Teen Halloween

Howdy
This year my plan for the Teen Halloween was to keep everyone super busy.  Last year I ran out of activities after an hour (the program is 90 minutes) which felt awkward. First we started with the snacks.  Everyone got to make root beer floats.  That was popular and much needed since it seemed to be unusually warm in the room.  I also had some donated Little Debbie cakes shaped like pumpkins and bats.  As an edible craft we made DIY Pocky with giant pretzel rods, three flavors of frosting a variety of sprinkles. Be prepared that just like offering a variety of soda that your teens will inevitably mix, we had ice cream sodas with frosting and sprinkles in them...as you do.

I didn't think to take pictures of the decorations.  I did really enjoy making dangling eyeballs from styrofoam balls and red ribbon.  I hung these right in the doorway to freak out the extra squeamish.  

Once I thought the group was assembled we started with video scary movie quiz called Halloween Movies and TV Show Trivia. Mostly they yelled a lot and got really excited. (Some of that could have been all the sugar) 

After the video got the teens wound up we did a movie monster quiz with candy prizes.  I put 20 numbered pictures of monsters around the room.  The teens got a sheet with the names of all the monsters and worked in groups to figure out the answers.  For some reason there was always a name they wanted to use twice and one they didn't want to use at all.   You can print a Publisher File or PDF of the numbered monster images, worksheet and answer key. 

Movie Monster Quiz Publisher File
Movie Monster Quiz PDF

Next we played Wink Murder, a game I just learned about on Teen Services Underground on Facebook. Basically you need pieces of paper that each say a way to die.  One paper makes a player the murderer instead.  As people mingle at the party, the murderer will wink at people and those people have to eventually die in the way that their paper says but not right away because that would make things too easy.  It is up to the surviving guests to solve the mystery before they die.  We played this three times.  Later in the evening the teens still thought it was funny to drop dead for no reason.  Download a list of ways to die for your game using the links for a Word file or PDF.

Wink Murder Game Word File
Wink Murder Game PDF


To distract my teens during the Wink Murder Game I gave them a candy cross section quiz to work on.  You can do this with actual candy bars but I found a way to do the quiz for free with just a projector and paper. Simply project the color image of the candy bars on the wall and print the quiz in black and white to save some money.  Or skip the projector and make color copies for everyone and check the answers with key.  Download the quiz and answers as a Publisher file or PDF.

Candy Quiz Publisher File
Candy Quiz PDF

Last year was the first time I had ever heard of a Saran Wrap ball.  It was such a hit I did it again this year.  Using two bags of candy, Skittles and Twizzlers and two rolls of cling wrap I made a ball with all the candy stuck between the layers.  I have the teens stand in a circle and they each get a set time to claw at the ball to loosen some candy.  This can take at least 15 minutes if you wrap the ball really tight. If I think the teens are getting annoyed I let them work in pairs. If you work on this at the desk everyone will think your job is super cushy. 

Another small activity was as shredded manga novel in a giant jar.  I asked the teens to write down their guesses about the series and offered candy as a prize.  No one guessed the book so I either picked a lesser known title or I give bad clues. 

For the last half hour we danced to a YouTube playlist of tunes like The Cupid Shuffle, the Cha Cha Slide and The Charlie Brown.  We also danced to some Japanese videos like a song by Hatsune Miku and CaramelDansen (which is actually Swedish but a lot of the videos have Japanese characters in them).

We never got to another game, coloring contest or the tiny Gothic hats I wanted to make.  I'll do a separate post about the hats once I use them in Anime Club. 

Laura
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