42 Fun Halloween Party Games and Activities for Kids and Adults

Whether you're throwing a scary-fun Halloween party this year or are just looking for Halloween-themed ideas to keep the kids entertained throughout the month of October, our list of Halloween games and activities is sure to get monsters of all ages in the Halloween spirit.

These easy and quick DIY ideas are a snap to pull together and most can be made using upcycled materials or craft supplies you already have at home. Outdoor and backyard-friendly ideas include pumpkin tic-tac-toe, a neighborhood Halloween scavenger hunt, a jack-o'-lantern can toss and a DIY candy corn piñata.

Or if you prefer to keep the fun indoors, set up our DIY "Pin the Spider on the Web" game, try an indoor Halloween scavenger hunt, host a pumpkin-carving party or craft some devilishly delicious Halloween-themed desserts. Keep reading to discover more fun Halloween games and activities!

Move the festivities outside to play this oversized version of tic-tac-toe that uses orange and white petite pumpkins in the place of x's and o's. To recreate at home, use decorative duct tape to create a grid on a flat area, like a driveway or patio, then place pumpkins in a basket or stack them up beside the gameboard.

All you need is some craft paint and king-sized pillowcases to whip up a potato sack race for your next Halloween party. Before you start painting, stretch pillowcases over a piece of cardboard to make the fabric taut and easier to paint, as well as protect the back side of the pillowcase. Use craft paint to decorate — orange pillowcases become jack-o’-lanterns, green ones can be witches and purple makes a monster. Line the kids up with their feet in the pillowcases. Ready, set, go — the first person that makes it to the finish line wins.

Same game you know and love just in Halloween colors. Create your own "mat" on the lawn using temporary spray paint. Use a piece of cardboard with a circle cut out for a stencil. Place 24 circles evenly spaced on the lawn with four across and six down in Halloween colors like black, white, orange and green. Don’t forget to create your own matching spinner or convert a board from the original game with some craft paint in colors to correspond to your lawn dots.

This kids' party game is easy to make and fun to play. You can make it simple by allowing kids to pick a prize depending on which pumpkin they choose, or more difficult by making the goal to match two items behind the pumpkin flaps.

Gingerbread houses are no longer just a Christmas craft. Say hello to the haunted Halloween gingerbread house, your new go-to party activity. Use small milk cartons to form the houses. For most kids, decorating is the fun part, not the actual house-building. With younger children pre-assemble houses with graham crackers using icing as the glue. Set out lots of decorating options including candy corn, Halloween sprinkles and, most importantly, edible eyeballs.

This oversized version of the classic college party game is reimagined for family fun. To play, set up 10 plastic candy buckets in a pyramid shape on the lawn and fill each bucket with rocks or sand. Standing about 6 feet from the first bucket, players take turns trying to toss a Ping-Pong ball into the buckets, removing a bucket each time they score. The player with the most buckets at the end wins.

Spiders, mummies and ghosts — oh my! Our free, printable Halloween treasure hunt sends kids on a harrowing journey around the house to gather clues and find hidden treats. Follow the link below to find the instructions and download the free printable cards that guarantee hours of fun this Halloween.

Looking to scare up some family-friendly fun this Halloween? We created a free, printable Halloween scavenger hunt perfect for kids of all ages. This interactive outdoor activity is a great way to involve the whole family while trick-or-treating, or bring it along in the car while checking out Halloween decorations in your neighborhood. Download the free Halloween scavenger hunt file here, then check out more free, printable Halloween scavenger hunt ideas at the link below.

Kids love a game of memory match, so why not make your own? Cut out 20 squares of black poster board measuring 2” x 2”. Then cut 20 squares in the exact same size using different Halloween-themed paper. You will need 10 styles and two squares of each design. Use a glue stick to adhere the decorative papers to one side of the black poster board. To play, lay the squares on a flat surface in a grid formation. Kids take turns turning over two cards trying to make a match. If a match is made, remove the cards. If a match is not made, turn the cards back over where they were found, and the next player gets a turn. The object is to remember where you saw the matching cards. The winner with the most pairs of cards at the end wins. Increase the number of cards to make the game even more difficult for older kids.

This Halloween (eye)ball toss game is for kids of all ages. To make this board game, holes were cut into a piece of plywood to hold the skeleton hands, then plastic cups were adhered to the palms of the hands. Numbers on the board indicate points scored. Use Halloween-themed bouncy balls and make sure to keep a scorecard handy when playing, this game can get intense.

Games with prizes, especially food prizes, tend to keep kids entertained. Using sandwich cookies, see who can stack the most cookies in one minute without the stack falling over. Reward the winner with candy or a small Halloween trinket. Hosting a lot of kids? Try putting together a cookie-stacking tournament!

Take a page from the book of classic carnival games to fashion this fun, almost-free can toss. Clean out 10 metal soup cans, cover them in sparkly orange cardstock and add fun jack-o'-lantern faces with a marker or black cardstock. Stack the cans in a pyramid shape on top of some hay bales and let the bean bag tossing begin! The player to knock down the most cans in five rounds wins.

Our guess is that this spiderweb toss game will be a hit with the kids. The webs are made from hula-hoops and masking tape, and the kids throw heavy-duty cotton puffs at the web to get them to stick. Make things more creative by offering candy prizes for whoever gets the spider closest to the center of the web.

If you loved the idea of the spiderweb toss game but need something a little easier for younger children, pin the spider is just the ticket. Have the older kids play in pairs with a blindfold or choose a simpler route for the younger kids by having them pin the spider on the web themselves.

Breathe new life into unused children’s building blocks with a bit of craft paint. Create creepy eyes, menacing mouths and notorious looking noses, and leave them out on the coffee table during your next Halloween shindig. Kids (and adults) won’t be able to resist making their own mix and match monster faces.

Halloween swings into action with this candy corn piñata. Kids of all ages will love taking a shot at this treat-filled craft, and because you make it yourself, you get complete control over what goes inside.

Get a little help from the kiddos to craft this easy party game. They'll enjoy helping to create the game as much as they will playing it. As a reward for their skills, let them eat whichever marshmallows they can get in the cups.

Put your recycling to good use by crafting this cute witch bowling set. Simply remove the labels from used water bottles, fill them with rocks and adorn them with Halloween decor. Use a kickball as a bowling ball for hours of lawn bowling fun.

This easy-to-DIY game uses mailing tubes and plastic jars to create a Halloween-themed matching game that can be filled with candy or toys for the kids, or boozy treats (i.e. airplane bottles) for the grown-ups.

Put some pep in the trick-or-treaters’ steps with a festive pumpkin hopscotch game. Follow the step-by-step instructions below to make this sweet and simple DIY to highlight the path to candy on Halloween night. Not spooky enough for your taste? Use the same hopscotch base but swap the pumpkins for inky spiders, screeching bats or bloody footprints.

Use a store-bought skeleton and painted wood rounds to craft this scary skeleton ring toss game. To play, take turns tossing glow stick necklaces toward the skeleton. The player who lands the most rings wins.

This classic game with a Halloween twist is sure to provide tons of fun for the kids. Craft the cute cups, then give kids a gumball and show them how to play the game with a partner by hiding the gumball under one of the ghosts, moving the ghosts around and having their partner guess which ghost has the gumball.

Set up an interactive crafting station for kids or guests to turn plain headbands into these fun, feline Halloween costume props. Cut out the cardstock ears ahead of time and pile a table with all manner of crafting materials like sequins, ribbon and more so crafters can customize to their hearts' content.

Halloween musical chairs is just like ordinary musical chairs, only played to a Halloween soundtrack and full of fun Halloween decor. As ordinary musical chairs goes, it is a blast for all ages and brings out just enough of everyone’s competitive spirit. Set up chairs around a fun tree decorated for Halloween, as designer Jennifer Perkins did here.

If messes are no big deal to you, don’t hesitate to feature traditional pumpkin carving at your party. This tried-and-true Halloween activity is a rite of passage for kids and adults alike. Feel free to get as simple or intricate as you like, but don’t forget to have plenty of safe carving tools to go around! Snag our free, beginner carving templates here, advanced carving templates here, and grab our top carving tips below.

Create a touch-sensory game for older kids to enjoy. Place different types of foods in individual containers and label them with Halloween-centric names. For example, ogre warts are pumpkin seeds, boiled brains are cauliflower and goblin guts are spaghetti. Have the kids write down their guesses on a sheet of paper and award a prize to the best guesser. No peeking!

The creative possibilities of a brown paper lunch bag are never-ending, and the fun does not stop for Halloween. Hand over a stack of colorful paper, scissors and glue sticks to your kids and let the monster madness unfurl. Use the bottom fold as a mouth. When the puppets are made, you can easily convert an old box into a puppet theater or make one from our step-by-step, below.

When thinking of Halloween party games, remember it can be as simple as taking a classic game and giving it a spooky twist. In this case, tic-tac-toe becomes tic-tac-boo with a little light crafting. The durable DIY game board can be used for years to come.

For a Halloween version of balloon swat, use inflated disposable gloves and fly swatters instead of balloons and racquets. Kids will try to keep their glove up in the air the longest and with the most bounces. Try this same concept with teams by swatting the glove back and forth between two players and the team that keeps the glove up the longest wins.

This bean-bag toss game is fun and easy for the whole family and building a set is a fairly easy woodworking project that you can tackle in a day. Feeling extra festive? Paint the board in graphic Halloween colors like black and orange and buy bean bags to match.

Oversized pumpkin tic-tac-toe is the perfect backyard-friendly game to keep kids entertained at your next fall gathering. To make your own, hammer 8 wood stakes into the ground in a square pattern, with two stakes on each side of the square. Tie ribbon, caution tape or plastic streamers between the stakes to create a grid that floats about a foot off the ground. Arrange 5 white pumpkins and 5 orange pumpkins on opposite sides of the grid, then let the games begin!

This Halloween-themed take on the classic board game is a surefire way to keep little and big monsters entertained. The small learning curve makes it easy for young kids to play but still keeps older kids’ attention. To make our game board, we painted the grid on an IKEA Lack table, and for the checkers, we painted poker chips in green and orange and added funny faces.

Speaking of haunted houses, all good Halloween parties need one. This easy DIY makes perfect use of the old plastic playhouse that has been collecting dust and killing your grass and gives it a much-needed, Halloween-themed facelift.

It goes without saying that kids love a craft they can eat. Whether it's decorating a cookie or crafting these adorable marshmallow-and-pretzel skeletons, the reward after all that hard work is half the fun. Odds are, people will want to eat more than just one, so let the kids craft as many as they want. Tip: Provide food-safe gloves for crafting and wash hands before and after.

This isn’t your ordinary egg-and-spoon race. First, these Halloween-themed eggs are made of wood, making them ready for race after race. Second, decorating the eggs and spoons makes for the perfect pregame craft.

This fun and easy-to-make necklace is the perfect accessory for your next monster mash. Kids will love adding their own spooky spin to plain craft-store wooden beads. Paint markers work great for creating wee witches and pumpkins. Younger kids can enjoy making something more abstract like black, white and orange polka dots on the beads. When they are completely dry, string the beads on faux-suede cording and wear.

These precious pet pumpkins are a party-approved, no-carve fall craft. Choose to freehand your playful pets or follow the included templates below that take the guesswork out of making each animal come to life.

This adorable hanging bat craft is perfect for kids. They're sure to have a blast creating the bats, and the sense of pride they will get from hanging up their creepy creations is sure to put a smile on their face.

If you’re not sure what the kids attending your party enjoy, Play-Doh is always a safe bet. Pair ordinary Play-Doh with cookie cutters in classic Halloween shapes like bats and pumpkins to help even the youngest children experience the joys of crafting.