Host a spooky sleepover

September 25, 2009

Get the kids in the mood for Halloween by holding a backyard sleepover.

Set up scary sleeping tents. Hang artificial cobwebs and Halloween decorations around each one. Depending on how easily your guests get scared, you might sneak plastic rats or insects into their sleeping bags.

Decorate the yard with cardboard gravestones with silly names on them, plastic skeletons and ghoulish cutouts.

Make survival kits for each kid. Include a flashlight designed just for them using paint or stickers to write names on each one. Include extra batteries, a glow stick, a midnight snack - like a bag of trail mix or a granola bar - and a pair of seasonal socks.

When it gets dark, encourage them to play outdoor games, such as ghosts in the graveyard or flashlight tag. Get everyone into one tent and see who can tell the scariest ghost story.

Serve hot cocoa and a gross but delicious treat, like gummy worms in crushed cookies or insect fruit snacks.

To make sure no one goes to bed too frightened, invite everyone inside to settle and watch a funny Halloween movie, such as Hocus Pocus.