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Halloween Decorating with the Family

Halloween can be an exciting time of year for the whole family. Decorating your house for Halloween is a great way to spend time with your family, and it doesn’t have to be expensive. Here are some ways to turn decorating into fun activities to do together!

1. Lawn Bags

As a family, spend some time playing and jumping in piles of leaves. When you’re done, rake up the leaves and put them into Halloween lawn bags- your kids won’t even realize they are helping to clean the yard! Once you’re done, proudly display the Halloween lawn bags on your property.

2. Carve Pumpkins

Plan a family day-trip to go pumpkin picking. If you don’t have the time, you can always buy a pumpkin from your local grocery store! When you get home, carve your pumpkins by using a pumpkin carver tool or carving kit and then put your new Halloween decorations outside! At night, show off your carved pumpkin by placing a tealight candle inside of it. Remember that kids should always have adult supervision when carving pumpkins and using candles.

3. Decorate Pumpkins

If there are members of your family that are too young to carve a pumpkin, or simply don’t like the idea of cutting one up, you can always paint or draw on one. You can get creative and use a pattern maker or simply draw your own face on the pumpkin. Decorating mini pumpkins are also a cute alternative, and they make great gifts for parents,  family members, friends, teachers, and neighbors!

4. Scarecrow

Making a scarecrow for your lawn can be done in a number of ways. Part of the fun is working together as a family and sharing ideas in order to make your own unique decoration.

For the scarecrow’s head, you can use the Halloween lawn bag or pumpkin decorating ideas listed above.

For the body, you can use old clothes stuffed with leaves or hay. Tie the ends of the shirt and pants together with string to keep the scarecrow’s stuffing in place. Decide how you want to position it: perhaps sitting on a lawn chair, propped up on the porch, standing up with the use of a stick, etc.

Then have fun being creative and putting your scarecrow together—it can look as scary or sweet as you want. Consider putting a straw hat on it’s head, old shoes by it’s feet, and maybe even a Happy Halloween sign in it’s hands.

5. Ghosts

Everyone in your family can contribute and make their own ghost decorations! All you need are small white plastic bags, old newspapers or leaves, permanent markers, and something to tie around the ghost.

Crumple up a few leaves or pieces of newspaper into a round shape about the size of a tennis ball and place it into the bottom of a plastic bag. Twist the bag tightly around the newspaper or leaves in order to form the ghosts head. You can secure the bag by tying it shut or placing a rubber band, twist tie, string or ribbon around its neck.

If there are handles on the bag, cut them off and slice the unstuffed portion of the bag so that it is uneven and flows in the wind. Then draw scary or funny face on the ghost. If you are using a bag that has writing on it, draw on the side of the bag that is white. To display your ghosts, you can hang them from a tree or bush in your yard. Another option is to attach a few to a string and drape them across your house, fence, mailbox, garage, etc.

6. Tombstones

Before you actually start making them, spend time together preparing ideas of what sayings to put on your Halloween tombstones. You may want them to be funny or scary depending on your family’s preferences. Then figure out if you want to use cardboard, styrofoam, plastic, or wood to make the tombstones. Use a stencil to trace and cut out the shape you want your tombstone to be (parents should always assist kids when cutting).

Paint the tombstone gray and add cracks and other imperfections with black paint or permanent marker to make it look textured and worn out. Attach a stick to your tombstone and put it on your front lawn or prop it up against your house. If you really want to make it look authentic, get a coffin to place near your homemade tombstone!

7.       Other Suggestions

If you don’t know how to get your kids interested in participating in family activities, simply ask them to help you decorate the house for Halloween. Even if you are simply hanging up store bought decorations, it can be a fun bonding experience. It’s interesting to see what ideas you can come up with together as a family! Don’t forget that using your child’s Halloween artwork from school can make great front door and window decorations for your home. Check out our other Halloween articles to get even more spooktacular ideas!

Get everything you need for some fun family Halloween decorating! See more items at the K12Genie Store at Amazon.

Leaf Bags: $30.99 (pack of 24)	Pumpkin Carver: $9.25	Pattern Maker: $6.99
Pirate Carving Kit: $9.99	Tealight Candles: $9.99	Coffin:$17.99

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