School-Age Special Event: Halloween

It has been forever since I have posted about a special event I have hosted. Between having Summer Reading performances and special guests, it has been awhile since I have had to plan one of my own special events.

This month we hosted a Halloween party for our school-age kids. My teens helped plan the activities and crafts, similarly to how they helped with our "Peep Fest" last spring. 

To go along with the Halloween-theme, we had the kids trick-or-treat at every station. We handed out paper bags to all the attendees that had a 'passport' stapled to it. The 'passport' listed all of the stations at the event. They received a stamp at every station they visited AND they got to choose a treat to put in their paper bags. 

1. CRAFTS
It went so well having just two crafts at the Peep Fest that I told my teens to plan two crafts for this event as well.

1a. Masks
My teens found some templates of Halloween masks online. If you Google "printable Halloween masks" you will be sure to find plenty! I printed them off on card-stock and the teens cut them out. We used hole punchers to pre-punch the holes and had yarn at that station for parents to tie onto the mask once the kids were done coloring. 

This was a super simple craft for the kids to do and an easy station for the teens to supervise since all the kids had to do was color their masks! It was also a big hit since the kids could easily make their own costume if they did not wear one to the event.

Materials:
*Masks (printed out on card-stock and pre-cut)
*Yarn 
*Markers/crayons

1b. Paper Pumpkins
My teens found a craft paper pumpkin that used strips of orange paper and brass fasteners. 

The teens pre-cut strips of orange paper. I also found a simple leaf image to use and printed those out for the teens to pre-cut prior to the program. Using a hole puncher, we put holes on both ends of the orange paper and the leaves. 

Materials:

*8 strips of orange paper (hole-punched on both ends)

*1 green leaf (hole-punched once)

*2 brass fasteners

You lay the orange strips flat, putting a leaf on one end. Put the brass fasteners through the holes and open the enclosures. Spread out the strips of paper and, voilà, you have a pumpkin!

2. ACTIVITIES

We had quite a few activities INCLUDING a station for spooky storytelling!

2a. Witch Hat Ring Toss

My teens had found a version of this ring toss on the Dollar Store Mom blog. It is super cute and easy to replicate. Since we were making it for a bunch of school-age kids, I wanted to to be as heavy-duty as I could make it. We made it with plastic traffic cones that we spray-painted black.

We also had a large display sign from an event that had passed we used as a base that we also spray-painted black. I used paper to make the decorations that adorn the hats.

The display sign was heavy-duty plastic but a piece of thick poster-board would also work. After the spray paint dried, I used a box cutter to poke holes where the traffic cones already had holes on each corner of the base. Then, I used a brass fastener to connect the witch hat firmly to the base. 

Materials:

*3 Plastic traffic cones (spray painted black)

*12 brass fasteners

*Black spray paint

*Poster-board

*Paper

*Plastic Rings

2b. Spooky Bean Bag Toss

Using the black wooden board we already have, I taped spooky headstones and ghosts to it and used it for our spooky bean bag toss.

We also purchased bean bags from Amazon, so we can reuse them at future events.

2c. Spooky Storytelling

My library assistant, Ms. Carol, and I took turns telling spooky stories as one of the stops on our library trick-or-treating event. We used a monster-themed poetry book so that kids could drop in to this station and not have missed any part of the story. The one we used, that was a huge hit, was "Monster Museum" by Marilyn Singer.

2d. Spooky Selfies

We hung up a black sheet near our library's entrance and taped a variety of Halloween-themed items to it to create a selfie station. My teens found printable props from Kristen Duke Photography. 

I printed the props out on card-stock and we attached the props to Popsicle sticks for the kids to hold up and take selfies with.

Notes:

This was a SUPER fantastic program! The teens had fun seeing all their hard work pay off and all of the kids had a great time. It is so much fun seeing the kids having fun at a program that we put so much work into creating!