Hallowe'en games

What about having the game where 'treacle scones' are suspended from a line of string? Lots of treacle/syrup is spread over girdle scones (or even thick slices of bread) which are hung from the line. The children have to be able to reach up and eat them with their hands behind their backs. Guaranteed sticky, messy and lots of fun!

My Mum used to hang apples from the airer that we had hanging on the kitchen ceiling, she'd tie the stalk onto string and hang them the first one to get a bite got the prize.. I'll keep thinking.

That's a Scottish Halloween game, by the way, MrsJamJam!

I suppose snapdragon – dried fruit, soaked in brandy, set alight and you have to pull off yummy pieces to eat – is probably politically incorrect these days. You could do the bit where you half-fill a large (1 pint?) glass with flour, add a biscuit and fill up with flour, then turn it out on a plate like a sandpie. Children have to have a go at eating the biscuit. Actually, what I'd do is a treasure hunt with prizes at difference stages.

Most of my children's parties were held at home with games like pass the parcel and grandmother's footsteps.
The favourite was a variant of absent's game with flour - we called it flour pie.
You put a 10p coin (it was a sixpence in the old days) in the bottom of a pudding basin and then fill it with flour. Press down well to condense. Then invert the basin onto a plate and remove - you are left with a 'pie'' of dry flour with the coin on top.
Spread old newspapers all over the floor and put the plate in the middle.
The children then take turns to cut away small slices of the pie, avoiding at all costs causing the coin to fall into the flour.
Eventually you are left with a column of flour supporting the coin.
The child whose cut makes the coin fall into the flour then has to retrieve the coin with their teeth, getting themselves covered with flour in the process and causing general hilarity. Of course they get to keep the 10p

We always enjoyed Silhouettes. This requires two rooms with a connecting door, a sheet, two torches and a selection of hats. Hang the sheet over the door, half the company, half the hats and one torch in one room, the other half in the other room.Lights out in both rooms! One person from one room sits in front of the sheet and somebody in that room shines the torch to make a silhouette on the sheet. The people in the other room have to guess who it is. The hats are to make for confusion. We also had a Hot Dog stand made from a tea trolly, a sheet and a Hot Dog banner held up by two garden canes. It is much more fun to queue for your hot dog than to have it served at a table. It was quite fun making the stand!

Thanks for the brilliant ideas. I can certainly see silhouettes working well in our house and I remember the flour pie from my own childhood. Sticky scones on strings sounds good to me but OH is not so sure! (His childhood was a bit deprived of messy fun!!)

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MrsJamJam

Thanks for the brilliant ideas. I can certainly see silhouettes working well in our house and I remember the flour pie from my own childhood. Sticky scones on strings sounds good to me but OH is not so sure! (His childhood was a bit deprived of messy fun!!)

You can make overalls out of a plastic sack of the kind used for lining large bins. Cut a smallish V neck with a slit down the front in the closed short end of the sack, and an armhole in either long side.

You can supply each child with piece of string to tie round their middle as well.

And put down newspaper under the clothes line with sticky buns!

We play "pin the tail on the donkey" at children's parties when I was little, blind man's bluff, danced The Grand Old Duke of York, sang and played The Farmer wants a wife and Which part of the parson's pig do you want?

This last is I think, looking back not a British game, but a Danish one. Each child chooses a part for example The right front trotter and must answer every question addressed to him or her with the statement The right front trotter.

If you giggle when answering, (which will happen as the thought of brushing your teath or hair with the right front trotter, or the curly tail of the pig makes it hard to keep a straight face, you are out of the game.

The last child to be caught out is the winner. And asks the questions in the next round of the game.

And can anyone else remember how to play "The priest of the parish has lost his considering-cap"? I can only get as far as sitting in a ring on the floor and being asked the question "Have youy taken it?" which followed the statement to which you replied, "Who me, sir? Not I, sir!" but what happened next I cannot remember.

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