Halloween crafts and decorations for toddlers and pre-schoolers

emilias918
Oct 24, 2024
4 min read

Tis’ the season to be spooky! 🎃👻

Celebrate this spook-tacular time of year with fun Halloween crafts and decorations, perfect for toddlers and preschoolers.

Not only are these activities a great way to get creative and decorate your home, but they also offer fantastic developmental benefits - which we will discuss below.

All you’ll need are a few simple craft supplies and a lot of Halloween spirit!

Let’s dive into Halloween crafts and decorations for toddlers and pre-schoolers.

Spooky Twig Characters

Creating Spooky Twig Characters is not only a fun and imaginative craft, but it also promotes a variety of developmental skills.

Gathering twigs from nature helps children connect with the environment and practice gross motor skills as they walk, bend, and collect their materials.

When assembling the twig characters, children strengthen their fine motor skills by handling small objects like googly eyes and string.

The activity also encourages creative thinking as they decide how to decorate and personalise their twig creations!

You will need:

Twigs gathered from a local park or forest
Glue
String or coloured card (optional)
Eco-friendly googly eyes

Method:

Collect your twigs. You can click here to find your local park or forest.
Use glue to stick on googly eyes.
Either stick these to the coloured card or hang these up using string!

Masking Tape Mummies

Crafting Masking Tape Mummies is not just a creative Halloween activity, it also nurtures several important developmental skills.

Tearing and placing the masking tape onto the paper helps refine fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination as children carefully manipulate the materials.

Drawing the body outline and cutting out the mummy supports visual-spatial awareness, key in early childhood development.

Engaging in discussions about mummies or measuring the lengths of tape encourages language development and introduces early math concepts, helping little one's understand size, comparison, and sequencing.

You will need:

Black paper
Masking tape
A white crayon
Scissors
Glue
Eco-friendly googly eyes
String (optional)

Method

Draw the outline of the body in crayon on black paper
Cut or rip off strips of masking tape (varying lengths) and stick these to the side of the table
Add tape to the outline – here’s your chance to make this a learning opportunity, discuss together what mummies are or chat math by discussing the different lengths of tape.
Cut out the mummy
Use the glue to stick down your googly eyes.
Once dry, you can optionally cut a small hole on top to feed the string through and make it a hanging ornament!

Puffy Ghost Ornaments

Creating Puffy Ghost Ornaments is a great hands-on activity that supports fine motor skill development as little ones practice cutting, glueing, and placing cotton balls.

Handling the cotton balls also introduces sensory exploration, allowing children to compare different textures.

Sticking down each cotton ball provides an opportunity to introduce early math concepts, like counting and grouping.

Plus, cutting and arranging the ghost’s facial features supports visual-spatial skills and creativity!

You will need:

Black & White card
Scissors
Glue
Cotton balls
String (optional)

Method:

Draw a ghost outline on the white card and eyes/mouth on the black card.
Cut out the ghost shape.
Let your little one have fun sticking down the cotton balls with glue – this is a good time to introduce counting or chat about different textures.
Cut out the eyes and mouth from the black card and stick these on top of the cotton.
You can then tape some string to the back to make this into a hanging ornament.

Halloween Handprint Ghoul Banner

Making the Halloween Handprint Ghoul Banner is a wonderful way to boost fine motor skills through tracing, cutting, and decorating.

The act of tracing hands promotes hand-eye coordination and dexterity, while cutting along the traced lines encourages precision and scissor control.

The creative aspect of decorating the ghouls allows children to practice imaginative thinking and artistic expression.

Writing messages like “Happy Halloween” on the banner is a great way to strengthen early literacy skills.

This activity also introduces problem-solving, as they follow multi-step instructions to assemble their spooky banner!

You will need:

Coloured card in varying colours incl. black and white e.g. green, orange, purple etc.
Black marker or crayon
White marker or crayon
Scissors
Glue

Method:

Trace your child’s hand on the coloured card. You will need 4 or 5 handprints on varying colours.
Cut out the handprints.
With the fingers facing down, have your little one decorate the cut-out, we recommend drawing spooky faces!
Fold the white card in half length wise, open and cut along the crease, and attach the two lengths with glue to make it into a long banner.
Repeat with the black card but trim a few cm around the edges.
Glue the black card on top of the white.
Attach the handprint ghouls to the bottom of the banner.
Use a white crayon or marker to decorate your banner, for instance with ‘Happy Halloween’.
Finally, hang up your banner!

Clay Pumpkin Ornaments

Creating Clay Pumpkin Ornaments offers a fantastic hands-on experience to develop sensory awareness through the tactile nature of clay or dough.

The painting and decorating stages foster creativity and self-expression, while working with different tools (like rolling, cutting, and smoothing the clay) introduces problem-solving and hand-eye coordination.

Plus, hanging up the finished ornaments gives children a sense of achievement and pride in their work!

You will need:

Air dry clay or salt dough (click here for a guide on making salt dough)
Paint
Ribbon
Baking paper

Method:

Roll out the clay.
Let your little one press their hand into the clay. Make sure their handprint shows up.
Cut out the shape of a pumpkin, making sure your little one’s handprint is in the middle.
Smooth out the edges with a bit of water.
Use a knife to punch a hole in the top of the stem.
Let the clay dry or if you use salt dough bake.
Once it’s dry, you and your little one can decorate the pumpkin ornaments!
Finally, attach a ribbon on top to hang these up.