12 Halloween Crafts For Kids
Halloween is a great focus for craft in preschool settings, with lots of strong themes and colours that can spark ideas for all sorts of creative projects. So stock up your supply cupboard with craft materials in a range of spooky colours (black, orange, green, purple, red) – not to mention plenty of googly eyes – and get ready to celebrate with our Halloween crafts for kids.
Halloween Crafts for Kids
1. Paper plate ghosts
For this project you’ll need some white paper plates, some rolls of white loo paper, black paint or pens, a stapler and some thread for hanging. First get the children to draw or paint two spooky eyes on a plate. Make the rest of the ghost using a few strips of loo paper of varying lengths, torn into a ragged edge at one end, and stapled to the plate at the other. These paper plate ghosts look particularly effectively hung in trees, where they can waft in the breeze.
Paper plates are an easy way to create spooky Halloween ghosts
2. Cotton bud skeleton pictures
Lay out some sheets of A3 black paper or card, along with some glue, some white paint and plenty of cotton buds (some cut in half). Get the children to make skeleton pictures by painting a white skull and sticking cotton bud bones below. This is quite a tricky project, so best done with older pre-schoolers. You could make it easier by helping them draw an outline to follow.
3. Spider webs
There are lots of different spider web craft projects, but here are two ideas. The first involves creating a web by threading wool through holes made in a paper plate. The second is a weaving project, using wool again but wrapped over and under an asterisk-shaped frame of lolly sticks glued together. Finish off by putting a spider in the middle of the web, made from pipe cleaners.
4. Pumpkin bunting
Decorate the nursery for Halloween with strips of pumpkin bunting. Cut out lots of pumpkin shapes from orange card, and get the children to make all kinds of different faces on them, using paint, pens, stickers, and any other decorations they like. Thread them onto string, or staple them onto tape, and hang them up around the room.
5. Creepy-crawly playdough/slime
There are two ideas here. The first is to make a few large bowls of slime, in different Halloween colours (eg green, orange, purple). Add some plastic creepy-crawlies and let the children enjoy some sensory play, finding and burying the toys. The second idea involves making playdough, again in different colours if possible. Get the children to make their own creepy-crawlies using the dough, and adding googly eyes, pipe cleaners etc.
Sign Up to Receive this 20-Part Activity Email Series
6. Blow-paint monsters
For this project you’ll need some sheets of coloured card, some runny paint, straws and googly eyes. Get the children to drip pools of paint onto their card and then use the straws to blow the paint outwards. Blend different colours and blow in different directions to create interesting effects and shapes – multi-coloured monsters with various legs, arms and tentacles. Add googly eyes once the paint has dried.
7. Pumpkin lanterns
To make these lanterns you’ll need some glass jars, orange tissue paper, glue, black paper and LED tea lights. Tear the tissue paper into small pieces, and cut shapes out of the black card to make eyes, noses and mouths. Get the children to glue the tissue paper onto the jars, building up layers so that each jar has a good covering of orange. They can then stick on eyes, noses and mouths to make a pumpkin face. These are very effective with a tea light inside.
8. Witch/monster masks
For this project you’ll need some colourful paper plates and a variety of materials to decorate them with – paint, pens, stickers, pipe cleaners, pompoms, tissue paper etc. Help the children cut out the eye holes first. For witch masks, it’s a good idea to have some pre-cut hat shapes ready for the children to stick on (tip – do the hair first!).
9. Halloween head boppers
Head boppers are great for children who don’t like wearing masks. Use plain headbands for the base of your boppers, and attach two springs; these could be made from pipe cleaners, straws or binding combs (the kind used for binding documents). Make Halloween decorations to stick on the end of the springs – maybe bats or spiders – using card, pompoms, pipe cleaners, googly eyes etc.
10. Pumpkin painting
This activity is a nice, safe preschool alternative to pumpkin carving. Put out a variety of small pumpkins/squashes, along with paint in different colours. The children simply paint the fruit however they want to, and when they have finished you can group them together to make an eye-catching Halloween display.
11. Spider thumbprint pictures
These pictures are simple but effective. You’ll need some sheets of lighter-coloured paper (eg orange or green), black paint and black pens. Help the children make a series of thumbprints on their piece of paper, using the black paint. When the paint has dried, they can turn the thumbprints into spiders by drawing four legs on each side.
12. Monster cupcakes
It’s always good to have a theme for a baking project, and the children will love making (and eating) these monster cupcakes. As well as the cake ingredients, you’ll need icing in various spooky colours, as well as sweets and other decorations. Smarties with a small blob of icing in the middle make good monster eyes – or you can buy edible sugar ones.
