Happy Halloween: Are you fearless enough to try one of these party games?
1 Apple bobbing. Fill a tub or a large basin with water and put in some apples. Because apples are less dense than water, they will float at the surface. Players then try to catch one with their teeth. They are not allowed to use their arms so tie them behind the back to prevent them from cheating. If you don’t want to use water then tie the apples on a piece of string and hang them up.The same rules apply.
2 Pin the boo on the ghost. Give the donkey a break by cutting a large ‘ghost’ shape out of card and sticking it on the wall. Then write the word ‘boo’ in a speech bubble on a piece of card and cut it out. Make a ‘boo’ for each child playing the game. Let the players take it in turns, blind-folded to pin the ‘boo’ on the ghost with the aim of trying to get it as close as possible to the mouth.
3 Mystery box. The idea is to make players reach into dark boxes, thinking they are touching items such as eyeballs, bones, guts, and fingers. But they are actually everyday items that the players will need to try to guess the identity of. Use a cereal, tissue or shoe box and cut out a hole big enough to get a hand and wrist through. There are plenty of items that you can put inside such as dried apricots which can be ears, peeled grapes for eyeballs, baby carrots for toes, cooked noodles for guts and boiled cauliflower for brains. Split the players into teams and see who can correctly identify the most.
4 Monster freeze dancing. Get your little monsters dancing around the room to music but as soon as it stops everyone has to strike a scary pose and freeze. Anyone who moves while the music is still on is out of the game. Start playing the music again and keep stopping and starting at random times. The last monster still dancing is the winner. You can pick some Halloween-themed music such as Thriller by Michael Jackson, the Monster Mash by Bobby ‘Boris’ Pickett or the Ghostbusters theme tune to add to the party atmosphere.
5 The Guess Who Game. Assign each partygoer a Halloween character such as a vampire, ghost, werewolf, Dracula, Frankenstein or mummy. You could also pick spooky film characters. Tell them who they are but explain they cannot tell anyone else. Then get the players to ask each other ‘yes’ or ‘no’ questions so they can find out what Halloween character they are. To make it harder you could split them into teams, set a limit on the number of questions or the time they have in which to ask and see who can correctly guess the most with a prize awarded to the winners.
