If you’ve decided to keep your homeschool family from participating in Halloween, there are many alternatives that your homeschoolers will love. Not only will they have a great time, they will have a chance to spread His love. Here are five ways to have a blast without compromising the security of your little ones.
1. Family Game Night
If your homeschoolers are staring out the window at trick-or-treaters with tears in their eyes, it’s time to take action. It’s important to focus on fun during Halloween so your homeschool children don’t resent being kept away from Halloween festivities. A family game night is a great way to have some safe uplifting fun. Candy prizes and autumn-themed snacks like candy apples will up the fun factor. Get together with other homeschooling families for some extra competition. Be sure to have one family member pass out candy. If you want, you can also pass out tracts or Bible verses with inspirational messages. It’s wrong to shut yourselves in from people knocking on your door. This will just tell your neighbors that you are strange and unfriendly. If you pass out candy with a “God bless you” or “Jesus loves you,” they will think you are strange and friendly!
2. Attend a Fall Festival
Our church holds an annual fall fest on October 31st. This provides a safe environment for our homeschoolers to go wild. There is a leaf pile with hidden candy treats, a corn maze, and games and activities of all kinds. There are candy prizes galore as well as grand prizes like bicycles, basketballs and Bibles. Jousting, pillow fights, and dunk tanks are just some of the fun carnival-themed games to enjoy. I’ve heard more than once from my homeschoolers that the Fall Festival just has to be more fun than trick-or-treating. If your church doesn’t have a Halloween alternative, think about how you could start one. Get together with other homeschool parents to brainstorm.
3. Have a Bowling Tournament
Bowling tournaments (and goofy golf or laser tag for that matter) are a great way to have fun with the homeschoolers. Bowling alleys are understandably vacant on October 31st. This is a great opportunity for a family-friendly bowling competition. Ambitious homeschooling families will get together with other Christian families for some friendly competition. You can even make up team names complete with family colors or uniforms! Creativity is key!
4. Costume Party
One thing about Halloween that I always enjoyed was dressing up in outlandish costumes. There’s no reason to rob your children of this fun practice with a costume party. As long as the costumes don’t tend towards the macabre side, a costume party can be a great outreach event for a church. One homeschool friend of mine threw a Noah’s Ark theme party. Each child dressed up as a different animal. They put on a short impromptu play based on the story of Noah’s Ark.
5. Have a Pumpkin-Carving Party
Some people think that jack-o-lanterns represent undead souls. I don’t think they have to if you just want to have some creative fun. You can take your kids to a pumpkin patch and then spend the night carving silly faces, animals, or designs into pumpkins. Small pumpkins and gourds will add a nice autumnal feel to any homeschool. A friend of mine carves inspirational Bible verses and messages like “Jesus is Lord” into a series of pumpkins for her front lawn. Be creative! Don’t throw away those mushy pumpkin seeds. Add some salt and throw them in the oven for a fun fall snack.
Mimi Rothschild is a homeschooling parent, children’s rights activist, author, and Founder and C.E.O. of online education company Learning by Grace, Inc. Rothschild and her husband of twenty-eight years reside in suburban Philadelphia with their eight children.
Feeling that “our current system of education has broken its promise,” Rothschild co-founded Learning By Grace, Inc. to provide families with Internet-based multimedia education to PreK-12 children all over the world.
In addition to her twenty years of experience as a homeschool mother, Rothschild has written a number of books dealing with education published by McGraw Hill and others. Her Daily Education News Articles consist of feature stories on online homeschooling and alternative education.