Halloween is one of the most exciting times of year for children. Between costumes, decorations, spooky stories, candy, Halloween parties, and the anticipation of trick-or-treating, there’s so much for children to enjoy throughout October. It’s a season brimming with opportunities for imaginative, hands-on fun that doesn’t require any electronic devices like phones, tablets, TVs, and computers.
If you’re looking for ways to reduce screen time this October, these Halloween activities encourage creativity, movement, imagination, and family connection.
Discover 15 screen-free Halloween activities that will keep kids entertained throughout October!
1. Flashlight Ghost Stories
Earlier sunsets can easily lead to longer screen times if families aren’t careful. Fortunately, the lack of daylight lends itself perfectly to both spooky and silly Halloween activities!
When the sun goes down, gather everyone in a dark room or head outside for a backyard bonfire. Grab a flashlight and take turns telling spooky stories. Younger children may enjoy silly ghost tales, while older kids can try making up suspenseful stories of their own.
Storytelling encourages creativity and helps children exercise their imaginations. Depending on the stories and the children’s ages, you may find them experiencing a mix of gleeful fright and lots of laughter!
2. Halloween Scavenger Hunt
A scavenger hunt is a great way to build excitement throughout October. Hide clues, toy spiders, mini pumpkins, skeletons, or Halloween treats throughout your home or yard and challenge children to find them all.
For older kids, create riddles that guide them from one clue to the next. Younger children, on the other hand, may prefer a simple Halloween-themed checklist.
3. Pumpkin Bowling
This game is exactly what it sounds like: bowling with pumpkins!
Use small, stemless pumpkins as bowling balls and set up plastic bottles or cups as pins in the backyard. To add a bit of extra Halloween magic, draw ghostly faces on the bottles or cups with black markers. Children can see how many pins they can knock down while practicing their coordination and balance.
4. Halloween Costume Relay Race
This screenless activity is perfect for playdates and Halloween parties. It combines a little friendly competition with Halloween spirit, and it gets kids moving!
Set up teams and create equal piles of Halloween costume pieces such as hats, capes, wigs, gloves, and masks. Players race across the yard or room, put on an item, return to their team, and tag the next person. The first team to wear all of their costume pieces wins.
5. Zombie Tag
This screen-free game takes a classic playground favorite and gives it a silly Halloween twist. The child who is “it” must move like a zombie while chasing the other players.
As more players are tagged, they join the zombie horde. Before long, your backyard will begin to look like the set of a monster movie!
6. Glow-in-the-Dark Slime
A little slime can go a long way when it comes to Halloween fun.
Using washable clear glue, glow powder, saline solution, and a pinch of baking soda, children can make stretchy glow-in-the-dark slime—a perfect sensory activity for kids. It’s gooey, gross, and exactly the kind of thing many kids love during the Halloween season!
7. Monster Freeze Dance
Put on some Halloween music and let everyone show off their best monster moves.
When the music stops, children must freeze in place like a vampire, ghost, skeleton, werewolf, zombie, or whatever spooky creature they choose. Bonus points to whoever has the most convincing monster pose!
8. Halloween Charades
Charades aren’t just for parties—with a little seasonal twist, they make the perfect screen-free Halloween activity!
Write the names of costumes, creatures, decorations, and Halloween symbols on slips of paper and place them in a bowl. Children take turns acting them out while everyone else tries to guess the answer. Simple and fun, this activity can keep children engaged again and again throughout October.
9. Shadow Puppet Theater
A flashlight and a blank wall or projector screen are all you need to create a spooky puppet show.
Children can make simple puppets from cardstock and other craft items or use their hands to create ghosts, bats, monsters, and witches. Once the lights are dimmed, encourage them to perform their own Halloween-themed stories and adventures.
To add an extra cultural element, encourage children to learn more about shadow puppets from other cultures, such as the Indonesian wayang tradition, and use it as inspiration for their own creations!
10. Build a Tiny Fairy Home
Gather small sticks, acorns, fallen leaves, stones, and other natural materials from the backyard.
Children can use their findings to build a miniature fairy home hidden among trees, garden beds, or flowerpots. This activity is perfect for fall, when the ground is covered with colorful leaves and seeds. Plus, it combines creativity, outdoor exploration, and imaginative play while helping children appreciate the natural world around them. Add a miniature pumpkin or a few spooky decorations to give your fairy home a Halloween twist!
To take this screen-free activity to the next level, encourage children to make up stories about the fairies who inhabit their newly built homes. Families hosting an au pair can ask if they know of any folktales related to fairies or other magical beings from their home country.
11. Pumpkin Investigation Lab
A pumpkin can be surprisingly fascinating once children begin exploring it.
Cut one open and invite kids to investigate its weight, texture, seeds, scent, and structure. Younger children often enjoy getting their hands messy as they scoop out the pumpkin pulp, while older children may enjoy measuring the pumpkin, counting seeds, or recording their observations like a mini scientist.
Then ask them to collect and clean the seeds so they can roast them with oil and salt for a delicious Halloween snack!
12. Nighttime Bat Hunt & Owl Prowl
As dusk approaches, head outside to look for bats, owls, and other nighttime wildlife. This can be a simple backyard exploration, a walk around the neighborhood, or, if your family is up for it (and it’s safe to do so), a stroll through a nearby park or forest that’s open past sunset. Some community nature centers may even offer guided night hikes or “owl prowls,” where ornithologists or other professionals take families to natural areas in search of nocturnal wildlife.
This activity helps children develop observation skills while encouraging them to spend time outdoors. For kids who don’t spend much time in nature at night, it’s an excellent opportunity to see how ecosystems transform after dark. Bring along a flashlight, speak in hushed tones, and see how many signs of nocturnal life your family can spot!
13. Bake Some Delicious Halloween Treats
Halloween and sweet treats go hand in hand.
Decorate cookies, make caramel apples, create monster cupcakes, or experiment with spooky snacks in the kitchen. Baking together gives children a chance to practice new skills while contributing to family traditions.
Looking for inspiration? Read our blog post: Halloween Treats and Autumn Sweets from Around the World.
14. Create a Halloween Story Together
This activity requires nothing more than a little bit of imagination and a few minutes of family time. It can be done around the dinner table, on a rainy fall afternoon, or even a walk around the neighborhood.
Have one person begin a Halloween story with a single sentence. Then, each family member adds another sentence before passing the story to the next participant. You never know where the adventure will lead, which is all part of the fun!
15. Halloween Reading Hour
Set aside some time to read Halloween books, folktales, and seasonal stories.
For families hosting an au pair, this can also become an opportunity for cultural exchange. Ask your au pair if there were any ghost stories, myths, legends, or folktales they enjoyed growing up, then read them along with the Halloween stories your family already knows and loves.
Children may be surprised to discover that many cultures have their own mysterious creatures, spooky tales, and seasonal traditions to share.
Ready to make screen-free Halloween fun part of your family’s October traditions? Host an au pair with Au Pair in America®!
October is packed with opportunities for children to stay engaged without resorting to endless screen time. A flashlight, a pumpkin, a favorite book, or a few simple household supplies can spark hours of Halloween fun and give children something to look forward to throughout the season.
As your family works through these activities, you may even discover a few new traditions worth bringing back each year. And if you’re looking to add another layer of cultural exchange to your family’s seasonal celebrations, hosting an au pair with Au Pair in America® can introduce children to screen-free engagement through new stories, traditions, and perspectives from around the world.
