The Haunted Menu
*Jack-o-lantern grilled cheese sandwiches
*Spiderweb (peach) Smoothies
*Monster Apple Mouths
*Breadstick bones
*Bugs on Ice
*Haunted Cakeyard
The Haunted Cakeyard - taken from Family Fun magazine;
X saw it and that's how this whole thing got started
Arrival activity
Coloring wooden cutouts of Halloween things - spiders, candy corn, bats
(The best part for me? They were only 19cents at JoAnn's!)
Mr. Potato Head Pirate Pumpkin - special lunch guest
The baby kept pulling off his ears all morning and then saying, oh! and looking at the ears on the ground like she didn't know how they got there. Then again, he did take her spot at the table. Maybe it was revenge?
Bugs on Ice
I used this for the table centerpiece just as lunch started. Each of the kids picked a bug they wanted to keep and watched it throughout the party to see if it had melted out yet. I kept forgetting about them but then someone would yell, hey, let's check our bugs! and they'd all run to the table. We added a little water now and then to speed things up. It was great!
(Directions: Put plastic bugs upside down - I forgot that part - in a regular-sized muffin tray, pour ice on top and freeze; take out of freezer, run some water on top and set the tray upside down over a large bowl so the ice falls into it as it melts a little; put bowl of bugs on ice in freezer until ready for use)
Jack-o-lantern grilled cheese sandwiches
Really I was going to use cookie cutters to cut the cheese slices into Halloween shapes and just have the sandwich with a bottom slice of bread and cheese shape on top, but I think the cookie cutters went to storage instead of the house during our move.
Spiderweb Smoothie
This is really just a homemade peach smoothie with a little sour cream/powdered sugar mix for the web. I was glad I had spoons on hand for everyone because it was too thick to just drink out of the cup.
Our cute lunch guests included a giraffe, a caped man, batman, a witch, a future policeman, and a mom
The red-orange walls in the house made just the right background for a Haunted Lunch. Candy corns were spread out on the table and I (barely) remembered to get festive plates and forks the night before when I was at JoAnn's Moonlight Madness (which meant 60% off - yay!).
Breadstick Bones
(called Salty Bones in Family Fun magazine)
You may notice these got a little burned on the bottom. I just laughed it off and told them bones are supposed to be crunchy! Then we all showed how loud we could crunch our bones. The kids got a kick out of the crazy food. Some things they wouldn't touch but everyone had lots of laughs.
The lunch conversation went something like this: Kid 1- Ok, who is in Ms. Jenny's class, raise your hand? (hands raise); Kid 2 follows the lead -Who is in Ms. Tami's class? (hands raise) Kid 3 - Who is in the skeleton's class? (hands raise and everyone giggles); Kid 4 takes it to the next level - ok, who is in the poopy class? (lots of laughs); Kid 5 - Hey! Let's check our bugs!
Monster Apple Mouths - no picture
it's hard to remember to take pictures when you're the host!
Basically, they are two apple slices for lips with a bit of peanut butter spread on and marshmallows as teeth.
Hauntingly Great Games
They had Halloween stick puppets to play with, a full-length mirror to admire themselves in plus extra costume pieces (in case someone forgot theirs), X's room toys, and then we played (pictured here) pin the face on the jack-o-lantern. They had the option of choosing crazy eyeball glasses which only let them see a little bit or, if they felt brave, the sleep mask which doesn't let them see anything. Five and six-year olds want to be confident that they are doing things right, so I made sure to show them how putting the eyeball in the wrong spot was perfect for making a a crazy jack-o-lantern face.
Another fun game was our feel-in-the-Halloween-pillowcase-and-guess-the-contents game (I really need a better name for that) tailored just right to kindergarten level, I thought!
The kids had a worksheet with three pictures on it (a black cat, a pumpkin, and a skeleton). Each picture had a blank box underneath. To avoid congestion during the game, I put the three Halloween pillowcases in different spots around the room (one with each of the objects from the worksheet inside - that way they would know what to feel for and wouldn't be scared to put their hands in). The pillowcases were numbered and the kids wrote which number of pillowcase they thought matched what they felt inside. They LOVED it, especially when I revealed the contents of the pillowcases and they had gotten them ALL right. So cute! They got Halloween stampers for a prize.
Note: If you try this game, make sure to show them how to reach in, feel the object, leave the object inside i.e.don't pull it out, and then write their guess down.
All in all, we had a great time, played hard, and ate lots of spooky food!
I was so thankful all the parents let their kids come on extremely short notice. Hip, hip, boo-ray!
They had Halloween stick puppets to play with, a full-length mirror to admire themselves in plus extra costume pieces (in case someone forgot theirs), X's room toys, and then we played (pictured here) pin the face on the jack-o-lantern. They had the option of choosing crazy eyeball glasses which only let them see a little bit or, if they felt brave, the sleep mask which doesn't let them see anything. Five and six-year olds want to be confident that they are doing things right, so I made sure to show them how putting the eyeball in the wrong spot was perfect for making a a crazy jack-o-lantern face.
Another fun game was our feel-in-the-Halloween-pillowcase-and-guess-the-contents game (I really need a better name for that) tailored just right to kindergarten level, I thought!
The kids had a worksheet with three pictures on it (a black cat, a pumpkin, and a skeleton). Each picture had a blank box underneath. To avoid congestion during the game, I put the three Halloween pillowcases in different spots around the room (one with each of the objects from the worksheet inside - that way they would know what to feel for and wouldn't be scared to put their hands in). The pillowcases were numbered and the kids wrote which number of pillowcase they thought matched what they felt inside. They LOVED it, especially when I revealed the contents of the pillowcases and they had gotten them ALL right. So cute! They got Halloween stampers for a prize.
Note: If you try this game, make sure to show them how to reach in, feel the object, leave the object inside i.e.don't pull it out, and then write their guess down.
All in all, we had a great time, played hard, and ate lots of spooky food!
I was so thankful all the parents let their kids come on extremely short notice. Hip, hip, boo-ray!
Finding "Dorothy"--look for bath toys hidden in the newspaper and take one home! 
Puppet show to music
Coloring station with personalized coloring books 
