May 4

Fun activities for Halloween and Day of the Dead

It’s almost time! (Thursday, October 31 is Halloween in Mexico and many other countries) … so it’s Halloween time! Thinking about how to celebrate this Halloween year with kids? There are many different and fun ways to spend this party.

We give you some ideas as the Halloween celebration is for kids one of the favorite times because they can dress up and eat candy.

Decorate a pumpkin

Nothing is as connected to Halloween as pumpkins. You can easily decorate pumpkins even with the smallest ones.

Kids love to choose their own pumpkin in the store, an opportunity for them to express themselves by choosing the guy that appeals to them, whether big or small or strange, doesn’t matter. Garnishing pumpkins can be a great family tradition to build every year.

For young children, especially, I do not recommend carving pumpkins. This can be a risk of injury. If you just buy them as they are and decorate the outside, the pumpkins will last longer. There are many fun ways to dress pumpkins. You can use markers, glossy glue, acrylic paint, buttons, beads, various types of strings, laces, and fabrics. Anything and everything can make the pumpkin look great.

Try new ways to decorate them every year to make the event more fun. Let the children draw their own designs with whatever they can think of, so they can be proud of their original art.
Mandarins are a good choice if you can’t use pumpkins by any circumstance, or because they look very big to you. You can draw funny and creepy faces.

Scientific experiment with Halloween pumpkin

A home-made scientific experiment perfect for making your decorated Halloween pumpkin the scariest of the Night of the Dead.

Materials to perform your experiment:

– pumpkin emptied and decorated with holes (eyes, nose and mouth)

– 1 container or bowl

– Dry ice

– Protective tweezers or gloves

– Water

Steps to follow:

– The first thing we need to do to perform this experiment is to buy dry ice in a specialized store.

– You have to be very careful when handling the ice, always with gloves or tweezers as its low temperature can cause burns.

– Place the dry ice in a bowl that you have previously placed inside the pumpkin.

– Pour water over dry ice. Immediately the pumpkin will start to smoke through the mouth.

The explanation is:

Dry ice is frozen CO2. When the water is poured on the dry ice it deregulates and becomes gas. That gas is denser than air, so the smoke effect is created.

Make costumes yourself

You can help kids decide the type of costume they like best. This is one of the funniest things you can do. Give them some ideas, based on movies or toys they own, to have ideas to create their costume.

Many little ones are already thinking about the costume they will wear during that day. And for this it is not necessary to buy an expensive costume in the store, you can do it at home and get a terrifying look and you can work together on its making, remember that it does not need to be perfect, it will be original and unique and also the important thing is fun, something good to transmit to our little ones. Painting the face of creating a creepy homemade mask to match the costume can also be a great idea.

Make candy for the party

Terrifying cookies

To make this ghostly candy choose your favorite oval cookies. Melt the white chocolate into the microwave and, every 10 seconds, pull out and stir to check the texture. You can add so that the mixture is softer a little olive oil.

Dip 2/3 of the cookies in the white chocolate. Before removing them to place on a tray, let them drain a little so they don’t drip.

Place the eyes using two chocolate beads. All you have to do is wait for the cover to harden to eat.

Sweet Halloween mummies

Cook these terrifying mummy with rounded cookies. One option is to use oreo cookies. In this case, lift one of the layers and insert a stick to make this mummy in the form of a pop cake. Put the mummy in a melted white chocolate bath. Before it dry, place your character’s eyes. Make a sheet with white fondant and rib in small strips. Roll in the cookie to make them look like the mummy bandages. Your recipe is ready.

Watch scary movies

Watching any scary movie during this month, it’s usually fun, often no matter how horrible they may be, but it’s best not to let our kids watch movies that could be strong and aggressive for their age. There are many scary movies that are aimed at children, but they give enough fear in the Halloween spirit.

Some of the funniest Halloween movies kids are going to enjoy:

– Monster House

– Coconut

– The Nightmare Before Christmas

– Frankenweenie

– ParaNorman

Other traditions

But not in all countries is celebrated in the same way, although America’s Halloween has been globalized, for example in some parts of Europe or in Mexico they continue to celebrate it with their traditions.

In Mexico, death is considered as part of the cycle of life and, therefore, celebrated since pre-Hispanic times. Every corner of the country dresses in color and tradition waiting for millions of visitors looking to participate in one of the most spectacular rites out there, celebrating the Day of the Dead.

This festival, named Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2008 by Unesco, is a great experience for visitors and local people. Held from the end of October to the first week of November, it is an ancestral legacy inherited from different pre-Hispanic cultures combined with the celebration of All Catholic Saints’ Day. In popular belief, those days deceased return to visit their families and the living live together and enjoy offering them their favorite foods and drinks.

At some point in their lives, many questions arise about death, something that surprises them and scares them a little, which is natural. This celebration can be a beautiful opportunity to teach them about this process and to remember our loved ones in a happy and joyful way.

Some of its best-known traditions for this celebration are:

The altars

The altars are assembled at home, in cemeteries and outside, in memory of a relative or relatives who have died. Traditionally, these are decorated with flowers, photos of the deceased, brightly colored chopped paper (delicate and colorful paper clippings), and food, you can even see a bottle of tequila. Like other ancient civilizations, early Mexicans buried their dead with the deceased’s personal possessions, as well as things that could help them in their next life. As such, miniature sculptures of favorite foods or small ceramic sculptures of pastimes that the deceased enjoyed in life can also be placed in the offering. It may be an opportunity for our little ones to learn about the traditions of yesteryear.

Catrina

If there is a figure that has become popular in the celebration of Halloween night that is the Calavera Garbancera, better known as Catrina, as christened by the painter Diego de Rivera. A character that inspires costumes and colorful masks, but also becomes a resource for decoration or when preparing dishes for your Day of the Dead party.

The first thing that comes to mind when they tell us about the Catrinas is their makeup. The goal is to achieve, with black touches on the eyes, nose, and cheeks, the depth of the skull hollows. The result is a terrifying face, but not lacking in striking colors that try to attract the living into the arms of death.

Start by covering the face white. Decorate with black the eye sockets and cheek strokes, starting from the corner of the lips. Use it also to give depth to the nose. Finish painting your eyes with colored shadow. This makeup supports many variations, so kids can use their imagination. And to dress up for her, you just need a black dress adorned with lace, a black veil made of tulle or lace fabric, a headband, and artificial flowers to hook the veil.

Security measures

Finally, for this celebration to go smoothly, it is important to take steps to prevent any bad scare.

Some tips to keep the children safe without losing the fun.

– Let children decorate pumpkins with markers, glossy glue, or paint and let adults take care of carving them.

– Do not leave candlelit pumpkins near flammable objects and do not put them where they remain unattended. You can also use flashlights instead of candles, electric candles, or light bars.

– If the child came back with a lot of sweets, ration them and don’t let them eat them all at once.

– When it comes to young children and depending on where you live, always accompany them to order sweets. For older children, make sure they go out as a group, accompanied by friends or older siblings.

All the information we give you in this article is indicative as each family is different and unique and equally their way of having fun.