.

Dancing with a stobelight or have them do the "monster mash" while the stobelight is flashing.

Party Favors:
Gift certificates to their favorite fast food restraunts.
Anything that glows; necklaces, rings, keychains.
Bags filled with Candy
Candy apples
Popcorn balls

Food:
Pumpkin Pizza
Hamburgers
Hot Dogs
Cake or Cupcakes
Cookies
Nacho Chips with green colored cheese (just add some food coloring as you are melting the cheese)
Halloween Recipes

Teenagers 12-14:

Party Planning for teenagers can be simple if you know what the "in" thing is at the time.
Be fore-warned the "in" item changes faster than their crushes!.

Party planning if its a girls party means giving them plenty of time to giggle and talk without anyone interupting.
If party planning is for boys than you just need to give them items to keep them busy..computer games or sports videos.

Time and Length:
This party will last about 2 1/2- 3 hours.
Planning this party for a Saturday night is ideal.

Decorations:
The area where the party is going to be held should be all dolled out.
Decorate the walls and any flat surface with Halloween Items.
Hang bats from the ceiling.
Put staw bales around in the room for the guests to sit on.
Use corn stalks to hide posts or just to soften the corners of the room.
Ultimate Halloween Props

Any motion activated decorations would be great.

Use an orange lightbulb in a lamp or turn down the lighting for the party.

Set up a black light and have some items that glow in the dark.

Activities:
Pumpkin Bowling: fill 2-liter pop bottles with about 2" of sand. Just enough to weight them down a little.
You can paint them white and red to resemble bowling pins or just leave them plain.
Set up a makeshift bowling alley and have the kids use pumpkins as their bowling ball.
Make sure you have a few extra pumpkins on hand.

Take a trip to a local Haunted House or go on a Haunted Hayride.


Dance with a strobe light. Eveyone will love this, even if they can't dance!

Party Favors:
Glow Sticks
Costume make-up
Gift certificates for fast food, music, movies etc...
Pumpkins to take home
Treat bags full of candy

Food:

Bottled water
Bug Juice complete with iced hand
Pizza
Nachos and Cheese
Meatballs and spaghetti
Halloween Recipes

Teenagers 15-17:

Party planning for this age group can be a little tough.
If you are allowing a coed party than you will need to have chaperons around.
If you are party planning for an all girls party just give them time to play with their makeup and hairspray!
Boys will want to take things apart or play the latest video games.
Try planning some time with the kids and some time where they are by themselves.

Time and Length:
Party planning at this age group should include ideas from your child.

Its possible they might want a daytime party or they might want it in the evening. Ask him or her what they prefer.

It could be a 3-4 hour long party.

Once their party starts, they aren't going to want adults around.... just drop in on them every so often.

Decorations:
Plan on using scary and gross decorations.
Body Parts

Activities:
Music and eating, giggling and then some more music and more eating!

You might rent a scary movie for them to watch. Let your child pick one out.

Have them make their own Pumpkin Pizzas. (see directions under Halloween Recipes)

Pumpkin decorating as long as they feel like they came up with the idea.
Have a pumpkin sitting around the room for each guest. Have washable markers or paints sitting around. Let your child know what the paints and pumpkins are for, he or she will be able to get the group started painting.

Party Favors:
For the costume contest you can give out gift certificates for gasoline, fast food places, or music stores.

You could also make household certificates offering your services for: baking their favorite dessert, one trip to the mall, one homemade dinner of their choice.

Yes these are going to be handed out to your childs' friends. You want to be closer to them and baking someone their favorite dessert can be just the way to do so.
Make sure you put on the household certificates that they should allow you a day or two's notice before cashing in the certificate.

Make CD's of their favorite music groups and give out as prizes.

Food:
Bottled water
Soda or Pop of various kinds.. diet and regular
Pizza
Cake or cupcakes
Brownies (put some plastic spiders or toys into the batter before its completely cooked)
Beef Stew
Potato Chips
Vegatable tray
Fresh fruit tray
Halloween Recipes

Adults:

Party Planning for an adult halloween party can be so much fun.
You can have games and decorations at the adult party, that would not be allowed at the childs party!

If your party planning involves alcohol you might want to make eveyone turn in their car keys before the evening gets started.

Time and Length:
Planning a time for this party can be tricky.
Try to aim for a weekend, but you might have to set it up for a weeknight.

It could last 3-4 hours.

Have a themed costume party where you pick a theme such as "50s dance party" and everyone wears a costume that relates to the 50s.

Or why not have a Casino Halloween Party where everyone has to find or make a costume that has something to do with a casino.
Someone could come as a pair of dice, someone as the dealer etc....

Decorations:
For an adult party you can decorate elaborately or use simple decorations.

Party planning is easiest if you pick a theme and decorate for that theme.
Halloween Party Supplies

A casino party would the easiest one to host.
Your guests would wear a costume, you would decorate your party area like a casino complete with gaming tables and games.

Activities:
Have a Costume Contest.
If you are hosting a casino party, you can have different games going on throughout the evening. Give each quest some poker chips when they first enter the room. They use what they have.
If they run out of chips than they have to do something wacky to get more from the banker.
Make them dance like a chicken or do a moonwalk in front of everyone.
If you are just having a gathering of people and don't have a theme picked out you can have a deck of cards laying around, or some other games sitting around.

Mind puzzles like the rubics cube are fun to have sitting around.

If you are having a couples party, you can have all the men get behind a sheet with only their legs showing and have the women guess who each set of legs belongs to.
You can also have the women stand behind the sheet.
If no one has thick make up on, you could have holes cut into sheet and have the men stick their noses out and have the women guess.

Party Favors:
Goodie bag full of those small lotion bottles and items from the dollar store.
Candy filled goody bag
Gift Certificates
Picture of them in their costumes.

Food:
Pizza
Vegetable trays
Fruit
Chips and dip
Meat tray
Chicken wings
Cheese and crackers
Halloween Recipes





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