Are you looking for healthy and fun October activities and food ideas? Try these Fall and Halloween-themed options.
Halloween is a crazy and haunting holiday where we spend lots of time preparing costumes, trick-or-treating and enjoying time with friends and family. In between the werewolf’s howl and the witch’s cackle, give these new fun October activities and food ideas a try. Kids love them and they’re an excellent way to keep your family moving, active, and healthy!
Make a Mountain of Leaves
Is your yard covered in fall leaves? Get the whole family moving by raking the yard to create a big mountain of leaves to jump in. Make chores fun, be active outside, and build lasting family memories, all in one!
Try the Three-Leg Monster Dash
This is a hilarious group game to do with your kids and a few friends! Divide the group into pairs. Have a parent tie a scarf together on one player’s right leg and the other player’s left leg. Have all players line up at the starting line. At the signal, instruct everyone to walk or run as fast as they can while making monster noises to the finish line. First pair to cross wins!
Go on a Spooky Scavenger Hunt
Set up a haunted scavenger hunt for friends and family with spooky home-made crafts. Then, split up into teams, and see which team can find all the hidden eyes and fake spiders snuck into creepy corners and dark spaces. When the sun goes down, let the games begin! Here’s what you’ll need for this spooky scavenger hunt:
- Paper to draw and carve out eyes and arrows, and to draw a map
- Pens/markers
- Fake spider webs
- Fake spiders
- Flashlights
Play Pumpkin Soccer
Invite a group of friends to play a game of pumpkin soccer! Ask each player to bring a ‘witches’ broom from home, and make sure you remember to bring a small to a medium-sized pumpkin. Make two goals with shirts or cones. Split the players into two teams. Each team member is only allowed to push the pumpkin with its witch’s broom. Use the broom to pass the pumpkin along to make it into the opposite team’s goal. The first team with 5 goals wins!
Create a Halloween Themed Dinner
Sit down with your kids and create a dinner menu filled with black and dishes. Here are food ideas for both colors:
- Orange: pumpkin, sweet potato, carrots, butternut or acorn squash, orange bell peppers, orange lentils (a great substitute for meat), oranges, persimmons, cheddar cheese, turmeric, cinnamon
- Black: black beans, black rice, black sesame seeds, figs, olives, raisins, dried dates
Get creative, have fun, and don’t be afraid to experiment with new recipes! Then, invite your friends and neighbors over to join in on the fun, or make this dinner with your family before heading out to trick-or-treat on Halloween. Your kids will be less hungry when the candy starts piling up!
Host a Halloween Themed Party in Your Backyard
Round up your ghouls and gals and cast a spell over them with these fun activities:
- Pumpkin carving contest
- Snack assembly line
- Potato sack races
- Capture the flag
- Zombie scavenger hunt
Try Our Healthy Trick-or-Treating Tips
- Do you normally drive to go trick-or-treating? Make it your goal to walk door-to-door with your kids and get in some extra exercise.
- What is Halloween without Halloween candy? This year, go trick-or-treating using smaller bags. This will help prevent your children from collecting and eating too much candy.
- Allow everyone to enjoy one or two pieces of what they collected, but after that, put it away to enjoy on another day!
- Try these three healthy candy swap outs:
- Eat fruit leather instead of Wonka Laffy Taffy
- Choose dark chocolate instead of milk chocolate
- Trade a mini coconut cookie Larabar for a milk chocolate almond joy
Before it’s too late, pick out one or two of these ideas and make the most of Halloween fun with your family!
