Candy, costumes, pumpkins, and spiders – oh my!

As the leaves change and the air gets slightly cooler, we’re preparing for a spooky season. Things might look a little different this Halloween – but don’t worry, we have rounded up a few fun kids’ activities to get you and your future engineer in the spirit from the comfort of your home!

1. Create Your Own Halloween Costume

While everyone is at home, why not spend time on those Halloween costumes and create them yourself? Maybe you can hold a family contest to see who can create the best costume. Make it educational and have everyone follow the Engineering Design Process! Call your friends and family on FaceTime and let them be the judges. Or even better, hold the contest on FaceTime and compete against others!

2. Tell Scary Stories

Not good at coming up with stories on your own? Find a good, kid-appropriate, spooky storybook at your local store or through your favorite eBook reader app! Enjoy using spooky voices and maybe a sound effect or two on a Halloween soundboard! Then, prepare your flashlight or candles and set the scene to tell stories all night!

3. Set Up a Carnival In Your Backyard

You can find all kinds of carnival-style Halloween games online. Grab a roll of raffle tickets, and you can even establish a prize system. Encourage kids to add up their tickets and see which prizes they can “afford” from the prize booth!

4. Decorate a Chocolate Haunted House

Like Christmas with Gingerbread House Kits, Halloween brings Haunted House Chocolate Cookie Kits! Bring out the creativity with a spooky, sweet treat.

5. Have a Halloween Movie Marathon

Spend the evening binging the silliest or spookiest Halloween movies. Whether it’s Hocus Pocus 2, ParaNorman, Hotel Transylvania, or Monster House – there are tons of Halloween movies on all your streaming services to keep you busy.

6. Make Halloween Educational

Look around you! Are there things that happen this time of year that you can use as a teaching moment? Maybe the spiders have started to leave webs around – take this opportunity to teach kids all about spiders! Grab one of those decorative skeletons and see if your kids can name the essential body parts. Or, host a fun Halloween-themed shadow puppet show and explain to kids how the sun changes throughout the day and affects shadows!

7. Paint Spooky Rocks

Take a trip to the backyard and collect a few smooth stones or rocks! Have your kids transform them with ghost or zombie faces, or make them cute little pumpkins? Find a kit with everything you need online, or purchase googly eyes, paint, and some paint brushes and find your own rocks! You can take the painted rocks back into the backyard or even hide them around your neighborhood or a local park for others to find.

8. Turn Your Living Room Into a Haunted House

See how creative you can get at home! This could be especially fun with older kids with an enormous imagination. Spider webs, eerie colored lighting, fog machines are just a few possibilities. You’d be surprised at the life-like ghosts (no pun intended) you can create with some cheesecloth, chicken wire, and the perfect lighting!

9. Carve or Decorate Pumpkins

Of course, it’s a classic. See who can develop the most creative pumpkin designs or use different carving techniques and tools. Don’t want to bring out the carving utensils and get pumpkin gunk everywhere? Try painting your pumpkins or decorating with other craft materials instead!

10. Host a Halloween Science Lab

Conduct fun experiments with the little ones by transforming your kitchen or dining table into a spooky science lab!

Start by making “witch’s brew.” This is a great way for kids to feel like they’re actually doing a mad scientist-style experiment while being completely safe in the process.

Just remember to keep this experiment in an open container (like your bowl) and not a closed container (anything with a sealable lid or cap). By sealing the mixture, you could create a little pop and a BIG mess!

Witches Brew Experiment

What You’ll Need:

• A clear bowl – aka the cauldron (plastic or glass works best)
• Baking soda (about 2-3 tablespoons)
• Vinegar (½ cup)
• Green or purple food coloring
• Dish soap (1 teaspoon – optional – it makes the fizz last longer)
• Glitter (optional – for some spooky sparkle!)
• A small spoon for stirring
• To make things even more fun, dress up in lab coats or costumes to really set the mood and let kids feel like mad scientists!

Instructions:

1. Place your cauldron on a tray or surface (like your kitchen counter) that’s easy to clean in case of spillage.
2. Add the baking soda to the bowl, then sprinkle in a bit of glitter (if desired).
3. Squeeze a few drops of food coloring into the baking soda for a spooky green or purple brew.
4. If available, add a squirt of dish soap to make the bubbles last longer.
5. Slowly pour in the vinegar and watch the “brew” come to life with fizzing, bubbling foam!

Lesson: 

Explain that the spooky bubbling occurs because baking soda (a base) and vinegar (an acid) create a chemical reaction that produces carbon dioxide gas – the thing that makes the little bubbles you see foaming after mixing.

We hope this list sparks some Halloween creativity in your home this season! For even more exciting, hands-on activities that inspire young minds, check out Engineering For Kids and explore their programs to ignite the next generation of innovators.