[kbbteacher]

As my teammates and I try and plan our Halloween party (with our districts' new wellness/nutriional plan in mind) I am trying to find ideas for cute and healthy treats for the party. Any ideas? I would love some suggestions!

[Risa]

I'm not sure how much candy you can use, or even if you can use popcorn, but for what it's worth...

My students have made these "Monster hands" every Halloween for as long as I can remember. I looked them up online and found the directions and pictures (below).

Basically you need
Popcorn
Clear or see-thru plastic 'food server' gloves Available from a kitchen supply store, Smart and Final (if you have them in your area) or maybe even from your cafeteria food servers.
Candy corn(s) for each 'nail'
Plastic Spider Ring
Orange or Black ribbon for tying them off.
(Wire twist ties work well, if you happen to have some, to easily close off the bags. Kids can open and then easily re-close glove after taking a few pieces of popcorn.)

Put one (or two) candy corn in each finger (for the finger nail)
Fill each finger with popcorn and then fill the rest of the hand with popcorn.
Tie off the bag (glove) with (either a twist tie and then add)ribbon.
Place the spider ring on one of the fingers.

Here's a Family Fun page with a picture and directions
http://jas.familyfun.go.com/arts-and...&craftid=10210

You could have just about anything if you can think of some creative titles for the food....like vampire brains (cauliflower) lizard fingers (cucumber spears) peeled eyeballs (grapes) witches blood (cranberry juice) cut slices of cheeze with a halloween cookie cutter...see what I mean? I'm sure you can come up with a great name for any food you want to serve!! Cut bananas dipped in plain yogurt.....skeleton fingers!

No costumes at our school, we do crazy hat day or crazy hair day. We spend our party doing a lot of crafts rather than eating, and that helps. We use a plastic bowling set and tape ghosts on the pins (BOO Bowling) or put a pumpkin face on the wall and pin on the nose or mouth. Put kids in a circle to bounce a black balloon around to each other (bounce the bat/witch) or set real pumpkins in a zig zag path for a mini golf or soccer footwork challenge called "Pumpkin Path". The kids make spider headbands and we have parents face painting, we make patterns with halloween stickers, decorate pumpkin muffins with colored cream cheeze candy corn and licorice whips, work in groups to carve pumpkins. Light them with inexpensive battery lights, turn out the lights, and have a contest for the funnyiest/ugliest/scariest/happiest face. Draw names to take the pumpkins home.

[SoCalTeach]

I love doing the "monster hands"! The kids get a kick out of it!

[tweet]

Provided you don't have peanut butter allergies to deal with, you can make cute spiders by spreading peanut butter on a Ritz cracker, arrange 8 Chinese noodles around it for legs, top with another cracker, then attach from 2 to 8 raisin eyes w/ dabs of more peanut butter.

A number of years ago in Family Fun magazine were the directions for making a skeleton from veggies, such as celery for ribs, a hollowed cabbage filled with dip for the head, etc. You might be able to find it in their archives, but I think you could probably form a skeleton pretty easily just from your own imagination, too.

[NCP]

At my school this year my team is doing breakfast instead of afternoon parties. Our kids are allowed to wear their costumes all day, so we are doing breakfast items first (bagels, fruit, muffins, juice), followed by pumpkin math and then the rest of our day. I did it last year and it was great. Plus I wasn't sending them home full of sugar right before they went out to collect candy. And parents love it!