I've been thinking about this over the weekend and I think I have a few ideas. Just looking for feedback into whether you guys think that these would be appropriate for K through 5 and also what kind of things can be done in each room to make it interactive.

The wizard's room seems like it might be great as the kids can help him perform magic.

Maybe a fortune teller room. Have one of the female volunteers dressed up at a table with a crystal ball and have the kids stand or sit down around the table and then have the firtune teller tell their fortune. Maybe get some inside info on each kid before they enter.

A pirate room. Not sure what kind of interactive things we could do inside though.

Thanks, any ideas are welcome.

PresidentJim

We had a walk through area as well one year. We put bowls of items such as your grapes for eye balls, pasta for brains, sausage for intestines inside boxes. Each box had a hole in it with a flap covering the hole. The kids lift the flap to see a sign posted on the flipside with what was inside "monster brains", and then they felt inside the box to see what it felt like.
Some kids enjoyed just lifting the flaps to read what was there. Most enjoyed putting their hand in to feel. It was a ton of fun and all kids got hand wipes at the end and a treat bag.

We are starting to plan for our second annual Harvest Party, which is set for October 28th. Effectively this is a Halloween time family event, with a DJ, free party games, free raffle prizes, a bake sale, and the most popular area - a "spook house". We are a K through 4th school so we require a few things... First the kids are allowed to dress up, but nothing inappropriate and no masks. They are not required to come in costume and no prizes are associated with the costumes.

For the "spook house", to use the term very loosely, we keep it age appropriate, meaning nothing gory or scary. Last year I explained it to some parents as a visual, aural and textual stimuli area meant to educate while being fun.

So here's the thing...

Last year we had three rooms, that we created using an old pool cover/tarp hanging from the ceiling using tie wraps. The first was the hay field. It was the entrance to the "spook house" and had hay bales, pumpkins, gourds, a scarecrow, fake ravens, etc. Nothing scary, just a room to guide them in.

The next room was the mad scientist's lab. We had a lot of neon, one of those plasma balls that the kids can touch, black lighting, smoke machines, and "experiments" being performed that the kids could help with.

The last room was the "old hags", who were concocting a brew in a cauldron. The two ladies cackled and asked the kids to help put the ingredients in, which were kept within containers that they couldn't see in. Zombie teeth were really dried corn kernals. Lizard eyes were grapes.

So here's the problem. We know that if we do the same old thing again the kids would end up saying "this is the same as last year"!!! So we want to change it up a bit.

I'm looking for general and/or specific ideas, again keeping in mind that this is for an age group of 5 through 10 years of age. Nothing scary or gory. One idea I had was a wizards den, where someone could be dressed as a wizard and perform some magic tricks with help from the kids...

So, any ideas that you guys might have would be great. We are thinking of adding minor startling affects, such as a plate activated rush of low pressure air, or something like that, but again, nothing scary.

I thought of doing a Hogwarts like room, but figured that might be the same as the wizard den and would require too many volunteers.

Thanks for your help.

PresidentJim