Oct. 27, 2020

8 Home-Based Activities for a Fun 2020 Halloween

#008 - If there ever was a year  to start new Halloween traditions, this year is the one. We asked what new ideas are out there and you answered.

In this episode we share 8 stay-at-home at home activities to help keep Halloween fun this year.

For show notes, transcriptions, and links mentioned, go to:

https://www.workinghomeparents.com/8

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Transcript

I don't know about you, but 2020 sometimes feels like a year long Halloween. Like a bunch of us all in our houses eating nothing but candy all day. And there's a bunch of scary stuff outside. Oh, yeah. And depending on where you live, you may or may not have some what have a normal problem. I think for most of us, it's not going to be a normal hallway. I totally agree. So if you don't have trick or treating in your neighborhood, or you want to have some contactless fun, this episode will be about eight different Halloween ideas to do with your kids. Welcome to working home parents helping you find stability between client calls, and potty training. Because we're all figuring this out as we go. And now your hosts Amanda and Dan Norton. Well, it's Halloween week. Yeah. And episode eight. Right. So we've got eight Halloween ideas for episode eight. Yeah, it kind of worked out that way. But it's nice to have that eight and eight number. Yeah, that's pretty cool. Yeah, and we've been thinking for a while what we're going to do on Halloween, especially when a lot of the you know, lockdown for the pandemic started because we're kind of looking at this Halloween is really kind of being our first really fun Halloween since our son's three now. Yeah, I felt that way too. I was like, oh man of all years, this is like, we're really trying to teach them how to do trick or treating and everything. And our church usually has a trunk or tree and you know, all those fun, you know, fall activities that they offer. So we were really pumped for this year. And he was really into it. We already got him his costume. He was so excited. But now we just trying to figure out what would be safe, what would be best. And some of my friends actually gave me some ideas because they're doing a few things with their family only very small gatherings or, you know, if it's friends from school, it's the people who they're the kids are seeing on a regular basis. And they know they're, you know, they're definitely staying safe and quarantining and stuff. So. So we got some really cool tips from them and online. And so I'm really excited about this episode. Yeah, we asked some friends, some family and some listeners, like, you know, what are some different things that you're doing or ideas that you've had, when it comes to ideas for Halloween in this kind of socially, distance, non contact time, with a holiday that tends to be kind of high contact, not that crazy, crazy high contact, but more contact with people that you're not normally connected with. Right? So that that seems to be the interesting challenge. And I think especially this year, depending on where you live, you may have maybe more of a normal Halloween, because you're like no regulations or anything on certain things. Or you might be in an area that does have a lot of regulations and mandates, you know, it almost comes down to like your own zip code, or cities or states or whatever, may just not allow trick or treating, you can go door to door. Or maybe if you do, you know, there might be homes that don't want people coming to their door. So it's gonna be interesting no matter what, yeah, actually, I saw him on social media. I don't know if it's Facebook or Instagram. But I did see a post that says if you are inviting trick or treaters, you should put a purple pumpkin on your door. So maybe our listeners all of you check into what your local town is doing to announce that you are inviting some people in your town to do trick or treating at your house. So just keep an eye out for that. Because I know our town said put a purple pumpkin out and I'm like, okay, that's a cool idea. We could actually color a pumpkin purple and, you know, invite people to our front door. So letting them know like we're okay with it. So I guess that's an early bonus tip. And it wasn't part of our list of eight, but I guess that's a good, you know, bonus add on. I mean, I think all of us we just have to kind of do our due diligence in looking up what are, you know, what are the things we should do? And, you know, what are you comfortable with? Right? Yeah, that's the everyone's kind of different and especially when it comes to this, it could be you know, it's such a sad subject, depending on how you view it. And I think these ideas are really for, you know, both sides of whatever argument you're on, whether you're like for social distancing or not, or whatever. I think no matter what, at some point, everyone has to really think through what what are they going to do this year. So even if you're not really worried about, you know, contact list, I still think there's gonna be some ideas that will be fun for your kids or your family or potentially to start new traditions because I think of anything 20 20 is creating for a lot of us new traditions. Yeah, that potentially could be, you know, fun stuff for the future or more things to do as we go forward. Right. So let's start. So the first one we came up with, or that a friend told me about was a backyard Halloween celebration with you know, different activities, they, you could put stations in your backyard, spread them out. So they're socially distance, like doing cookie decorating, do a different station as doing like a craft station. And then another one, pumpkin painting. These are things that are safe and easy to set up. And you can spread them out in the backyard. And this could be either just an activity the parents want to do with their kids, or it could be something that you if you feel comfortable having friends and like close family doing this. You could invite them and it's out in the open in the backyard. Or if it rains, or if you feel okay with they bring it down to your house in your basement or somewhere in a little like living room and or something and just have little stations set up. I think it's a cool idea. Yeah, it's like an arts and crafts thing. You know, what, it's probably a little bit of older kids the same. But even if you have toddlers, I like the the painting pumpkin idea. Because you don't have to worry about like carving it and having them have some kind of sharp object into carving a pumpkin. And, and that. But I mean, you can even get pumpkins from like, I mean, the dollar store is pretty much run out. I think a lot of these stores are probably switched over to Christmas already, if you haven't bought some things. But potentially, if you go to, like one of these craft stores, or Michaels or something, they may have some kind of like, Michaels will be expensive, but there's gonna be some stores that maybe have some cheap, you know, fake pumpkins that the kids can paint and draw on. Yeah, right. So any of that kind of stuff, I think, helps but I like this the station idea because you could personalize that to your kids or your family's kids or your neighborhood kids who are come around and do that. And the fact that it could be indoors, you know, and outdoors, depending on if it rains, where you are. And that potentially something that could become, you know, a new tradition that even when you can trigger tree, you could still add in these fun, different different things. It's almost like thinking about it like a wedding. And he added a nice little wedding things like, like a little photography station, and everyone goes and takes pictures. Yeah, you could probably set something up like that, I really like that, actually, I think that'd be a cool thing to do to break up the day, even you know, you, you set some time up to go trick or treating. And then when the kids are exhausted from that, then they come back and they just do a little sit down of coloring and crafting. Or you do that first and then you go out trick or treating. And that that's how you end the night. You know, I remember, just me and my sister would just like dump all our candy out on the floor. And that would be the end of the night. And that was like the best thing and we would just trade candy. And then of course my mom and dad would draw, you know, walk around and be like, Hey, give me some of that. And those were like my fun like memories I love from Halloween and it was great. So yeah, so that could be something for you know, as a first idea for you guys. The second one is renting a mini bouncy house. So if you have a toddler like we do, they're super into burning out that energy and being outside and bouncing around. Right. So I think this is really cool. I've seen it at a birthday party and it's it could be really small could be in a corner and you just let them burn out the energy doing a little bouncing on a mini bouncy house. Yeah, I think that's good if you could find it and it's not too expensive. And if they're still available at this point sure to to ram but maybe even doing where you get something like that and dress it up like a little haunted house or something. It could be it could be fun to throw in some toys or something around there that make it look like a little haunted house something something scary or, or fun to add to it to give it that kind of Halloween theme. Yeah, that's really good. Our third idea is candy stickings sounds so funny to say it. But it's you basically take chopsticks, any kind of sticks, you have straws, whatever is but it's chopsticks are more sturdy. You take the candies to the stick, and you just put it on your lawn, you stick them into the ground and it's really cool because then it's really contactless. All you got to do is just decorate your lawn with the candy sticks. And then people just come as come as they go and they just pick them up and then once you see a bunch of people leave and they have a ton of candy then you just restock it. You keep sticking it in the ground. Does that make sense? So use How do you stick it to take a chopstick Okay, and then you take a piece of candy could be a package of m&ms or a Snickers and You just take tape, and you stick it on to the chopstick and then you just like jab it into the ground and chopsticks Do you need for this like 1000 You know what? You have so many chopsticks I could just donate to our listeners money besides like me just having a bunch of chopsticks in there. I will be glad to donate some of your chopsticks you have. This seems like it's equivalent to like the giant bowl that someone comes over and just takes all the candy out of and they'll just take all of the You think so? No, I feel like if I have something like that, I'm gonna feel really greedy. If I just grab like a whole bunch of them. You do what I'm talking about kids and teenagers and probably some adults who just go and just if it's there, especially if you don't have to go on the porch to get it. Ah, that's a good point. All right, well, we'll see. But I guess it's a creative, interesting idea. Okay, number four is an Halloween egg hunt. So repurpose those easter eggs, guys. You know, have the kids color them. I know if some of them are like bright pink and blue and all the pastel colors. Have the kids like decorate them with like stickers and permanent marker and make them look Halloween. Nice. That's a word. But I think that's a cool idea. And then you just put the candy in there, the parents could put them in, and then hide them. And the kids have to go in the backyard, in the basement, in the house anywhere in the kitchen, wherever and they just have to go crazy looking for these easter eggs that are Halloween eggs. So yeah, my sister gave me this idea. And we were talking about it's like it. It does make sense, I think especially if you've got multiple kids. Yeah, I think it could be fun because it's almost like the competition. So it has that like Easter feel. But if it's if it's, you know, different if they're draw drew on them or something like I don't know, if you'll be able to find it anywhere. I mean, you could try to order it on Amazon and try to get it before Halloween if you needed other ones. I know we've got easter eggs everywhere somewhere. But I do think that's a good idea. And you could hide the candy in there or maybe some like Halloween themed like stickers or the temporary tattoos and still walk around, you know, do it in if they have kids in their costume and they carried their their Trick or treat bag. Mm hmm. You could do that. And also maybe if you wanted to do it like bedroom by bedroom, if you had some family and they knocked on the bedroom doors, they're talking little kids, maybe they might enjoy that. Okay, I don't know how much older kids would enjoy. Enjoy something like that. But potentially if you've got like toddlers or just above maybe you could kind of do that within your own home. But one thing too, if you don't have easter eggs, I'm sure if you've got toddlers or kids like like we do, you probably got those like mystery Ryan eggs are these like popular like toy to it because these mystery eggs are so popular. Yeah, I never know how popular until our son started watching it. So the next one is do some Halloween recipes with your kids. So if your kids like to bake or if they like to cook some some cool baking ideas that I saw were some like mud. So it's not even really baking. It's just putting some putting in a cup and put some like crushed up Oreos and some gummy worms. It's delicious. And it might take some time to make the pudding but it looks like it'd be such a cool activity to do with the kids. Then, if your kids also like cookies, they could bake cookies, so and they can decorate them that could be like your time to do that. Another idea is trying to make dinner with like hotdogs and crescent rolls and making mummies They're so cute. So you just put your, your hot dog on the on the play and then you just take the question rolls and you just decorate the you know do the little squiggles with the crescent rolls and it looks like a little mummy add some little, like wrap it up around you to do that. Absolutely. Yes. You wrap it up with like a twist. Yep. So and then I guess I don't know how you would put the eyeballs down, but you would put eyeballs on it somehow like maybe some candy, you know, eyeballs or something. But that can be an idea. You know, if you are not planning to leave the house too much that day, whether it's bad, whether it's your choice, whatever you need to do. But you just make it like a fun baking or just a fun dinner home. Yeah, I think that's good. And anything that comes with food, I guess if there's any way to make it healthy. Yeah. You know, I like carving watermelons. I like carving other things. So maybe there's some like carving into a pineapple or carving into cantaloupe or watermelon or something. I don't know how much is left depending on where you live have some of those kinds of fruits but that could just be an alternative way of having some kind of fun. That's a little different when it comes to food or cooking or trying some of those things. I know people always make some fun With like jello, yeah, because you can make it look like brains or something like that. That is not appetizing at all. The next one is reverse Trick or treat. So this one I found online, it's so cool. This idea requires a lot of coordination with your neighbors. So we're kind of lucky, we live in a cul de sac. So like, if we're really close to our neighbors, if you're really close to your neighbors, you can coordinate with them. And you have to have your kids set up at the end of their driveways. And then the adults or older teens would drive around and throw candy like it's a parade. So which is fun, you know, the kids can get the candy. You know, they throw it at you and you just grab it and you put in your bag and but at least it's like a fun like socially distance parade, huh? Yeah, I guess there's different alternatives you can do with that. Because you can do the cars if you're really you know, worried about it. But if you're already kind of connecting with people, and depending on where you are, maybe it's just the kids are there and they come in the candy gets dropped off that way. That's true, like walking? Like, what would that be like? In sometimes when you do like garage sales together usually like blocks, we'll do like joint garage sales, because then it'll attract more people. So potentially, you could do like a joint candy drop off with the kids or like the cookie, like who is that Girl Scout cookie sales, I didn't just thinking about different maybe there's some kind of ideas there that that you think about in your area and your local area that may be unique, or be possible that could just bring some extra fun and maybe be like another cool, small tradition. Sort of like you know, with our Tricia is doing trunk or treat that I think also maybe works well in this kind of environment. Because you can, you know, control how many people you're going to you're not touching doorknobs. It's not ringing bells, you're not touching all of those things. But you could be going up to the backs of trunks where some, you know, a church or whatever else nonprofit has set up, you know, a bunch of cars with candy out the back of their trunks. And you go to it's like in a parking lot or something. Yeah, whatever. And you go around and get candy that way. Yeah, absolutely. The next one's super cute. It's a Halloween scavenger hunt. I actually saw this on Blippi. toddlers, you know what that is? And if you don't yet you will soon. Oh, yeah, you'll it's on his Instagram, and it came up this week. It's just a little scavenger hunt sheet that you can print out, you can download it, you could download it actually from his Facebook page. I tried it from his Instagram post. And it was really difficult. And I don't think it was possible. So I looked up the comments and people were saying they were able to download it on the Facebook page. So b Li p p AI Blippi. You can check it out. It has different things on there. Like, if you spot a candle, if you spot an apple, if you spot a spider, a pile of leaves, like it has all these cute things on there. And you just take the sheets, and you have your kids hold them and they check them off. And then bingo, yeah, it's like Bingo. You can check them off and have the kids win a prize at the end. If you have something fun you want to give them you know, it could be a good way to like when you're candy, like you just go and buy like the good candy from, you know, one of those big bags, and instead of giving it to other kids, you give it to your own kid, or you make something that they like maybe less candy, but maybe something healthier, or better. And whoever wins it gets gets that first. You know thing. I like that. Okay, and our last little fun activity we would suggest is a backyard campout. So if you have older kids, this could work better. But you could set up a tent in the backyard. And you can get all your little blankets and your little pillows and you just have a fun night of camping out and it doesn't have to be the whole night but it could just be like you can watch a movie on a DVD player like on your laptop or something and the phone. No DVD player. Okay, drink it on our phone. You could put like a DVD in your laptop or something and bring it outside and watch a movie and we can just put an iPad on Netflix or okay. Yeah, definitely. Well, you could do I think we're kind of like alright, fun family time together. And that's kind of like that old thing of like coming together and telling ghost stories or something like that or funny old stories or something. And if you've got a little fire pit, you could do like the marshmallows or whatever. Just do it on your grill. Yeah, if you don't have it, and that could be fun. It's kind of like transitioning from the stations of having all those stations up there and then it's when the lights you know starts to get darker. Maybe you have a tent and do like the you know shadow puppets on the house. side of there with your flashlight or something like that and just something different or unique when it comes to doing that again, it depends on how much space you have you know you know we'll we'll do that in in New York City apartment. But maybe you do it right in the middle of your home like inside you know set up at Sandia turn all the lights off use like flashlights and do something that way or you know, put on a movie, you know, one of the Halloween movies or your one of the Disney movies or something else that they like that they're dressed up as what I really liked that I saw this week was Disney plus put all the Halloween Disney like Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and all the different like Halloween episodes of different shows. They put it all in one spot so that you don't have to search for it. It's like, Oh, you could just you could just click the next one, you know, and you know, oh vampirina has an episode of Halloween. Oh, Mickey Mouse, or, you know, puppy pals has a Halloween one. So that's really cute. So you could put a bunch of those on, you know, different ones. Yeah, I think I think those are a lot. And I'm sure there is plenty, plenty more if you listening, have an idea or have one of those ideas, let us know, tell us over on at working home parents on Instagram or leave us a voice message on our website, working home parents calm, there is a little button that you can leave us a voice message and put their different things that you want to hear us say maybe some different things that you're thinking about for the holidays coming up, that towards the end of this year, leave us a message. Maybe it'll make it to the show or something that we can talk about and have different themes there. But we want to hear from you. We would love to have conversation with you and continue this, but we want to hear more of what are some of the ideas that you have. Yeah, and thank you for those listeners who gave us some of these great ideas. I think they're fabulous. And I think that we can really make this Halloween special even though the circumstance is what it is. We can totally make it work and make like you said make new traditions, right? Yeah, then it's gonna be different for everyone. Yeah, but this is episode eight. Thanks for listening, guys. Thank you. And if you haven't already, remember to hit subscribe so that you'll get every new working home parent episode to your podcast app of choice. And you know, we would really appreciate it if you left us a review on Apple iTunes, an honest review, obviously, but just throwing it out there whenever we can. And thank you so much. Looking forward to chatting with you in our next episode. Thank you for listening to working home parents find show notes links mentioned and more at working home parents.com