ATLAS: Halloween Minute to Win It Games

Minute to Win It is a big hit with the tweens at my library. It is also a fun and inexpensive program, which means it is a big hit with me as well. I've done it in a regular format, and in versions tweaked to suit a theme. For instance I've adapted it into Chocolate Olympics and Marshmallow Madness programs. This is the first time I've done a seasonal Minute to Win It. The total cost this time was under $10.

To plan this program, I found this link on Pinterest, and used it as a starting point. I also got some great ideas here. These two links gave me most of the games I needed to fill an hour long program with 10 kids.

I structured the program by setting up a station for each game. Two kids could play a game at one time. We went through the stations as a group, but they would also work as self directed centers.

Here are the six games we played: 

Silly Spider: 

Source: Adaptation of spider/straw game here. 

Description:  Kids had to pick up spiders rings by sucking through a straw.  

Supplies: A straw per child and about 50 spider rings. 

Cost: Free (The straws were leftover from a previous program and the rings were from our stash of Halloween decorations/giveaways.)

Seperation Anxiety:

Source: Direct from the same site.

Description: The object of the game was to separate a bowl of M&Ms by color.

Supplies: Two bags of M&Ms, only one was used to play the game. The second was for a treat at the end. I also used two sets of six cups and one bowl, both of which I already had.

Cost: $5.00 for the M&Ms.

Candy Catastrophe:

Source: I came up with this one myself.

Description: The kids had to use chopsticks to pick up the candy corn and put it in a bowl. I stressed that they could be "creative" about how they went about this.

Supplies: A pair of chopsticks per child, two bowls and one bag of candy corn.

Cost: $2.00 for the candy corn. I already had the chopsticks from a previous program.

Cup Tower of Terror:

Source: A combination idea inspired by the cups used here, and the tower building done here.

Description: The goal is to stack as many cups as tall as possible without them falling over.

Supplies: One pack of 50 plastic cups.

Cost: $2.99

Dice It Up:

Source: Buzzle

Description: You must balance a die on a Popsicle stick held in your mouth. Then you must proceed to stack as many die on top of that die as possible.

Supplies: One Popsicle stick per child, as many die as possible.

Cost: Free. I used popsicle sticks leftover from this summer's catapult program, and took the die from various board games the library owns.

Dizzy Mummy:

Source: Taken directly from here.

Description: The idea is to wrap your partner in as much toilet paper as possible. To extend the fun I gave them five minutes each for this one.

Supplies: About a roll of toilet paper per pair of kids.

Cost: Free. I took toilet paper from the library's supply closet.

The kids had a great time at this program. The hit of the day was obviously the mummy wrapping. Definitely planning on using this one again.

If you have any questions or program ideas to share I would love to hear them. You can comment hear, email me at marrak at libcoop dot net, or talk with me on Twitter (@MsKellyTweets). Thanks for reading!