Childrens Halloween How to Introduce Your Young Child to Halloween

One of the joys of being around young children is to witness their sense of wonder when they experience something for the very first time. Their eyes widen and their faces glow.

As a parent, teacher, or grownup-in-charge, you have a great opportunity to make a positive impact on a child's life during this holiday.

I have many warm memories of Halloween as a child... dressing up in costume, fun parties, trick-or-treating, collecting for Unicef, and especially, the treats.

On Halloween, the world is transformed into a magical landscape of haunted houses, creepy-crawly things, ghosts, pumpkins and the soft light emanating from jack-o-lanterns.

So how do you introduce a very young child to the holiday?

Working with the child's strengths and limitations will enhance the experience. Small children are curious and inquisitive, but their attention spans are short. So keep activities short and plentiful.

Engage all of their senses. Halloween is a holiday with a lot of color. It picks up on the autumn foliage, orange pumpkins and the blackness of spooky nights, bats, and other creepy-crawlies.

Halloween Background Music of sweet apple cider and burning candles in jack-o-lanterns engage the sense of smell.

Ghostly wails and mysterious bumps in the night fill the soundtrack of scary Halloween music. Or just play The Adam's Family theme if you want to keep it lighter.

And, of course, Halloween isn't Halloween without treats! Candy corn and chocolate bars, cupcakes with orange icing... But it doesn't all have to be sugar. Cut up slices of autumn fruits and vegetables such as apples, a little creativity with hotdogs and hamburgers will help get some nutritional content into their bellies.

Creativity and imagination for a holiday that is all about creativity and imagination will go far in creating precious Halloween memories for your young child.