Haunted Hallway/Fall Festival at school--ideas??

[Lovin' Disney]

It's getting to be that time of year again. This year our PTA decided to have a haunted hallway for the kids to walk through on Halloween. We have never had one before and are trying to come up with ideas of what to put in it. We will most likely have the area with peeled grapes, cold spaghetti, etc. We would like to make it somewhat scary, but not overly scary as the grade levels are preschool-6th grade. Has anyone ever had a haunted hallway at their school and can offer some ideas?

We also have a fall festival at night. We are trying to come up with a couple new games. We already have pumpkin golf, a bean bag toss, plinko, the grand prize game (like the Bozo show), a witch hat ring toss, and a fishing game where you put the pole over the wall and someone attaches the prize to the pole behind it. Does anyone have any other ideas for games?

Thanks!

 

[mrsbornkuntry]

My son's school does something like this and a couple things they've done besides the games you've mentioned are:
a cake walk
splitting the gym into sections, part for dancing (chicken dance, hokey pokey, etc) and part for hula hooping.
a colored hairspray/temporary tatoo station
musical chairs

I don't have any ideas for the haunted hallway.

 

[Lovin' Disney]

Hmmm...I'm liking the hair coloring/tattoo idea...

 

[mom2t]

Contact your high school drama or theater teacher. Our theater department helps each year.

 

[Lovin' Disney]

The high school does not have a drama/theater teacher or club, so unfortunately that wouldn't work.

 

[StephMK]

Could you separate the scary hall from the rest? An older Scout troop of teens would probably have a blast helping with something like that. High schools sometimes have community service requirements and honor societies have CS requirements. Let the teens dress up & put on scary skits for the younger kids - be guides, etc. Create a tame version of a haunted house tour.

Our school always does a pop & cake walk - they are both big hits as well as dance contests.

Games -
-a kiddie pool filled with ducks & the prize matches the number on the bottom
-pumpkin bowling - use 2L bottles (fill a little bit w/sand or water) as the pins, we decorated them like Halloween characters - mummy, ghost, green bottle - draw Frankenstein or witch, white bottle -ghost (Costco milk bottles work great for ghosts), use little pumpkins as the balls
-candy races - relays to see who can fill a cup w/skittles on a spoon first
-minute it to win it style Halloween games
-our school always does a photo shoot - set up a Halloween or fall backdrop

 

[McKelly]

Ring toss over small pumpkins.

Get a large pumpkin, guess how much the pumpkin weighs, winnner wins the pumpkin!

 

[MSSANDRA]

Great ideas! One suggestions is to take all these games and fall theme them. I did the pick a duck game but used the tine plastic jack'o lanterns.

a few more:
-a cake walk using fall decorated cup cakes.

-have someone cut out and paint one of those photo opp boards where you stick your head through the hole and make pictures. Just have a few people bring their color printers. OR. Just set up a fall background and do pictures.

-Face painting

One other thought, I am a preschool directors, and anything scary enough not to be deemed, totally "dumb" by the older kids, is going to really freak out most preschoolers and a lot of kindergarten kids. Might want to think how to avoid that. I am sure the teachers of the little would appreciate that

 

[McKelly]

We did this for a Family Reading Night, but this could be adapted for a Fall Festival......how about a book scavenger hunt? Hide Halloween/Fall themed books throughout the school and put together a scavenger hunt question type game, asking questions about the books. So, they have to find the book, and then answer the question about the book, forcing them to read. Families do it together, so parents should be able to help the little ones with reading. While it has that "academic" feel, that you would think kids would groan at, the kids actually loved it!! You could give a small prize for all completed scavenger hunts, or put their name into a drawing for a bigger prize, or both.

 

[v.t.]

We had a haunted hallway as well as a "gross anatomy" room. For the hallway, we had spider webs (with spiders), different bugs tied to fishing line from the ceiling. We had foam on the floor that was unlevel, stuffed animals that were "peeking out" from a mural we painted. The hallway was more for the younger kids. The gross out room was for the older kids. We actually got animal organs from the butcher shop. We had those sealed in containers and labeled. The kids were fascinated. But then we had a box next to each organ that they reached into. We had peeled grapes for eyes, noodles for intestines, cauliflower for brains, etc. That was a huge hit.

We also have a pumpkin decorating contest for the teachers, "Pennies for Pumpkins". Kids brought pennies to vote for their favorite pumpkin. The teachers got to keep the money for classroom supplies. The winner got an additional gift card for science materials.

If you want additional booth ideas, let me know, we had about 30 booths at the festival. Good luck!

 

[Princess_Meghan <3]

We had a Fall Festival every year where I was in middle school. It was grades k-8, so there was a variety of games. We had a cake walk, and we also played bingo- the prizes were normally costume accessories like plastic swords, press on nails, colored hair spray, etc. That was always the most popular game.

We had a haunted house every year, too- the 8th graders designed and ran it. We had 3 different dialogues- one for not scary, one for kind of scary, and then a really scary one. We had a runner who went in and yelled what it would be before the guide took the kids through the room. We did a haunted hotel, and it was a huge hit! Some of the things we did were have people hiding under a table who would grab their legs as they walked by, we had someone crawling on the floor with a knife in their back, and had someone laying on a 'bed' that would pop up and scream when they walked into the room.

Some other things we had were the duck pond, like some people mentioned, and a face painting station.