Conference moira::parenting_v3

    I think the way you do the "guess what it is" game is to have a box
    with 2 holes cut in the sides so they can stick their hands into it.
    Some real gross things to put in are raw meat (like liver) but I'm sure
    you don't want them touching that and then touching anything in the
    house.
    
    Other touchable food...jello, rice pudding (or tapioca for texture),
    melting ice cream, hard boiled eggs (they make great eyeballs, keep a
    little water in the bowl to keep them slippery), a feather duster will
    scary the day-lights out of them if they are told to approach it
    slowly, etc.
    
    As for another game...get doughnuts and hang them from the ceiling by a
    string and they have to eat it all up with their hands behind their
    backs. Not only does it keep swinging but it get very difficult to
    swallow because they tend to be dry. Suggestion: use plain doughnuts
    because powdered or cinnamon will make the floor a mess. This is best
    done in the kitchen or the garage where there is no carpeting. You
    could even thread doughnut holes and string them up but warn the girls
    about the string running through the doughnut and don't allow them to
    put the whole thing in their mouth at once.
    
    Happy Haunting!!
    Andrea 

    For "guess what it is"....how about spaghetti (=brains!!)?

    Peeled grapes are another good gross thing to use for eyes.  
    
    When my daughter at 8 had her halloween party, we didn't bob for
    apples, I hung them on strings from the ceiling, as .1 describes
    for donuts.  Much less mess.  The only rule was that they couldn't
    use their hands to touch it and couldn't team up -- one pair had
    figured out that if they just held the apple between their faces,
     a third one could get a bite and they'd all win.  I gave them high
    points for creativity and teamwork . . . but I wonder if I should
    make sure the FBI is keeping an eye on them.  They could go far in
    white-collar crime :)
    
    The other games we played were pin the nose on the jack-o-lantern,
    which is just pin the tail on the donkey; haunted chairs (musical
    chairs, but we tied string to the chair legs so Neil, hiding in
    the kitchen, could pull the chair away without touching it); and a
    pumpkin decorating contest (one pumpkin per guest, have a variety
    of paints, pins, construction paper, etc. for everybody; if you
    want to actually carve the pumpkins, warn the guests so they can
    bring t-shirts or something to cover up their costumes.)
    
    A costume contest is also a possibility -- we didn't have one, but
    if we did, it would have been won hands down by Karen, who came as
    a bag of garbage . . . although Susan, as gypsy, was more
    striking.  
    
    --bonnie

I went to a party like that when I was a kid, but I can't remember how old I
was.  Would a seven year old get nightmares from that?  Not having any kids that
age, I wouldn't know.

As for another fun game. TAKE A HIKE

Have a circle of chairs, 1 less than # of kids.
Child in the middle says something like, "Everyone with yellow on, take a hike!"

Everyone with yellow on has to move at least 2 chairs away and the kid in the
middle tries for an empty chair.  The person left in the middle gives the next
command.

It's funny with pre-teens too, cause they'll say, "Everyone who has kissed
someone of the opposite sex not including relatives, take a hike..."

They get very creative!

LN

Another fun activity; making carmel apples at the stove.
Just pick up a bag of Kraft Carmels at the store and the recipe is on the bag.
  Of course you'll probably have to supervise, but they are delicious! And you
can roll them in nuts. Any leftovers can be taken home with each kid.
-Nancy

    Hope this isn't too late to help you (that's what I get for letting the
    unread notes mount up so high!).
    
    At Alex's party yesterday, I led each "victim" down to our dungeon, aka
    cellar.  Another mom stood watch over the rest of the kids upstairs.  I
    had set up a card table with bowls of the tactile samples and just
    covered with a sheet of newspaper.  The victim was blindfolded, led to
    the table and told, "don't wipe your hands on your costume! - there's 
    warm soapy water at the end and paper towels to dry off.  Everything
    *feels* gross, but it's really made of perfectly good food." 
    Surprisingly, I had the presence of mind to arrange the stuff from
    a comparatively dry first selection to goopy at the end.  Oh, BTW these
    kids were 5 and 6 years old.
    
    "Spider Webs"               Cotton candy - good luck finding the real
    				thing!  I bought prepackaged stuff, which
    				was much more like cotton batting than
    				spider webs.  But it was still one of the 
    				kids' favorites.
    
    "A Handful of our Driveway"	Crumbled, slightly stale brownies; pretzel
    				sticks; potato chips.  They guessed the
    				chips right away - next time I'll break
    				them up more, or just use the nut brownies
    				and call them "dirt."
    
    "Babies' Ears"		Dried apricots!!  Nobody guessed what they
    				were, but everyone agreed they were gross.
    
    "Fingers"			Cocktail hotdogs with almond slivers stuck
    				in as fingernails.
    
    "Veins" [not *brains*!]	Wet spaghetti
    
    "Hearts and Livers"		Cling peaches
    
    
    I *had* grapes for eyeballs, but I completely forgot about them....
    What surprised me was the difference in individual kids' reactions and
    sampling methods!  Some were really goosey and just touched with
    fingertips for a nanosecond; others plunged in practically up to the
    elbow and spent a lot of time with each sample.  A couple of kids
    refused to try certain items (of course I didn't insist; one girl had a
    "thing" about being blindfolded, so she was allowed just to shut her
    eyes tight).  Some sampled everything and then gave me the rundown on
    what each item was, but most wanted to sample, identify and then move
    on.  They were all *very* serious and thoughtful about it; in fact with
    my first couple of "victims" I thought, Well this is a bust, I guess
    the stuff isn't gross enough.  But on the way back up the stairs it was
    a different story!  "Iiieeeeuuuuu, it is SO DISGUSTING you guys, you
    will be *so grossed out*!!"  Then I realized that 5-year-old bravery
    wears a sober face indeed.
    
    They all got wax vampire lips as badges of courage, and according to
    the points they'd racked up in the identification process, they chose
    party favors from a bowl (everyone got one).
    
    We did a lot of the other neat stuff suggested in this string, and we
    ended the party by crawling under the (black) tablecloth and telling
    ghost stories in a circle, passing a pumpkin flashlight around to
    indicate whose turn it was to pick up the thread of the story.  I had a
    cassette recorder going to capture it all, though most of it was
    dominated by the din of the "crickets" (metal clicker things) who were
    *supposed* to chirp only when someone was hogging the flashlight, but
    who kept up a deafening chorus throughout %'}.  I should have devoted
    45 minutes to that instead of 15.
    
    Happy New Year,
    Leslie  

I am in charge of the 2-year-old room at our daycare Halloween Carnival.
Tonight is our meeting and I am supposed to show up with lots of ideas on
what kind of games to have in that room.  Of course I haven't started (just
got back in town from 2 weeks travelling), so I'm hoping you all can suggest
some good ones for me.

Any ideas???

Thanks!
Kristen

    Pin the tail on the donkey type of game except with Halloween concept
    (i.e. ghosts, pumpkins, witches, etc. drawings with scotch tape onto 
    the haunted house picture or cottonballs with tape onto drawings of
    cats, ghosts, etc.
    
    If you are having small prizes for them, write the prizes on a piece of
    paper and have the children pull them out of a covered black witches
    plastic pot.
    
    

    We had a town wide party one year, in lieu of house to house trick or
    treat.
    
    Some of the things I remember were; suspending a string for 3 or 4 feet
    and from that dropping shorter strings and tying PLAIN donuts and have
    the kids bit at the donuts until they get them off.  (the mini donuts
    might work for that age bracket) It's sort of an off shoot of dunking
    for apples.
    
    Would that age be too young for apple bobbing?
    
    Something daycare did last year was to take a polaroid picture of each
    child, in costume, then cut a circle about 3 inches out of a dessert
    size plate and have the kids paste the picture onto it to make a frame. 
    The "frame" was decorated prior to putting the picture on with crayons,
    crepe paper tails and glitter.  Teachers put the child's name and the
    date on the back.  We still have ours tacked on the "fridge".
    
    Have fun!
    Lyn
    (There are some books out there on crafts and games for different age
    groups, at bookstores)