This year I have a 12 year-old who will not be participating in any trick-or-treating. A couple of us preteen moms were thinking about making a fun night for the kids since it is on Friday and they are really too young for some of the haunted hayrides etc. in the area.
So, my question is what would you do if you were throwing a preteen Halloween party? We thought about a scavenger hunt, kids should come in costume(?), ghost stories around the fire pit and a few other games. Any suggestions are appreciated.

Is there a garage among any of the families that would be willing to open it up to being set up as a "haunted house" of some sort? Girls could still get costumed up, play the ghoulies and ghosties, etc and have fun that night in a different way. You could see if there is some charity or cause that the girls might want to raise money for, and have a "donation" box (or maybe trick-or-treat for UNICEF boxes) for those who might WANT to donate after going through (to differentiate it from a charge to get in).

__________________
"Well-Behaved Women SELDOM make history."Laurel Thatcher Ulrich


"Yesterday is but a vision, and tomorrow is only a dream. But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness, and every tomorrow a dream of hope." Anonymous

"Your candle does not lose it's light by lighting another candle" Generosity

Have the courage to be yourself.

Oldest will dress up to take the younger kids to trunk or treat at one of the churches

__________________
Books just wanna be FREE! See what I mean at:
http://bookcrossing.com

My other favorites
www.paperbackswap.com
www.wheresgeorge.com
www.geocaching.com

That's what I was going to say Haunted House. And even if you don't do the whole haunted house you can still have them stick their hands in a bowl of eyeballs (peeled grapes) and do some of the small scale things. Guts is cold spaghetti with lots of kethcup. Brains can be eaten (rice crispy treats with "blood" on them).

You can put on a classic scary movie.

__________________
The political system is broke and it's a joke.

You could have a 'Survivor' type of party where they have challenges - like eating some of those nasty Harry Potter jelly beans, or eating brussell sprouts and other yucky things for prizes. You could even have a make your own cupcake station.

Or there are tons of ideas for making spooky cakes and Halloween themed munchies if you search online or in Woman's Day magazine. Good Luck - let us know how it turns out.

__________________
Prayer is the burden of a sigh,
The falling of a tear,
The upward glancing of an eye
When none but God is near."

The best memory my boys have is of us doing a halloween sleep over at our house. We let each of the boys (4) invite 5 guests. We had 24 boys betwen the ages of 5 and 13!! We did our garage up in a haunted house and had some of the parents helping.
It was a blast!! We had so much fun doing it.


At around 10pm, the boys were all wired up, so we took them for a "flashlight" walk around the neighborhood and let them do flashlight tag.

It was such a blast. I am glad we did it.

One dad, who came to pick up his boy the next day, said "Glad it was you not me" I saId, " You didn't know it is you next year??

Haha, he said,

No one ever did a halloween party like we did...lol

Chickens.

BTW, we had "rooms" in our garage that were sectioned off in black plasic. We had a witches brew room (with the witch and her cauldron (me)), a walk through area with a warewolf that jumped out of a hole in the plastic (mask with one of the parents), a room with a mad scientist with all kinds of dishes with "touch and feel" things like tofu for brains, eyeballs, etc.

It was pretty cool

Don't forget that nasty Jones flavored sodas!!!

You are soooo cool! I do my yard up big time so I love to hear what other people have done!

What about "freeze dance" to Monster Mash, Thriller and other monster type songs?

Lisa

__________________
"It's not having what you want,
It's wanting what you've got"

MJ's video "Thriller" would be so funny! Totally retro and the kids would probably get a good laugh out of it. Heck - I chuckle just remembering how everyone in my family gathered around the tv to watch the video when it first came out! Too funny. (anyone remember that scene in 13 going on 30?)

__________________
Prayer is the burden of a sigh,
The falling of a tear,
The upward glancing of an eye
When none but God is near."

Oh yeah - you could blindfold them and make them guess the flavor! (gag)

You definitely have to tell us how this turns out!

__________________
Prayer is the burden of a sigh,
The falling of a tear,
The upward glancing of an eye
When none but God is near."

For my ds halloween b-day party one year we bought a bail of hay and spread it out on the side yard, leave it a little thick, and in the hay we hid sacks (colored lunch bags- walmart, wrapping paper aisle) with each kids name printed in them, once you found your sack then you dug thru the hay to find the candy to fill your bag. Ds was only 8 when we did this but I still think older kids would find it fun. Best part, no clean up, hay won't hurt your grass-

__________________
Love, J.

Wow! I knew ya'll would have some great ideas. I love the survivor food games. The sectioning of the garage is great for the haunted house. I now have a bunch of things to share with the other moms. This is going to be so much fun. Thank you for helping me.

We also threw a halloween party for our son when he was in the 8th grade (2 years ago). We made it open invitation to the entire 8th grade class, distributed fliers, etc.

We hired a DJ and a "fortune Teller" (The girls really liked that more than the boys). We did the basement up, had the dance area down there with the DJ (it is a very large basement separated into two big rooms that connect). I placed orange and purple "Black" lights everywhere, outlining the stairs and the rooms. We had strobe lights and different lights (like a stop sign, etc) for the dance floor.
We had a bon fire going out back and we put hay bales out there for the kids to sit on by the fire. We had food upstairs, constant parent supervision and it only lasted until 11pm (2 1/2 hours- we had to start late because the school had a dance for the 8th graders that night as well, so some of them just came to our house when that was done).
We did a costume contest, and I bought those snap light up bracelets and necklaces for the kids to wear.
Since we do really have a ghost in our house, and we have accounts from people who have lived here since the house was built, I put together a flyer talking about the "Old Man in the Basement" and explained about him and then put down the eyewitness accounts that were written to me by all who had seen him. We passed these out as the kids came over and it really set the tone for the party. Then, about an hour or so into the party, when they were all downstairs dancing, my dh got this old mans mask (REALLY big and the beard goes down to his knees!! LOL) and he walked down the stairs and just stood in the corner. It took a while for anyone to notice, but when they did it was the FUNNIEST thing I have ever seen! The DJ even screamed and freaked out..LOL

That was a super fun night. We didn't get overcrowded..it was just a fun night for all of the kids involved.