5 FREE Halloween ideas the kids will love

Halloween doesn’t need to be expensive - try these five activities you can do in and around your home, for FREE.

As the nights get longer and the weather takes a turn for the worse, it can be more and more difficult to find cost-effective, engaging activities for your kids. Luckily, one of the biggest opportunities for your child’s imagination to run wild is almost upon us. Halloween provides the perfect chance for loads of ghoulish games and fiendish fun to keep your little 'uns entertained for hours. 

Whilst trick or treating remains the most well-known pursuit, there’s plenty more choice if you want to twist from tradition but stay true to terrifying themes. We’ve rounded up a number of options here, including some weatherproof choices should the sun fail to shine.

Wicked Walks

The clocks will go back on Sunday 30th October 2022 - one day before Halloween - and that means it’ll likely be dark before bedtime. So what could be spookier than a night walk around local woods or a dimly lit village centre? 

Take torches or use your phone to stay safe, and depending on the age and disposition of your children, you can incorporate games like hide and seek. It should also help you wind them down with a little bit of exercise at the end of the day. Just remember to wrap up warm and take plenty of spooky snacks!

Creepy Cooking

Kids love creative cooking, and Halloween can dish up plenty of chances to do this. You can make biscuits in scary shapes such as bats, ghosts and wolves, whilst red food colouring can turn any liquid the colour of blood. Who doesn’t want to pour red milk on their cereal first thing Halloween morning?

Pretty much any meal can just be renamed and/or redesigned with a Halloween pun, try Bogey Bread  - add green olives to your dough pre-baking! 

Frightening Films

Don’t fancy trick or treating? One of the best ways to avoid any weather pitfalls is to stay in for home movie nights, raiding your old DVD or Blu Rays or gorging on a streaming service. You can check what is upcoming on Netflix and Amazon Prime in advance to plan what to watch (and check suitability for younger kids).

Obviously, you can pretty much watch whatever you want, but classics such as Casper, The Addams Family and The Wytches are pretty fool-proof choices that are tailor-made for jumpy Halloween films that won’t leave your sprogs quivering. 

Devilish Disco

Need to keep your kids active but the weather outside is abominable? You can engage in some dastardly dancing at a repulsive rave by cranking out the classics, bopping to Ray Parker Jr’s ‘Ghostbusters Theme’ and Bobby Pickett’s ‘Monster Mash’. You can create your own playlist on a platform like Spotify, or listen in for free via YouTube.

Chilling Costume Making 

Nothing screams Halloween more than a costume, and an unbounded imagination and sense of creativity can keep costs down significantly by repurposing standard household items for a horrifying twist.

Staples such as tin-foil, bin bags and bedsheets are all obvious choices, but you can recycle clothes with black dye or old toys with a splash of fake blood. That toolbox can be much more fearsome with a few choice splashes. You can make this easily by adding red food colouring to a standard gravy recipe, which means it’s an edible option you could even incorporate into your meals! 

Read on for our tips on how to make a Halloween costume on the cheap.