Halloween Party Games for Kids

The leaves are falling from the trees and the colours of autumn are upon us, so it’s time to start thinking about Halloween! This is an exciting time for kids and to make sure it’s not all about the ‘treats’ how about having some fun halloween party games and put in a few ‘tricks’ yourself!

Instead of just wandering the streets knocking on your neighbours doors why not invite them all to a neighbourhood Halloween Ghost Hunt? All you need to do is get a few good neighbours with children and ask them to hide some treasure markers in their garden, then set the ghost hunters off following clues to each house, collecting treats on the way and ending in a few party games in your garden!

Jill loves Halloween party games and has tried and tested the best of them so here’s a few we can recommend:

Frighteningly Fruitastic Fun

Apple bobbing – there’s nothing better than doing the favourites, I loved apple bobbing as a child and its one that always gets everyone laughing and getting wet! Get yourself a large tub and fill with water and small apples. Make sure the kids put their hands behind their back and give them 3 chances to grab an apple with their teeth.

Hold an apple biting contest – Tie string around the apples and hang them from a tree branch with string. With their hands behind their backs each contestant has to try and eat their apple off the string before anyone else!

Mummy knows Best!

This game is a fantastic ice breaker and is great for families to do together. Give each family a roll of cheap white toilet paper. Tell them to choose who will be a ‘wrapper’ and who will be the ‘Mummy’. Set a time limit of 2 minutes for the wrappers to wind the toilet paper around the chosen ‘Mummy’ and judge the winner at the end! Great fun and a brilliant photo opportunity!

Pumpkin Pictionary

Write some Halloween words on a few pieces of paper, then fold them up and put in a pumpkin (Use words that are easy to illustrate e.g. Vampire, Ghost, Pumpkin, Witch, Coffin, Skeleton, Haunted House, Mummy, Graveyard Bat, Spider, Monster). Divide the party guests into 2 teams and then take it in turns to illustrate the word on their piece of paper. Make sure you note down the score so that you can determine the winning team!

Spooky Skittles

Lello and Monkey like to recycle so use the markers from your Halloween Ghost Hunt and stick each one to an empty bottle. Then just set them up like skittles and use a tennis ball to try to knock them all down. This Halloween party games is especially good for little ones!

We’ve made a few more suggestions for Halloween party games…

 

 

Easter Egg Hunt Games

The Easter weekend is just around the corner and it just wouldn’t be the same without having an eggciting easter egg treasure hunt, now would it!

There’s loads of info out there on how to set up an easter egg hunt and we’ve given a few ideas on how to prepare one yourself and make it fun for all the family here.

But as usual we’ve used our treasure hunting expertise to create a really easy, simple to set up easter egg hunt so that you don’t have to do all the work if you don’t want to!

The Lello and Monkey easter egg hunt game gives you an easter egg hunt map, rhyming clue cards and 6 beautifully designed easter markers including an easter bunny and easter chicks of course! All you need to do with this easter egg hunt game is hide the easter egg markers around the house or garden and place easter eggs or treats with each one. Then read out the clues to the children and let them do the searching!

This easter egg hunt game is suitable for 3-8 year olds but the younger ones may need a bit of help by shouting ‘warmer’ and ‘colder’ as they look for the eggs and the picture clues will help them too.

However if you are feeling adventurous and creative there are lots of interesting and different ideas to help you do your own Easter egg treasure hunt!

Easter egg hunt ideas:

Have a hunt in the woods

We love taking our kids outdoors and treasure hunts are even more exciting when you’re running around the local woods! There’s nothing more to prepare just make sure you remember the easter baskets and the eggs! Make sure you have a bit of help and ask another parent to keep the children entertained whilst you hide the eggs. There are 2 ways you can do this type of easter egg hunt either give them some clues to lead them from one egg to another or just let them go wild and find as many eggs as they can! Best if you use the small foil chocolate eggs for the latter as you can hide them better!

Have an energetic egg hunt in the park

Jill’s boys are always racing around and so last year we thought a great way for them to burn off some energy was by doing the easter egg hunt in the park. We took the football, bikes and a bat and ball and got them to do challenges at various locations from the running around the bandstand, to cycling round the football field, to the obvious egg and spoon race! Whilst they were engaged in an activity one of us was busy at the next location hiding the eggs. They absolutely loved it, we had a penalty shootout, a bat the ball as far as you can game and after each one they got to find some eggs.

Have a crafty party!

We know all kids are different and if you’ve got some children whose idea of lots of running about is not something they enjoy you can turn the easter egg hunt into something a little more creative by having some ‘craft stations’ around the place. This can be especially rewarding for younger children. At each craft station they make something and then find the eggs and move on to the next one. You can always do a bit of both and have a physical activity game followed by a craft station activity to give a bit of balance. Crafts can include:

• making their own easter basket (we have provided a FREE printable easter basket template to use)
• do some colouring in (see our FREE printable easter colouring sheets),
• decorating an easter bunny mask (again we have a FREE printable bunny mask for you to print)
• making an easter bonnet,
• decorating an egg.

Have a puzzling egg hunt!

This one needs a little more preparation, decide where the eggs will be hidden and then write down each hiding place in big letters and cut them out. Explain that they must ‘un-jumble the letters’ to spell out each hiding place. This is usually better with slightly older children but you can always make the anagrams slightly simpler for younger ones.

Well that’s about it for now, go to our website for more suggestions for easter party games.

Organising a Kids party at home

OK so you need to arrange a kids birthday party, where do you start?

Firstly don’t be daunted, all you need is a bit of organisation and preparation and trust me it will all be OK!

There a loads of checklists and party plans out there to help you and in time this blog will become a great resource too…but Rome wasn’t built in a day, so we’ll point you in the right direction for now.

Don’t be afraid to limit the number of kids your child can invite to the party, depending on the size of your home and the age of the kids of course, you probably won’t have the space for everyone in the class. A good rule of thumb for the number to invite is your child’s age plus one. Remember this is your child’s birthday – ask them to invite the children they enjoy playing with.

Send out your invites about 3 weeks before the party, be aware that if you are not inviting the whole class be subtle about handing out invitations. There are some free printable invitations for pirate, princess, animal and dinosaur themed partys in our ‘free printables‘ page. Don’t forget to include a map to the party venue and ask for mums to make it clear if their child has any allergies or special dietary requirements.

Setting the scene – theme it!

It’s much easier to make a birthday party come together if you have a theme. Give your child a few suggestions and ask them to choose, unless they already have an idea you can develop. Don’t be scared if your child asks for a character themed birthday that isn’t available in the shops, think outside the box a bit (a Charlie & Lola party could become a craft themed birthday, a Little Einsteins party could be musical themed, a Spongebob birthday party can be underwater themed and so on).

You can compliment the theme with music and decorations, either bought from the shop or if you’re feeling creative, make them yourself. Again we have created some printable party decorations and accessories to help the process.

Music

Every birthday party needs a bit of music. Don’t forget to take a CD player if you are holding the party a venue other than your home. There are lots of children’s compilation CDs about or you could make your own compilation of your child’s favourite music if you have the time. Children’s TV theme tunes are usually a safe bet, especially for under 5′s.

Decorate it!

You can help create an instant party atmosphere with balloons, banners, themed paper, tablecloths, paper plates and cups, party hats and so on.

Don’t be afraid to make a few decorations yourself, or even get your child to help in the week before, they’ll get quality time with you getting ‘crafty’ and it’ll help brighten up the room! Something simple like paper chains are great and so easy to make! If you’re doing a character themed party and you can’t buy suitable decorations to match in the shops, print off a few characters from the internet, cut them out and stick them to a homemade banner – easy!

There are loads of party suppliers online that sell party tableware, supplies and party decorations, browse a few to check out prices for ideas and budget.

It’s a start!

We’ve been designing and developing great kids treasure hunts and themed kids party games for the last 3 years and we’ve come a long way since our first pirate treasure hunt launched in 2008. We’ve put a lot of effort into keeping things fresh and so created 7 more treasure hunts in the range including princess, animal, dinosaur, monster, halloween, easter and christmas hunts.

It all started as an idea to help mums and dads have affordable but exciting kids parties at home. Jill had made a pirate treasure hunt for her sons birthday and spent hours drawing and painting a pirate ship and treasure chest out of old cereal packets and loo rolls, real Blue Peter stuff! We just thought what a great idea to produce them for other parents too busy and maybe not as creative. And so Lello and Monkey was born…

As parents ourselves we know the pressures put on parents to host fantastic birthday parties for their kids, forced into spending huge amounts of money at soft play centres or hiring village hall venues so the kids can invite all their school friends. Lets face it, hosting a party at home is daunting if you don’t know where to start.

So we’ve started this blog site as a means of spreading the knowledge, tips, tricks, ideas, activities and games that will help mums and dads plan a magical party at home, whilst not spending the earth. Keep coming back we hope you’ll find something useful…