15 Halloween At Home Activities For A Magical, Kid-Friendly Halloween

Updated June, 2024

I wrote this post a while back, when we were all looking for Halloween activities and fun things to do inside (and away from COVID germs). These days, things are pretty much back to normal when it comes to being out and about, and traditional Halloween fun like trick-or-treating. However, I think these Halloween activities are still a great way to bond with your kids and make the entire month of October fun, whether you’re planning on trick-or-treating or not!

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Halloween Activities For The Entire Family

Recreate Trick-or-Treating!

Buy candy like you normally would, hide it around the house (like with an Easter Egg hunt), turn out the lights, and give the kids flashlights. Let them go to town. End the night with Halloween themed snacks and a good Halloween family movie (Twitches, anyone?) Here’s a great list of the best Halloween family movies to check out.

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Story Time

Now is THE PERFECT time to cuddle up in your favorite nook of the house (or in bed) with a good book. One of my fave Mom blogs, Chronicles of a Momtessorian, has a fun Halloween-themed book list for the kiddos.

Bake Halloween Cookies!

One year, it was chilly and rainy on Halloween night, so I took the girls to our City Hall to trick-or-treat indoors and, afterwards, we baked “Halloween cookies” at home. For those not in the know, these are very similar to Christmas cookies, except the sprinkles and icing are black and orange(; Here’s your supply list:

• Cookie mix (I like the Pillsbury Sugar Cookie mix in the tube)
• Sprinkles and/ or edible glitter
• Icing (the Funfetti version is soo good AND it comes with sprinkles!)
• Piping Tubes
• Food Coloring (hello, Orange icing!)
• You can also skip the icing altogether and go with these Candy Icing Pens

Go BIG With The Costumes!

My kids’ favorite part of Halloween is dressing up (NOT the candy, believe it or not). So every year, we make a big deal about letting them pick out several costumes at the store. This year, we’re doing most of our ordering online AND we’re taking it one step further and doing Halloween family PJ’s (they get such a kick out of matching Mommy and Daddy).

Family Halloween Crafts

Full disclosure, I’m not a “craft mom” by any stretch of the imagination. But my girls LOVE crafting, and these ideas from Country Living, Happiness is Homemade, and Easy, Peasy, and Fun are kid-friendly, and so easy that even this craft-challenged Mama can handle them.

Countdown To Halloween

Why not make a whole month out of your Halloween celebration? Start on October 1st and do little activities (HINT: like the ones mentioned in this post) to build up the anticipation for the big day. Yes, it’s definitely extra, but this year has been crazy for all of us. Kids need extra these days, right?

Throw A Family Halloween Party At Home

This year, we’re planning on hitting up our local pumpkin patch right when they open to avoid crowds. If you’re not up for leaving the house, it’s super easy to recreate the best parts of those experiences at home. You can decorate pumpkins, bob for apples, drink Apple Cider, play Halloween-themed games, make homemade kettle corn (Chenée Today has a great recipe) dress up, and do face painting RIGHT AT HOME. And speaking of parties…

Halloween Themed Dance Party!

How to celebrate Halloween with style? Break out some classics (Thriller, the Ghostbusters theme song) and your favorite costumes and jam out with your babies. Here’s a great Spotify playlist with all of my favorites. What songs would you add?

Halloween Scavenger Hunt!

You can do a traditional scavenger hunt like this one where you ride or walk around your neighborhood looking for things like graveyard scenes, giant spiders, scary pumpkins, etc. You can also do a treasure hunt version inside with fun clues to keep your kids guessing. Play Party Plan has an amazing FREE printable for this.

Halloween Movie Marathon!

I won’t bring up Twitches again (oops, I just did. Can you tell it’s one of my favorites?) BUT there are tons of great kid-friendly Halloween movies from classics like Halloweentown, Hocus Pocus and The Nightmare Before Christmas to newer gems like The House With A Clock In It’s Walls. Here’s another great list of Halloween movies save for later.

Halloween Themed Meals!

This is a great Halloween activity if your kids are still young enough to get a kick out of cheese ghosts and pumpkin pizzas. I’m not SUPER creative with the food presentation thing, but there are some great ideas from Momables & Brit + Co that are incredibly easy to put together.

BONUS ROUND! Here’s 4 MORE family Halloween ideas to try with the kiddos:

• Build and decorate a “spooky” blanket fort
• Learn about the history of Halloween (more appropriate for older kids)
• Turn the kids into mummies (use the cheap TP for this one!)
• Halloween slime

What Halloween activities do you have planned this year? Share your ideas below!