Halloween Activities for Young Children

Celebrate the annual Fright Night with these seventeen fun (and not so scary) ideas, especially for young children.

1. Try your hand at face painting, or allow your children to paint each other's faces with washable face paints.

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2. Make your own goodie bags. Set out some brown paper bags with the standard art supplies or embellish an old pillowcase with fabric paints. You can even spring for blank canvas baggies from your local discount store or craft store without spending a lot.

3. Tie-dye some T-shirts or socks using orange and black fabric dyes.

4. Make ghosts. Fold a piece of black construction paper in half and let your child squirt white paint inside. Squish the paint between the paper, let dry, then embellish the white ghost with paints, markers and other craft supplies.

5. Make homemade slime. This is always a popular activity. Here is a great recipe from Family Fun Magazine: http://jas.familyfun.go.com/arts-and-crafts?page=CraftDisplay&craftid=10684

6. Watch a Halloween movie. Make popcorn, cuddle up together in blankets, and take in some spooky cinematic sights. Harry Potter, Dracula, or Ghostbusters are great choices. For younger children, choose Heffalump Halloween, starring Winnie the Pooh or The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad by Disney Classics.

7. Eat creepy cuisine. Cut sandwiches or tortillas into Halloween shapes with cookie cutters. Create a ghoulish look with almost anything by mixing in a little green or red food coloring.

8. Play "Guess How Many Pumpkin Seeds." Each family member or party guest gets to take turns guessing how many pumpkin seeds are in a jar. The winner gets a prize.

9. Go apple bobbing. Fill a bucket or tub with water and apples and see how many apples each contestant can snag.

10. Make masks. Set out the art supplies and see who can make the scariest mask with a paper plate, construction paper, yarn, and markers or paints.

11. Create a family costume. Come up with a costume theme that the whole family can participate in. One year, we were all Star Wars characters. Maybe you will all be people from the Wild West or fuzzy forest animals.

12. Have a pumpkin seed spitting contest.

13. Roast pumpkin seeds. Clean the pumpkin seeds and toss them in just enough melted butter to lightly cover the seeds. (One tablespoon of butter is generally enough for the seeds from a medium sized pumpkin.) Salt the seeds, then spread them on a baking sheet in a single layer. Bake at 250 degrees until golden brown, stirring occasionally.

14. Play Pin the Tail on the Black Cat (or Pin the Nose on the Pumpkin.) Any variation of Pin the Tail on the Donkey is fun for young kids.

15. Make a Scare Tape. Record you and your family members making spooky sounds. All you need is a tape recorder and a little imagination. Include footsteps, slamming doors, creepy howling werewolves, and crazy cackles. Play the tape from your front porch on Halloween.

16. Give each child an inexpensive disposable camera for the big night. This is a fun way to see what Halloween looks like from their perspective. I love to give my kids a blank journal and let them tell the story of memorable events, such as Halloween. This is a great tradition and really helps them to tell their personal stories, which they will cherish for many Halloweens to come.

17. Once Halloween is over, make sure to shop the post Halloween sales for fun additions to your dress up closet, which your young children are sure to enjoy year round.

Happy haunting!

Halloween Activities for Young Children

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North Dakota State Fair has Interesting Activities

The North Dakota State Fair in Minot is considered the entertainment capital of the state. This is probably because the state fairgrounds host many of the major entertainment events that occur throughout the year. However towards the end of each July for nine days the grounds are filled with visitors looking to enjoy the state fair. Those looking for some fun activities while visiting North Dakota during this time of year shouldn't skip the opportunity to check out the fair.

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Entertaiment at the fair usually consists of your standard Midway and Carnival accompanied by the tried and true Agricultural shows. There have also been a number of interesting activities at the state fair over the years. In 2006's fair the organizers were able to lure the National Basketball Association (NBA) to the fair. They set up exhibits with free contests for visitors, basketball displays and of course special guests associated with the sport to the fair.

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In recent years the state fair has started an annual Dodgeball Tournament. There are two divisions open class and Business/Service class. Visitors to the fair can enter the open class division and seek retribution for all those years of high school gym. The tournament is usually held towards the beginning of the fair, so come early.

One year the state fair hosted the World Rhubarb Pie Eating Championship. It was free to attend but most of the competitors places were all ready reserved for some world class eaters by the International Federation of Competitive Eating. Who knew such a group existed? Well, now you do and there's likely to be more eating championships at the state fair in future years.

In 2005 the state fair received over 15,000 competitive exhibit entries. That's an amazing number of canned fruits and veggies, quilts, baked goods, giant veggies, clothing, paintings, livestock and anything else you can think of creating. Put on your easy walking shoes if you plan on checking out the ever-growing competitive exhibits at the fair.

When you come to the fair you can find many local hotels willing and waiting for your visit as well as campgrounds, KOA's and the fairgrounds itself has camping available.

North Dakota State Fair has Interesting Activities

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Car Show Activities

Planning a car show takes a lot of work. If you want to have a successful car show it is important to find a reason to have the guest continue coming. You need to think of fun activities for your customer's to participate in, or entertainment that would bring in more customers.

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The main thing is to consider the cars you are showing. Car shows are showcasing the beautiful craftsmanship of cars. Make that the priority with your car show.

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There are other things that can bring in people besides the beautiful cars, however. There are plenty of other activities that can go alongside cars to make it a fun event for everyone in the family. Having child-friendly activities will bring in the entire family and higher chances of selling items.

One idea is to award prizes to cars. Have a few different categories, such as brightest car or best overall car. People can put their votes in and then award prizes to the winners. This can be a good incentive to get people in who own cars already.

Another idea is to host a car hop. A car hop is an event where waiters or waitresses bring food out to the cars. A car hop ties in to the car theme, and makes customers happy by bringing them food in a fun and entertaining fashion. Have your servers wear car hop costumes from the fifties to make it even more fun.

Have a type of carnival set up. Have face painting for kids and balloon sculpting. There can be door prizes and raffles catered towards children if you would like to do that. New bikes or the likes can be a great incentive to get parents to come out to the show.

Book a good local band to come to the event. They will like the publicity, and you might get more of a crowd in to the event. Having something there to listen to can really help an event out.

A car show can be a lot of fun. Make it a fun experience for everyone in the family by taking time to plan events out ahead of time. Look online for inspiration with decorations, themes, and activities.

Car Show Activities

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