As a fun and safe alternative to the trick-or-treat traditions of Halloween, theme parties held at home are a popular idea. If the thought of throwing a Halloween party for your children scares you, however, consider these frighteningly good ideas for throwing a ghoulishly great get-together.
? Decorate with fake spider-webs and cut-out bats.
? Create a mad scientist lab where blindfolded children can touch "brains" (cold spaghetti), eyeballs (peeled grapes) and severed fingers (hot dogs).
? Offer each child a small pumpkin and a magic marker that he or she can use to draw a face on it. You can also supply additional craft materials for further decoration (e.g., glitter, pipe cleaners that can be used to make a mustache).
? Play a seasonal guessing game. Fill a jar with candy corn and have guests guess how many are in the jar.
? Play Who's Got the Pumpkin? Place everyone in a circle. Start a Halloween-themed song and toss a minipumpkin to one person. The pumpkin gets passed on until the music stops. The person who is holding the pumpkin has to leave the circle. The last one left is the winner.
? Hide trick-or-treat candy around the house and have kids seek it, like an Easter egg hunt.
? Tell ghost stories. Dim the lights and take turns telling scary stories around a flashlight. Or entertain young party goers with a new DVD featuring stories based on R.L. Stine's children's books.
The three new Goosebumps tales, "My Best Friend Is Invisible," "Perfect School" and "Shocker on Shock Street," feature family-friendly scares and kid-friendly themes such as homework angst, best friends and suburban life.
In "My Best Friend Is Invisible," Sam Jacobs has been talked into doing his term paper on Hedge House, the spookiest, most terrifying house in town. When he leaves the haunted house to head home, he suddenly realizes he is not alone.
In "The Perfect School," Brian O'Connor is not a perfect child, but is that any reason to send him away to boarding school? Brian's parents send him to the "Perfect School," where the students that graduate really are perfect-maybe a little too perfect....
In "Shocker on Shock Street," Erin Wright and her friend Marty love the Shocker on Shock Street horror movies and all the gruesome lifelike movie monsters that Erin's dad creates for the Shocker Movie Studios. But when the girls ride the new Shocker Studios Tour Ride, the movie creatures become a little too lifelike.
When it's time to go home, give each child a goody bag containing a Polaroid of themselves in costume.
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