Rainy Halloween? 12 indoor activities for preschoolers

Halloween 2026 falls on Saturday, Oct 31, so many families have the whole day at home. A wet afternoon before trick-or-treating, or instead of it, is a good time for these. Nothing here needs a trip to the store. Most of it is already in a kitchen drawer.

Twelve indoor Halloween activities

1. Paper-plate jack-o'-lantern. Color a paper plate orange, then glue on black paper eyes and a big smile. About 15 minutes.
2. Handprint bats. Trace both hands on dark paper for wings, then tape them to a paper body. You cut, your child traces and decorates. About 15 minutes.
3. Toilet-roll ghost bowling. Wrap six empty rolls in white paper, draw ghost faces, and knock them down with a rolled-up pair of socks. About 20 minutes.
4. Pumpkin hunt. Cut out ten paper pumpkins, hide them around one room, and count them together as they turn up. About 10 minutes.
5. Tape spider web walk. Make a big web on the floor with painter's tape and have your child tiptoe along the lines like a spider. About 15 minutes, plus 5 to set up.
6. Flashlight shadow show. Dim the lights and make a bat, a cat and a ghost on the wall with your hands. About 10 minutes.
7. Mummy wrap. Wrap a stuffed animal in toilet paper, then unwrap it and roll the paper back up. About 10 minutes.
8. Freeze dance. Play music and call out a shape to freeze in: ghost, cat, scarecrow, pumpkin. About 10 minutes.
9. Spoon pumpkin race. Carry a small orange or a soft ball on a big spoon from the couch to the door. About 10 minutes.
10. Orange and black hunt. Find five orange things and five black things in the house and sort them into two piles. About 10 minutes.
11. Blanket-fort haunted house. Drape a blanket over two chairs, bring a flashlight inside, and tell a story about a friendly ghost. About 30 minutes.
12. Coloring with a story. Print a pumpkin, a bat and a spider page, color them, then line them up and tell the story they make together. About 20 minutes.

That adds up to more than two hours of play, which covers most rainy afternoons with room left for snacks and a rest.

How to plan the afternoon

Young children do best with short blocks and a clear order. Try this:

• Start calm. Begin at the table with the paper-plate pumpkin or coloring. It settles everyone.
• Then move. Follow with something active, like ghost bowling, freeze dance or the tape web.
• Swap every 10 to 20 minutes. Stop while it is still fun. You can always come back to it.
• Keep scary low. The shadow show and the fort are fun with the lights down, but let your child hold the flashlight. If the dark feels like too much, a shadow bat works just as well at noon.
• Save one for the end. The blanket fort is a good last stop before dinner or a bath.

When the crafts are dry, tape them to a window or along the hall. A row of paper bats and pumpkins turns a gray day into a decorated house, and your child made every piece of it.

If you still go out later

Rain makes an evening darker and harder to see in. Safe Kids suggests decorating costumes and bags with reflective tape or stickers, choosing light colors, and carrying glow sticks or flashlights. Safe Kids also lists the peak trick-or-treat hours as 5:30 to 9:30 PM, so an early, short loop may suit a tired preschooler after a full day of play. Hours are set locally, so check your town's posted times.

Talk about it

• "Which room do you think the pumpkins are hiding in?"
• "Can you make your body into a ghost? Now a sleepy cat?"
• "What color should your bat be? On paper, bats can be any color you like."
• "Tell me a story about the ghost who lives in our fort. Is it friendly?"
• "What was your favorite thing we did today?"

More from Storytime Crayons

For activity 12, print our free coloring pages of a pumpkin, a bat and a spider, each with a short story line under the picture.