Spooky Halloween

The living dead come out at Halloween – be sure to be one of them!

Halloween decorations

It wouldn’t be Halloween without some spooky decorations:

To make these quick and easy 3D bats you will need some A4 black paper and a white or silver pen and some thread and tape for hanging. Print or copy the template onto your black paper and fold down the centre of the page. Cut along the solid lines to make the shape of four bats. Fold the head down on each one and draw on a face with pointy fangs. Selotape thread onto the back of each one and suspend from the ceiling. Each piece of paper makes 4 bats and you can cut through two sheets at once so you’ll soon have a room full of scary bats!

Download a Bat Template in Word format

New Year Party “Auld Lang Syne” Lyrics

Get ready for New Year and swot up on the lyrics of Auld Lang Syne. Print them off, gather around the ole Johanna and have a jolly good sign song! How could you ever have partied without them?

Auld Lang Syne

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne?

Chorus:
For auld lang syne, my jo,
For auld lang syne,
We’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet
For auld lang syne.

And surely you’ll be your pint-stowp,
And surely I’ll be mine,
And we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet
For auld lang syne!

Chorus

We twa hae ran about the braes,
And pu’d the gowans fine,
But we’ve wander’d monie a weary fit
Sin’ auld lang syne.

Chorus

We twa hae paidl’d in the burn
Frae morning sun til dine,
But seas between us braid hae roar’d
Sin’ auld lang syne.

Chorus

And there’s a hand, my trusty fiere,
And gie’s a hand o’ thine,
And we’ll tak a right guid-willie waught
For auld lang syne!

Chorus

Meaning of unusual words:
Auld lang syne = Former days and friends
jo = dear
stowp = tankard
gowans = daisies
braid = broad
Guid-willie waught = friendly draught

Halloween Party Games for children

Apple Bobbing
A large bowl of water is placed on the floor (a baby bath is ideal for this if you have one). Without using their hands, they have to try and lift an apple out of the water using their teeth. Children can wear aprons if you have them and spread plenty of newspaper over the floor as this can get quite messy!

Dangling Doughnuts
Tie some doughnuts with holes in the centre using a length of elastic or string and hang them from a pole in a row. Without using their hands AND without licking their lips, the children must munch through their doughnut. The first to eat the whole doughnut is the winner. You can add raspberry syrup for blood but be warned, this makes it a great deal messier!

Witches’ Cauldron
Fill a bowl or ‘cauldron’ with items that represent different body parts. Put things like peeled grapes in the box and pretend they are feeling eyeballs, linked sausages for intestines, cauliflower for brains, a balloon filled with water for a heart, liquorice laces for veins or jelly for liver.

Get the children to sit blindfolded in a circle and take it in turns to pull out each item and guess what it is.

Pumpkin Lanterns
To create a true Halloween atmosphere you really need a pumpkin lantern, put it near a window or outside your front door or have it as centre piece on your table. They are easy to make and pumpkins are cheap and plentiful at this time of year.

Using a sharp knife, cut a thick slice off the top of a fairly large pumpkin. Reserve the top for the lid.

Scoop out the seeds using a spoon and discard them along with any fibrous threads. Carefully cut and spoon out the pumpkin flesh leaving about 2cm flesh all the way round. You can keep the flesh you remove to make recipes like pumpkin soup or pumpkin pie.

Using a pencil or felt pen, mark out the facial features on the front of the pumpkin. Then cut around the lines using a small pointed knife, cutting away small sections at a time.

Place a night light inside the pumpkin. Light the candle and place the lid on top. You can get fake nightlights these days in supermarkets or florists which flicker realistically but are much safer.

Mummy Wrap
Take your party and divide them into partners. You will need a lot of toilet paper. One person will be the mummy, and the other will be the wrapper. The object of the game is for the wrapper to cover toilet paper around his or her mummy, including their arms which are held out. The winner is the first person to be wrapped like a mummy in toilet paper.

Pumpkin bowling
You will need: oranges, plastic bottles of water.
Draw pumpkin faces onto the oranges and substitute your living room for the local bowling alley. Use the bottles of water in them as pins and replace the ball with the oranges and try to get a strike!

Graveyard game
Choose one person to be the grave keeper. The grave keeper closes his/her eyes and counts to ten while everyone else gets into a good frozen position and stands very still. The grave keeper then walks around looking for anyone who moves. If the grave keeper catches you moving (breathing doesn’t count), you are out. You can move positions when the gravekeeper’s back is turned but don’t get caught moving. The last person left is the winner and can be the new grave keeper if you choose to play another round.

Hire a face painter for the night…

Make your own Fairy Wings

Little girls love fairies. These instructions will be useful if you’ve got a fancy dress party to go to , bored children to entertain at home or as a party idea.

Rather than ask your party guests to dress as fairies, suggest they make their own wings instead. Because of the hands-on feature of this idea you may want to invite fewer guests – also, it may work better for slightly older children.

Set up tables in the garden and be prepared for mess. Suggest the guests wear old T-shirts rather than party dresses. Get  supplies:

• Bright colourful tights (large)
• Wire (5-8 feet of steel wire per pair of wings depending on the size of your fairy)
• Glittery fabric paint/jewels/feathers/flowers/3d fabric paint/trailing ivy leaves/big sequins/ribbons/fabric etc etc
• Duct tape
• Coloured Elastic for holding the wings onto the fairy (or if the straps must be invisible try looking for clear bra straps in the shops)
• Wire snips
• Strong pliers, especially if you want to bend your wings into funky wing shapes
• Needle & thread

Shape the wire into a figure 8. Next, secure the middle with duct tape and trim off any sharp ends. If you’re making very fancy wings try leaving some extra for making into a spiral underneath. Remember to cover the ends so that you don’t get spiked! If your wire is flexible enough, bend the ends into a loop.

If you’ve put spirals onto your wings you’ll need to wrap them in ribbon or a long tube of coloured fabric. (You may want to use the leftover parts of the tights if there’s enough.

Using just the legs of the tights (cut off the tops), stretch them over each wing pulling them tight and securing at the bottom. If you’ve made your wings into a complicated shape you’ll need to sew the tights at strategic places around the wire. Secure the ends if need be with duct tape to hold them in place.

Use more tape to hold the straps on – make them long enough to be comfortable but short enough that the wings won’t sag. The tape will need to be covered now; use a loop of fabric, paint it, wrap it in ribbon or cover it with a large flower.

Don’t forget to get a good combination of colours – Gothic fairy wings look great when made from black tights, then use a combination of black and gray or lace to decorate.

Depending on how creative you feel (and how much free time you can set aside) you may decide to make the wings in advance of your little guests arriving – whereas if you have the patience you may be happy to supervise them through the making process. If you’re a real angel perhaps you’ll have them sleep over and wear them (allowing for plenty of drying time) in the morning!

Alternatively try these sites to buy professionally made wings: Off With The Faries or Fairy Love!