Spooktacular Fun for Little Ones: A Horrifying Halloween at Footsteps

Halloween is one of our favourite times of the year at Footsteps! It’s the perfect opportunity to bring excitement and creativity into learning, with activities designed to spark imagination and help children develop fine motor skills, language, and even early maths skills. Here’s a peek at just some of the magical, spooky, and engaging activities that have been inspired by the season!

Pumpkin Carving & Printing

There’s no Halloween without pumpkins! Our children have been carving pumpkins (with close supervision, of course), building their hand-eye coordination and encouraging creativity. They have also enjoyed pumpkin printing – dipping cut pumpkin pieces in paint and stamping them onto paper to create autumn-inspired artwork. This activity teaches about shapes, patterns, and colours as well as a great opportunity to get messy.

Dress-Up Time

Halloween dress-up is a time for little imaginations to come alive! From mini witches and wizards to friendly ghosts and spooky spiders, children have been allowed to come dressed as their favourite Halloween characters. It’s a fantastic way to encourage language development as children describe their costumes and get into the Halloween spirit.

Apple Bobbing

Apple bobbing brings the fun of Halloween’s classic games to life! Not only is this an exciting activity, but it also helps improve hand-eye coordination as the children try to “catch” apples with their hands or mouths. Apple bobbing can also be a counting game – how many apples can you catch? We were very impressed with their efforts and there was lots of laughter too!

Monster cooking skills

Halloween activities in the kitchen aren’t just tasty fun; they’re a great way to introduce food preparation and counting skills. We investigated some healthy options as well as the sweeter treats such as mixing yogurt with fruit like kiwi to create “monster yogurt”. We also made witches’ hats with ice cream cones, and some spooky sandwiches in the shape of cats and ghosts. These activities develop fine motor skills as children spoon, spread, and decorate their Halloween snacks.

Bubbling Cauldrons

We loved getting crafty in our bubbling cauldron activity. It was a huge hit with our young witches and wizards who were able to get hands on with an array of colour, bubbles and creativity. It was double double toil and trouble as we used fairy liquid to recreate a bubbling cauldron.

Spooky Spaghetti Exploration

Spooky spaghetti is a sensory dream! We dyed spaghetti in Halloween colours and added mini “creepy crawlies” for children to squish, squirm, and explore. This sensory play activity is perfect for encouraging language development as children described textures and talked about what they “find” in the spooky spaghetti!

Potion Bottles

Creating potions is another firm favourite. We filled our “cauldrons” with water, glitter, sequins, and Halloween-coloured liquids to make their very own potions. It’s a wonderful way to teach volume and measurements, as they experimented with how much they can fit in their potion bottles.

Decorating Halloween Biscuits

Nothing says Halloween fun like decorating biscuits with icing, sprinkles, and sweets! This activity builds fine motor skills as children carefully added toppings and designs to their Halloween creations, and it’s a great opportunity to explore patterns and colours.

Dastardly Dancing

Our Halloween parties have been a wonderful way to end the first half term. They wouldn’t be complete however without some “dastardly dancing”! Our party goers grooved to spooky tunes, which helps developed coordination and rhythm, and also offered a chance to burn off some energy with their friends!

Terrifying Tuff Trays

At Footsteps, our tuff trays are filled by our amazing team with Halloween surprises! Each tray is designed for sensory exploration and themed creativity, including “bugs” in slime, spider webs, and even spooky hands. Our intrepid adventurers used their hands, tweezers, and spoons to explore, helping improve fine motor skills while encouraging curiosity.

We hope all our families have a simply spooktacular half term!