With a week or two of half term ahead of us, I wanted to share some ideas for keeping youngsters entertained during the school break. Even though Halloween-themed activities are an obvious choice, some kids just aren’t into the spooky celebration so I’ve come up with some autumnal activity ideas.
Bake off
It’s so lovely when children get involved with baking something that they’re going to eat themselves so why not use my easy chocolate gingerbread recipe to make some skeleton biscuits? They can decorate the cooked treats with icing to draw on funny bones – and they’ll definitely enjoy eating the end result!
STEM activities
There’s no need for the learning to stop just because your children are at home for half term. They won’t even realise that they’re enjoying an educational activity if they’re playing with a Geomag set. That said, this type of construction set is a great way to get kids to explore scientific forces and engineering – especially if you choose a gravity run with loops and turns.
Craft activities
A craft activity is ideal for a rainy day when kids can’t get outside to enjoy themselves. It gives them something to focus on that, crucially, isn’t a screen! There are plenty of Halloween-themed craft ideas out there (like my rather silly pumpkin decorating video or my DIY flying paper bats) but, if your little one finds the whole celebration scary, you could go for an autumnal craft instead.
How about creating a felt flower bouquet in seasonal shades? A simple craft set like this provides all the materials and instructions they’ll need to complete the creative task. This will give them a great sense of achievement and is a cheeky way to give them an ‘art lesson’ while they’re not at school.
If you’ve got teens to entertain, I’ve previously shared a sewing project step-by-step to help them turn any t-shirt into a cushion cover for their bedroom. In this case, the project was a sparkly skull t-shirt, so they could upcycle their Halloween-themed clothing or costumes to DIY this pillow project themselves.
Board – not bored – games
I love playing board games on rainy days – there’s nothing better than settling down around the table for a gently competitive game with your family or friends. It could be a simple card game or a retro word game.
If you want to give your board game session a slightly seasonal twist, choose Top It (currently massively discounted on Amazon!). I think the cone-shaped playing pieces look like little witches’ hats so you can definitely create a Halloween-y feel if you want to get your family in the mood for the spooky season.
Younger children can join in the not-so-spooky yet seasonal fun by creating their own mini monsters. They could use either the Kikkerland stacking building blocks to invent tall ghouls with funny faces, or they could play Frankenstein by using the Animal Mix-Up puzzle set. This kit contains 30 animal pieces to create some crazy characters that you wouldn’t find in any zoo!
Let me know if you have any other ideas for seasonal activities that aren’t too spooky for little ones. I’d love to hear your ideas for half-term fun in the comments below.
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Some items in this blog post have been gifted to me and the pink links indicate a gifted product, affiliate link or information source. All thoughts and opinions in this post are based on my own experience and I am not responsible for your experience 🙂
