How to Plan a Halloween Party for Older Children
- 1). Find plenty of chaperons to supervise the party. If children are in middle or high school, they may be tempted to bring alcohol into the party or sneak out before it's over.
- 2). Choose a theme. Older children may not be interested in playing games at a party, so you'll need another way to keep them occupied. A haunted house theme is appropriate for older children. Cover the party room in cobwebs and bring in a strobe light. Make a haunted maze in a dark room. Enlist some adults to put on spooky masks and jump out from behind corners and hang cobwebs where the children will walk into them. Put out boxes filled with peeled grapes and cold spaghetti to simulate eyeballs and guts. Cut a hole in the side of each box and have guests put their hands inside.
- 3). Send invitations to parents of all the guests so they will know the details of the party and how many chaperons there will be. If parents know exactly when the party begins and ends, children won't be able to sneak off afterward and get into trouble. Get a phone number for each child's parents so you can get in touch if there are any problems.
- 4). Plan the food. Choose child-friendly food like pizza or sub sandwiches. Serve everything on Halloween plates and decorate the table with spiders and cobwebs. Put out bowls of chips and platters of vegetables and dip. Bake cookies in the shape of pumpkins and frost them with orange frosting. You might also bake cupcakes frosted like spider webs. Add yellow and red food coloring to yellow or white cake batter to dye them orange. Fill a punch bowl with soda and add some gummy worms to make it creepy.
- 5). Make a play list of upbeat child-friendly songs so the guests can dance and burn off some of the sugar. Choose some current dance songs that have clean lyrics and add some Halloween songs like "Monster Mash" or the theme song to "The Addams Family." Run your play list past one of the party guests first to make sure the children will enjoy the songs, then load them onto a CD or iPod.