Create a Trick or Treater Experience at Your Front Door

Halloween is full of so many activities – costume creation, classroom parties, crafts, carving and the main event – trick or treating. You can’t forget decorating. Halloween decorating is big business and many homeowners take it very seriously.

In October,  tombstones begin to show up in yards along with spider webs, skeleton hands and ghosts hanging from trees. If you like to decorate your yard and front door for Halloween, here are some spooky scientific suggestions to create the ultimate trick or treater experience.

Here is a list of materials you will need to decorate your front door:

• Black lights
• Bowls, Cauldrons, Graduated Cylinders – anything to hold water
• Dry Ice   **Remember use insulated gloves to protect your hands and keep dry ice away from children
• Warm Water
• Pumpkins
• Glow Sticks and Glow Powder (Zinc Sulfide)
• Glow in the Dark Paper
• Mad Scientist Growing Body Parts Jar
• White Lightning Sticks
• Glowing Squidy

Burping, Bubbling, Smoking Dry Ice Cauldrons
First, you must set the scene with burping, bubbling and smoking water. Nothing says Halloween like fog, rolling across the grass and leaves, between the cardboard tombstones and out to the goblins on the sidewalk. An easy way to get a nice flow of steady fog is with a fog machine that can be purchased at your local Halloween store.

Fill beakers, cauldrons and bowls with warm water, then add light sticks or glow powder. Drop some pieces of dry ice in the water and it will start bubbling and smoking. For complete rules and guidelines to make water bubble and boil with toil and trouble, read the experiment Awesome Dry Ice Experiments.

Glowing Pumpkins and Jack-o-Lanterns
Instead of carving pumpkins, decorate and cover your pumpkins with zinc sulfide. It glows in the dark or under a black light. For complete instructions read Glow in the Dark Pumpkins experiment.

Oozing Jack-o-Lanterns
Or carve up those pumpkins and set them up. Then add a little excitement by making Elephant’s Toothpaste ooze out of the face as the trick or treaters reach the door. Read the Elephant’s Toothpaste for Kids experiment for complete directions.

Glow in the Dark Paper
Tape some glow in the dark paper to your front door. It has an adhesive on the back, but using the adhesive on your front door may make the paper permanent. Write spooky notes on the paper, or put the images of your trick or treaters on the paper and then decorate them with the black light. The images won’t last long, so each trick or treater can take a turn making a spooky, glowing design.

Other Decorations
You can fill in the gaps with some other cool science toys like the White Lightning Sticks – cool strobing light that morphs through colors. Also a very cool stick to take with on the trick or treating trek. No one will miss seeing you with a White Lightning Stick in your hand.

A Mad Scientist Growing Body Parts Jar and Glowing Squidy will add some laboratory flavor to the scene.