Halloween Art Projects to Do With Kids You Babysit

While trick-or-treating is likely only a one-day event for most kids, there are still plenty of festivities to be had throughout the Halloween season. From costume parties to strolling decorated neighborhoods, there are things kids can do to feel festive in the days leading up to the big day. As a babysitter, you may be thinking of what you can do with the kids you babysit to help them get festive for the upcoming holiday.

Halloween makes room for plenty of arts and crafts opportunities – things you can easily do with the kids you babysit. Keep reading for ideas of Halloween art projects to do with the kids you babysit this year.

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Painting pumpkins

Carving pumpkins is easily one of the most widely-recognized Halloween traditions besides dressing up in costumes and trick-or-treating around the neighborhood. However, carving pumpkins can result in plenty of mess and depending on the age of the child you are taking care of, may not be the safest idea with the sharp tools required. Instead, opt to paint pumpkins to decorate for Halloween.

Carving can be plenty of work, and depending on the age of the children, they may have difficulty achieving their desired design with their current skill set. Allowing them to paint pumpkins as their heart desires can help them express their creativity without pumpkin chunks getting everywhere, with no sharp tools involved.

Don’t limit the creative ideas to just paint – help the kids decorate with extras like googly eyes, pipe cleaners, glitter, and so on.

If your location allows, schedule a trip to the local pumpkin patch with the kids so they can get involved with choosing the pumpkin size and shape. The upside to painting is that you can stick to little pumpkins for the younger ones.

Painting leaves into unique ghosts 

To keep the painting going, try painting leaves into little ghosts with the kids. For this craft, you would just need, autumn leaves, paint, paintbrushes, permanent markers, and scissors.

Take the kids on a neighborhood walk, or venture out into the yard to select autumn leaves from the ground. Once acquired, begin painting the leaves white. Once the paint is completely dry, you can cut the painted leaves into shapes that resemble more of a classic ghost shape. Using a permanent marker, or black paint, add faces to each leaf or other details that the kids may desire.

To make a simple garland, prepare twine or rope to glue the painted leaves on with hot glue,

Halloween-shaped clay trays 

Another Halloween art project to try with the kids is using air-dry clay to create Halloween-themed trays. Make sure to follow any instructions that come with the clay you use. While some may be perfectly okay to just air dry, other clay may require baking to completely dry out.

The kids can shape the clay into bats, ghosts, cats, pumpkins, a witch hat, and so on. Once the clay is dry, they can paint the trays to fully achieve their festive creative vision.

Festive Halloween garlands

When it comes to the holidays, one easy way to decorate is by throwing a festive garland over the length of a wall. The kids can easily take part in creating their very own Halloween-themed garland using the supplies you have on hand.

For example, if you have plastic spoons, you can make garlands featuring upside-down bats, mummies, or ghosts. For bats, choose black plastic spoons or paint the plastic spoons black and have them completely dry before you begin crafting with the kids. Add faces to the back of each spoon with a pair of eyes and fanged mouths, some bat ears, and a pair of bat wings. Once you’ve crafted enough spoon bats, begin attaching them to a string or thin rope to craft your garland.

For ghosts, you can choose whatever colored spoons but white would go with the theme the best. Get white tissue paper or white tissues and wrap each spoon to create mini ghosts. You can secure the tissue with a ribbon tied at the base of the spoon or glue the tissue down around the spoon. You can add faces to each ghost or attach them to the garland as-is. If you don’t want to use plastic spoons, you can also achieve mini ghosts by making a ball of paper or tissue, then wrapping another tissue around the ball.

For mummies, you can get a white ribbon and wrap spoons to mimic the coverings classic to mummies. Add some eyes before attaching them to a string to create your garland.

If you want to make a garland of spiders, you can gather black pom poms and black pipe cleaners. Cut the pipe cleaners down to make spider legs that would fit the size of the pom poms you are using. Using hot glue, attach four legs on each side of the pom pom to create your spider. To make the spiders look more silly, add some googly eyes with hot glue before adding them to the garland.

Halloween art projects do not have to be hours-long endeavors, but can be fairly simple and require little-to-no artistic skill. Have fun!