Half-term Halloween craft activity for bereaved children

October 2026

Halloween and the October half term can be a fun chance to get creative together with your children. Our friends at Child Bereavement UK have shared this fun craft activity for widowed parents and their children. They told us: making your own spooky Ooglies can give you and your child a simple way to talk about feelings, memories and the person who died, if you want to.

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Create monsters, ghosts, pumpkins, witches or completely made-up creatures. There’s no right or wrong way for an Ooglie to look, according to Child Bereavement UK, who we are partnering to provide full circle support for the whole family following a bereavement. 

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You will need

• Playdough or modelling clay
• Pipe cleaners
• Wooden lollipop sticks
• Card or thick paper
• Felt tips or colouring pencils
• Stick-on eyes
• Glue or sticky tape
• Craft decorations such as foam shapes, wool or stickers
• Halloween decorations such as bats, pumpkins or spiders, if you have them

Please consider the suitability of small craft items for younger children.

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Make your Ooglies

Start by making a Halloween Ooglie each. You could create a friendly ghost, a worried witch, a grumpy pumpkin, a many-eyed monster or something completely different.

Let your child take the lead. Their Ooglie doesn’t need to look perfect, and it doesn’t have to represent them or anyone else.

Parents can make one too.

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Once your Ooglies are ready, introduce them to each other.

You could ask:

• What is your Ooglie called?
• What does it like doing?
• What makes it laugh?
• Is it scared of anything?
• How is it feeling today

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Give your Ooglie a feeling

Halloween gives us lots of words for things that are scary, strange or uncomfortable, but our Ooglies can have any feelings at all.

Perhaps one Ooglie is excited about trick-or-treating but another feels sad. One might feel angry. Another might want to hide away. An Ooglie can even feel lots of different things at the same time.

You could ask:

“What do you think your Ooglie needs when it feels like that?”

Talking through a character can sometimes make difficult feelings easier to explore.

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Make a little Halloween story

Once everyone has made their characters, create a silly Halloween adventure together.

Maybe the Ooglies are going trick-or-treating, exploring a haunted house or searching for a missing pumpkin.

Let the story go wherever your child takes it. Feelings and memories might naturally become part of the game, or you might simply end up with a ridiculous story about a three-eyed pumpkin eating all the sweets.

Both are absolutely fine.

The important thing is spending some time together and giving your child space to talk if they want to.

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Where to get support

Child Bereavement UK is a charity that supports grieving children and young people, and parents bereaved of a baby or child, to find hope and rebuild their lives. 

If you’re an adult supporting a bereaved child or young person, you can speak directly to a bereavement specialist on 0800 02 888 40, email ask@childbereavementuk.org, use the live chat on their website childbereavementuk.org or text/WhatsApp on 07418 341 800 (all available Monday to Friday, 8am-8pm).