Bobbing Games for Halloween

Bobbing for Apples

The classic bobbing game for Halloween challenges participants to retrieve apples from a basin of water using only their mouths. Remove the stems from the apples to make the game more difficult. If the basin is large enough, everybody can play at once. Other ways to play include timing how long it takes each person to complete the task or allowing each person one minute to retrieve as many apples as possible.

Instead of bobbing in water, a bobbing for spiders game has participants try to bite spiders out of the air. Create a spider by placing eight brown or black chenille stems into a chocolate-covered donut hole. Thread a string through the center of each spider with a needle, and tie the string in a bow under the spider to keep it on. Hang one spider for each contestant, and have participants race to eat the spiders without using their hands. For more of a challenge, sway each spider like a pendulum just before the game begins.

Have guests race to see who can find all of the worms first in this fast-paced and messy Halloween game. Each participant should have a shallow bowl of whipped cream with ten candy worms mixed into the cream. A clean bowl should be next to the whipped cream bowl. Participants have to put their hands behind their backs, using just their mouths to find all ten worms and put the clean worms in the clean bowl.

Instead of bobbing for apples and getting their faces all wet, participants can bob for marshmallows using straws instead. Float full-sized marshmallows in clean water, and give each player one half of a straw, measuring about 4 in. Players have to get the marshmallows out by sucking on the straw hard enough to get a marshmallow to stay on the end.