Halloween crafts are a wonderful way to let little kids enjoy the season without making things too complicated—or too spooky!
Preschoolers can paint pumpkins, make friendly ghosts, turn an egg carton into a silly spider, stamp pumpkins with apples, and create decorations from materials you may already have around the house.
These 10 easy Halloween crafts for preschoolers are designed around simple shapes, bright colors, painting, gluing, stamping, and imaginative play. Some projects will need a little help from an adult, especially when cutting or preparing materials, but children can do much of the decorating themselves.
Gather the crayons, paint, paper, and glue, and get ready for a wonderfully messy Halloween craft day.
🎃 1. Paper Plate Jack-o’-Lanterns
A paper plate can become an adorable jack-o’-lantern with just a little orange color and a funny face.
Start with an orange paper plate, or let your preschooler color or paint a white plate orange. Cut eyes, a nose, and a mouth from black construction paper and let your child decide where each piece should go.
The pumpkin does not need to look perfect. Crooked eyes, enormous smiles, and mismatched shapes often make preschool Halloween crafts even more fun.
You’ll need:
- Paper plates
- Orange crayons, markers, or washable paint
- Black construction paper
- Green construction paper
- Glue
- Child-safe scissors
Add a little green paper stem at the top when the jack-o’-lantern is finished.
Make it easier: Adults can pre-cut several eyes, noses, mouths, and stems so younger preschoolers can concentrate on choosing and gluing the pieces.
👻 2. Ghost Handprint Art
Little hands make wonderfully wiggly ghosts.
Paint your child’s palm and fingers with washable white paint, then press the hand onto dark or colorful construction paper. Once the paint is dry, turn the handprint into a ghost by adding black eyes and a mouth.
Make one ghost or create an entire ghost family. The example pictured uses several white handprints on green paper with orange “TRICK OR TREAT” lettering for an especially cute Halloween keepsake.
You’ll need:
- Washable white paint
- Construction paper
- Black paint or marker
- Paintbrush
- Orange marker or paint, if desired
Preschoolers can also add pumpkins, stars, a moon, or Halloween words around their ghosts.
🦇 3. Coffee Filter Bats
Coffee filters make surprisingly good bat wings.
Lay round coffee filters on a protected surface and let children dab or spray them with diluted black or dark purple washable paint. Allow them to dry, then pinch or gather each filter in the center.
Add a clothespin or simple paper bat body in the middle and finish the bat with eyes.
You’ll need:
- Round coffee filters
- Washable black, purple, or gray paint
- Spray bottle or paintbrush
- Clothespins
- Glue
- Eyes
If you are crafting with younger preschoolers, draw the eyes instead of using small googly eyes.
Hang several finished bats together to create a little colony fluttering across a classroom wall or Halloween display.
🕷️ 4. Egg Carton Spiders
An ordinary cardboard egg carton can become a very silly Halloween spider.
The example pictured has a round black egg-carton body, tiny eyes, and eight bendable black pipe-cleaner legs.
Adults should cut individual cups from a cardboard egg carton ahead of time. Let children paint the cups black and leave them to dry.
Next, an adult can make small holes around the sides. Thread four pipe cleaners through the body to create eight legs, then bend them into wonderfully crooked spider shapes.
You’ll need:
- Cardboard egg carton
- Black washable paint
- Paintbrush
- Black pipe cleaners
- Glue
- Eyes
Try making several spiders and giving each one a different expression.
🎃 5. Pumpkin Seed Art
Don’t throw away all those pumpkin seeds after pumpkin-carving day. Save some for a colorful preschool collage.
The pictured project uses seeds arranged closely together inside a large pumpkin outline, with many of the seeds painted orange to fill the pumpkin shape.
Wash and thoroughly dry the seeds ahead of time. Children can paint them orange, yellow, red, or green and then glue them inside a simple pumpkin outline drawn on sturdy paper.
You’ll need:
- Clean, dry pumpkin seeds
- Washable paint
- Paintbrushes
- Cardstock or construction paper
- Pencil or marker
- Child-safe glue
Draw the pumpkin outline first so preschoolers have an easy space to fill.
This is also a fun craft for experimenting with patterns. Children could alternate orange and yellow seeds or use green seeds for the stem.
👻 6. Tissue Paper Ghosts
These soft, floaty ghosts are easy enough to make in multiples.
Place a square of white tissue paper over a small ball of scrap paper or another lightweight form. Gather the tissue beneath the head and secure it, then draw a simple ghost face.
You can leave the bottom uneven so the tissue looks like a flowing ghost.
You’ll need:
- White tissue paper
- Scrap paper
- String or yarn
- Black marker
- Tape, if needed
Hang the ghosts from a doorway, branch, classroom bulletin board, or Halloween display.
For a glowing version, an adult can arrange the tissue around battery-operated LED lights only. Never use candles or an open flame with tissue paper.
🎨 7. Halloween Painted Rocks
This craft starts with an adventure: go outside and hunt for smooth rocks.
The pictured rocks are decorated as colorful Halloween characters, including orange jack-o’-lanterns as well as monster-like designs in green, red, yellow, and white.
That makes this project more fun than limiting every rock to a pumpkin. Let children invent whatever Halloween creature fits each shape.
Try:
- Orange pumpkin rocks
- Green monster rocks
- Silly eyeballs
- Ghosts
- Black cats
- Funny monster faces
You’ll need:
- Smooth rocks
- Washable or craft paint
- Paintbrushes
- Markers suitable for the painted surface
Adults can add a protective craft sealer later if the rocks will be displayed outdoors.
Line the finished rocks along a porch, windowsill, garden path, or Halloween table.
🦇 8. Paper Bag Bat Puppets
A Halloween craft becomes a toy when you turn a paper lunch bag into a bat puppet.
Color or paint the bag black. Cut two large bat wings from black construction paper and glue them to the sides.
Decorate the folded flap with a bat face, adding eyes, little ears, and two tiny white fangs.
You’ll need:
- Paper lunch bags
- Black construction paper
- Black crayons or washable paint
- White crayon or paper
- Glue
- Child-safe scissors
Once the glue dries, put on a Halloween puppet show.
Children can make up names for their bats, practice funny bat voices, or invent a story about where the bats fly on Halloween night.
🕸️ 9. Fingerprint Spider Web Art
Preschoolers do not need to draw perfectly straight spiderwebs. In fact, imperfect webs are part of the fun.
Start with a sheet of dark construction paper. Use white paint and fingertips, cotton swabs, or a combination of both to create lines radiating from the center.
Connect the lines with curved sections until a web begins to appear.
You’ll need:
- Black or dark construction paper
- Washable white paint
- Cotton swabs
- Paintbrushes, if desired
Add a fingerprint spider when the web is finished. Make one larger fingerprint for the body, another for the head, and draw the legs after the paint dries.
Children can even create several tiny spiders crawling around their webs.
🍎 10. Apple-Stamped Pumpkins
Cut an apple in half and suddenly you have a pumpkin-shaped stamp.
An adult should prepare the apple. Dip the cut side lightly into orange washable paint and press it firmly onto white paper.
The first photo shows simple orange apple prints decorated with googly eyes, demonstrating just how easily the apple shape can become a funny little Halloween character.
You’ll need:
- Apples
- Orange washable paint
- White paper or cardstock
- Paper plate for paint
- Green and black markers or paint
Children can make one large pumpkin picture or fill an entire sheet with pumpkin prints.
Once the prints dry, turn them into jack-o’-lanterns by adding green stems and different black faces. The finished example shows three stamped pumpkins transformed into smiling jack-o’-lanterns for a “TRICK OR TREAT” picture.
Encourage children to give every pumpkin a different expression—happy, surprised, sleepy, silly, or spooky.
✂️ Tips for Halloween Crafting With Preschoolers
Halloween crafting with preschoolers works best when the project is flexible. The goal does not need to be making every child’s pumpkin, ghost, or spider look exactly like the example.
Prepare difficult steps before the activity begins. Adults can cut cardboard, make holes, divide materials, and prepare paint while children handle the creative parts.
For very young children, avoid loose small pieces that could be a choking hazard. Draw eyes instead of using tiny googly eyes when appropriate, supervise scissors and craft materials closely, and follow the age and safety information on the products you use.
Most importantly, let children make choices. A pumpkin can have six eyes. A spider can be purple. A ghost can smile. Preschool crafts are much more memorable when children get to make them their own.
🎃 Turn Your Crafts Into Halloween Decorations
Don’t pack everything away when craft time ends!
Hang the handprint ghosts and spiderweb art on the refrigerator. Create a shelf filled with painted rocks. Display paper plate pumpkins in the windows. Let paper bag bats join a Halloween puppet show.
You can even create a preschool Halloween gallery by displaying all ten projects together.
Homemade decorations may not be perfectly symmetrical, but those little painted fingerprints, crooked smiles, and wobbly spider legs are exactly what make them special.
👻 More Halloween Fun for Kids
Looking for another activity after craft time? Explore more family-friendly Halloween ideas:
- Halloween Activities for Kids: Crafts, Coloring Pages & Printables
- Spooktacular Halloween Crafts for Kids: Fun and Creative Ideas for the Whole Family
- 20 Halloween I Spy Games for Kids
- Halloween Coloring Activity Sheets
- 5 Free Cute Halloween Coloring Pages to Print
- Halloween Decorations for Kids: Fun, Cute, and Not-Too-Scary Ideas
For another preschool-friendly activity, there is also this Halloween Funny Maze for Preschool and School Kids on Fun Free Coloring Pages. (Fun Free Coloring Pages)
🧡 Happy Halloween Crafting!
You don’t need elaborate supplies to create a memorable Halloween afternoon with a preschooler. Paper plates, paint, handprints, rocks, apples, pumpkin seeds, and a little imagination can become an entire collection of friendly Halloween decorations.
Pick one easy project for a quick activity, or gather several supplies and make a whole Halloween craft day out of it.
Most of all, embrace the fingerprints, paint splatters, unusual pumpkin faces, and gloriously crooked spider legs.
That’s where the Halloween magic is. 🎃
