Halloween Activities for Kids at Home

Halloween 2026 falls on Saturday, 31 October, which gives families a whole weekend day to fill. If the weather is wet (a fair bet in the UK and Ireland) or your children are too young for trick-or-treating, there's plenty to do indoors. These 25 activities are grouped by age, and every one works in a normal home with normal supplies. For family far away who want to be part of it, our Halloween gifts include two gentle animated shows made for kids, and the Halloween gifts for kids guide explains which to pick.

Before you start: a few safety notes

• Pumpkin lights. Battery tea lights or glow sticks are the safer option inside a jack-o'-lantern, especially with costumes, toddlers and pets around. If you use a real candle, keep the pumpkin away from doorways, curtains and anywhere a costume might brush past, and never leave it burning unattended.
• Carving. Younger children can draw the face and scoop the seeds while an adult does the cutting. Pumpkin carving kits with small saws are safer than kitchen knives for older kids.
• Costumes. Check face paint is labeled for skin and test a small patch the day before. Keep costumes short enough not to trip on stairs.
• Food allergies. If your child, or a child visiting, has food allergies, check every label. The Teal Pumpkin Project, run by Food Allergy Research & Education (FARE), uses a teal-painted pumpkin to show that a house offers non-food treats like stickers, glow sticks, bubbles and spider rings. Keep candy in a separate bowl from non-food treats, and check non-food items too, since some contain latex or wheat.

For toddlers (about 1 to 3)

Short, sensory and not scary. Ten minutes per activity is plenty.

1. Pumpkin "guts" sensory tray

Scoop the inside of a pumpkin onto a baking tray and let them squish it. Add a few spoons and cups. Messy, and they'll love it. Lay a towel down first.

2. Paint a small pumpkin

Little pumpkins and washable paint, no carving. Fingers work as brushes. Leave them to dry on the windowsill as decorations.

3. Ghost footprints

Paint the bottom of their foot white and press it onto black paper. Turn it upside down, add two eyes with a marker, and the footprint becomes a ghost. Write the date on it; it's a keepsake.

4. Pumpkin peekaboo

Hide a soft toy inside a hollowed pumpkin or a cardboard box decorated as one, and play peekaboo. Toddlers find this endlessly funny.

5. A Halloween dance party

A playlist of silly Halloween songs and permission to dance in costume. Turn the lights low and use a torch as a disco light.

For ages 4 to 7

Simple rules, lots of making, and a little "spooky" that stays friendly.

6. Toilet-roll bats

Paint cardboard tubes black, fold the top edges down to make ears, cut wings from black paper and glue on googly eyes. Hang them from string across a doorway.

7. Paper-plate masks

Cut eyeholes in paper plates and decorate them as cats, pumpkins, monsters or witches. Attach a craft stick or a strip of elastic.

8. Mummy wrap race

Two teams, one roll of toilet paper each. One child wraps the other as a mummy; first to use the whole roll wins. Keep the paper for the next game.

9. Pumpkin bowling

Set up ten plastic bottles or toilet rolls painted as ghosts at the end of the hallway. Roll a small pumpkin (or an orange ball) to knock them down.

10. Indoor trick-or-treat

Each room becomes a "house". A family member waits behind each door with a small treat or a sticker. Kids knock, say "trick or treat," and move on. It's ideal on a rainy evening and for children too young for the street.

11. Spider web hunt

Make webs from yarn across a doorway or between chairs and hide plastic spiders in them. Children "untangle" the web to find them all.

12. Witch's potion station

Water, food coloring, a little baking soda in cups, and a jug of vinegar. Children add "ingredients" and watch the potion fizz over. Do it in the bath or on a tray.

13. Decorate Halloween cookies

Bake plain round cookies (or buy them) and set out icing, sprinkles and candy eyes. Pumpkins, ghosts and monsters are all achievable at this age.

14. A not-too-scary film

It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, Room on the Broom or Spookley the Square Pumpkin are gentle picks for this age. Blankets, popcorn, lights low.

For ages 8 to 12

More challenge, more independence, and a little real spookiness if they want it.

15. A Halloween escape room

Write five puzzles that lead to a hidden box of treats: a riddle, a code to crack, a jigsaw, a word search, and a final clue hidden under a pumpkin. Give them a timer.

16. Pumpkin carving with templates

Let them choose or design a template and carve it themselves with a carving kit, with an adult nearby. Light it with a battery tea light.

17. Murder-mystery for kids

Plenty of kid-friendly mystery kits are sold for this age, or write a simple one: "Who stole the candy bowl?" Every family member plays a character with a secret.

18. Make a haunted house from a cardboard box

Cut windows and doors, paint it black, add cotton-wool cobwebs and tiny paper ghosts. Put a battery light inside and switch off the room lights.

19. Halloween baking challenge

Give them a theme ("most disgusting-looking but delicious cupcake") and a time limit. Adults judge. Worm-in-dirt cups made with chocolate pudding, crushed cookies and gummy worms always win.

20. Ghost-story circle

Lights off, torch on, everyone tells a story. Set the scare level before you start so younger siblings can stay.

21. Glow-in-the-dark scavenger hunt

Hide glow sticks around the house or garden and hand out a list. Each color is worth different points.

22. Create a stop-motion film

Use a phone and a free stop-motion app to animate toy figures, clay monsters or paper ghosts. A 20-second film can take an afternoon and it's a proper achievement.

For the whole family

23. A family costume parade

Everyone dresses up and walks the "runway" in the living room. Prizes for scariest, funniest and most homemade.

24. Halloween dinner

Mummy sausages wrapped in pastry, pumpkin soup in hollowed small pumpkins, "eyeball" pasta with mozzarella balls and olives. Let the kids name each dish on a menu card.

25. A gift from someone far away

If a grandparent, aunt or uncle lives in another city or country, they can still be part of the night. A Pumpkin Carving show lets your child pick a pumpkin, scoop it out, carve the face the relative designed and light the candle, then see a message thrown onto the wall. A Trick or Treat show takes them down a street of six doors, with the relative behind the last one. Both start on the Cute setting, with friendly ghosts and nothing sudden, and they open on any phone or tablet with no app. Relatives can set it to open at 7 pm on 31 October in your time zone. You can see all four shows on the Halloween templates page.

For more ways family can join in from far away, our long-distance Halloween ideas cover video-call pumpkin carving, bedtime stories and costume parades in the family group chat.

A simple plan for Halloween day at home

Twenty-five ideas is too many for one day. Here's a plan that fits a Saturday with a mixed-age family, with room to swap activities in and out.

Two things make the day go smoothly. Prepare the messy activities the night before: cover the table, lay out the paint, roll out the cookie dough. And keep one quiet activity in reserve, like coloring sheets or a picture book, for the moment someone gets overexcited.

Adapting for mixed ages

When toddlers and older siblings share the day, give the older child a job. They can run the indoor trick-or-treat, act as the "ghost" behind a door, or help the youngest decorate cookies. Older kids enjoy responsibility, and it keeps the scary bits away from the little ones without anyone feeling left out.

If the weather clears

Most of these move outdoors easily. Pumpkin bowling works on a path, the glow-stick hunt is better in a dark garden, and the potion station is far less messy outside. A short walk to admire neighbors' pumpkins after dark is a gentle first taste of trick-or-treating for kids who aren't ready for doorbells.

Keep the scare level right

Children differ a lot in what they find fun. A few rules make the day easier:

• Ask before anything spooky. "Do you want this one silly or scary?" lets them choose.
• Keep a "lights on" option. If a story or film gets too much, it's fine to stop.
• Younger siblings set the level for shared activities. Older kids can have a scarier film after the little ones are in bed.

Messages for kids

If you're writing a card or a note to go with a treat, keep it short and cheerful. "Happy Halloween, little pumpkin, save me a chocolate" goes a long way. Our Halloween messages post has more ideas for every age. Curious how families elsewhere do it? Here's how different countries celebrate Halloween.