The holidays are upon us and we're starting right in with 31 days of Halloween activities to help keep you and the kiddos entertained during this season!
Join us every single day (including weekends!) tomorrow through October 16th for 31 days of Halloween. We'll be posting a fun new hands-on activity every morning. You can play games, watch movies and make tasty treats, cool crafts, decorations, gifts and more. We'll update the list below as links go live!
You'll notice that some are crafts and recipes we've already made, and we're including updates to those as well as new activity options to keep everyone engaged.
31 Days of Halloween Activities
- These easy Pumpkin Mousse Cups make for the perfect mid-week sweet treat!
- Watch one of our Family-Friendly Halloween Movies to kick off the season. OH YEAH, we're talking Addams Family, Corpse Bride, all the classics – and we're listing exactly where to find them on streaming services right now. This is where you'll find all the Tim Burton picks, Hotel Transylvania (all three), Hocus Pocus and more.
- Decorate! Try your hand at our Nightmare Before Christmas Sign. Supplies: Vinyl, any large sign or old piece of wood to put it on.
- Make our Handprint Halloween Crafts. Low on supply requirements, big on the memory-book bang!
- Make a Halloween Pizza!
- Make Paper Towel Ghosts while you eat some Halloween Pancakes. Or for a more permanent decoration, try your hand at Tea Towel Ghosts. Supplies: Ping-pong balls, tea towels.
- A Pumpkin Craft made out of a sock? Why not! You're probably got all the supplies for this one at home already.
- Go ahead and figure out some alternatives to trick-or-treating, just to put your mind at ease about it. I know, I know. Door-to-door is where it's AT. But this situation is what it is. We're planning some at-home Halloween Carnival Games, with candy for prizes! Highlights: a DIY Ring Toss Game with lollipops for prizes, a DIY Bean Bag Toss, a candy-filled DIY Balloon Dart Game, Deer Pong and more.
- Read our favorite Halloween Books for Kids and make Vampire Coffin Treats! Supplies: Dark chocolate Twinkies, white chocolate melts.
- Have your own at-home Career Dress-Up Day. Head to the thrift shop, pick out accessories, and make it a full-blown catwalk extravaganza.
- Go apple-picking and make these Fruit Jack-o-Lanterns. You could also make Halloween Apple Treats with Cellophane, Mummy Apples or Spooky ‘Poison' DIY Candy Apples. Supplies: apples, red vines, white candy melts, googly eyes, cellophane
- Make Mummy Candy Bars and drop some off with your neighbors for a fun surprise. So simple, so satisfying. Supplies: Candy bars, Googly eyes, medical tape
- Plan this year's Family Costumes!
- Make our classic Oreo Pumpkins.
- Go to the patch and find a giant pumpkin for the classic Baby in Pumpkin Photo OR make a Mummy Pumpkin. Better yet, if you liked our candied apple idea, try making a wacky wax No-Carve Pumpkin.
- Halloween Dip. Perfect for a Friday night, paired with another pick from our movie list.
- Make some DIY Nightmare Before Christmas Ornaments inspired by Disney's own line (I'm so excited for this activity!). Supplies: acrylic paint in varying colors, black Sharpie, clear Christmas balls
- These Silly Halloween Burgers are so easy, yet so cute.
- Have a blast crafting our Toilet Paper Roll Halloween Crafts. Because running out of toilet paper is soooo spooky!
- How about some wax resist Pumpkin Painting Designs?
- Halloween Eggs are the perfect mid-week snack. Supplies: Black food pen, hard-boiled eggs
- It's Paper Plate Pumpkin time!
- Make a Candy Cocktail for the adults and our Halloween Mocktail for the kids. And watch another Halloween movie!
- Our Mummy Hot Dog Recipe makes for the perfect quick-and-easy Halloween meal.
- Let's make some Spooky Halloween Slime!
- Try some Jack-o-Lantern Stuffed Peppers or Scary Spaghetti. YES.
- How about some not-so-scary Halloween Popsicle Stick Crafts?
- Nom nom, it's time for Halloween Jalapeño Poppers! Okay, I'll admit, I'm not super-creative with the food but basically the idea is that you can wrap one food with another food, add “eyeballs” and BOOM. Mummy. Easy peasy. And also, delicious!
- Make Rice Stress Balls with funny pumpkin faces
- Try your hand at our Toy Story Alien Hat. Some people say this isn't scary and doesn't qualify as a Halloween movie, but have you SEEN that scene with Sid? Total sociopath. Utterly terrifying. Also, if you haven't checked out Toy Story of Terror, it's awesome. And it's on our Halloween movie list!
- Make Frankenstein Guacamole and Halloween Tacos for an easy dinner on Halloween!
Halloween Printable
To make life extra-easy for all you busy parents, we're simplifying all of this information into a printable. Subscribe below for instant access to that!
Want a little backstory on 31 Days of Halloween?
A lot of people who land here are probably looking for 31 Days of Halloween on TV. The Freeform channel hosts 31 Nights of Halloween, which became a whole October-long television event after previously debuting as 13 Days of Halloween in 1998 and lter changing to 13 Nights of Halloween and eventually morphing into its current 31 day extravaganza.
The idea to feature 31 Days of Halloween on television sprung out of the wild success of the channel's 25 Days of Christmas, which started two years earlier.
Past movies in the lineup have included Scooby-Doo, Addams Family, Hocus Pocus, The Haunted Mansion and Harry Potter, among many others. It used to feature more scary content and slowly shifted to primarily showing family movies before settling on earlier evening family-friendly films and later hottot flicks.
After this is all buttoned up here, we'll be doing 25 Days of Christmas from October 19th through November 13th, meaning it will be all wrapped up in plenty of time for you to get supplies and have a blast with the kids!
Does your family celebrate 31 days of Halloween? If not, how long do you celebrate the season?