Halloween Café—A spooky fun time
Halloween Café contains activities for a large or small group of people with dementia or Alzheimer's at a memory cafe, in an instutional setting, or at home with a small or large family consisting of people of all ages.
Supplies
Other supplies:
About Supplies:
Shopping links are provided by Amazon, which makes it easy to see the type of product that we are talking about. Clicking any of the links will take you to Amazon. Please note that the Caregiver Program collects fees from Amazon for referring users if they purchase there. We use 100% of these fees to fund our Caregiver Program, including this website and our caregiver apps. You also can purchase any of these products at local shops as well.
Snacks
We usually incorporate a themed snack whenever it is possible or if it applies.
This month featured:
- Pumpkin muffins
- Halloween munchkins
- Pumpkin spiced coffee
- A bowl of candy
We also had our regular spread which consists of:
- Coffee, tea and water.
- Consider the time of your café, and any safety and dietary restrictions that may apply to your particular group.
Music Playlists
This month we featured background music that had a Halloween theme. The song titles are available in this Halloween Youtube Playlist.
Participation
Guests were invited to dress up in costume for the café. Many couples came dressed and for those who did not, we handed out plastic masquerade masks.
Structure
Coffee, snacks and socializing. During this time we played the Halloween playlist made with Youtube.
Photo Booth. People were free to get their picture taken in front of our Halloween themed photo booth.
Guess that Monster. First we played “Guess that monster” a game in which I printed large black and white photos of the original notorious monsters. This list included Frankenstein, Dracula, The Bride of Frankenstein, The Invisible Man, Wolfman, The Mummy & Gillman. The pictures were numbered 1-7 and presented on a large board so everyone could see.
Halloween Cup Basketball and Halloween Bowling. Next we got the group to form two lines in the front of the room where we had a game set up. On a table we arranged 6 large cups in a pyramid form. We handed the guests 3 plastic eye ball ping pong balls and had them try their luck at getting the balls in a cup. After a few rounds at this, we changed the game a little by stacking the plastic cups and using a larger ball to try and knock the cups down.
After our game we went back to the table to paint pumpkins. Each guest was given a miniature pumpkin, a paintbrush and some paint. Some guests painted faces while others chose a variety of colors.
How many candy corn game? At this point we asked the guests to state their guess for how many candy corn were in the jar. The winner (closest to the correct number) won the entire jar! (We'll leave it up to you whether this was a good prize or not.)
Halloween Bingo. Next we played Halloween Bingo. Prizes for the bingo winners were tiny Halloween decorated paddle ball games. Check in downloads to print your own boards. You can download the pdf of all the bingo cards and callout cards in one pdf. Print on a color printer and bring chips to have the attendees put over the blocks.
We wrapped up by telling the guests what next month’s theme was and staff cleaned up.
Downloads
Download the Halloween Bingo Boards.
The Halloween Bingo boards are made to work as a dementia-friendly activity. The boards have pictures. It also includes large cards that can be held up to help people match an image that is called to an image on the Bingo board.
If you like the download, please tell folks about our free Caregiver App! The app helps build patience, perseverance, and peace in the caregiver.
Instructions for downloading and using the app are available at this link.
Pictures and Video
