🎓 Skills Your Child Will Develop

• 😌 Emotional Self-Regulation — Managing the feelings that arise during activities — frustration when something doesn't work, excitement, disappointment at the end — builds the self-regulation foundation that distinguishes emotionally ready kindergarteners.
• 🧠 Executive Function — Planning an activity, following multi-step directions, and seeing a project through to completion builds the executive function skills — working memory, cognitive flexibility, and inhibitory control — that are the strongest predictors of school success.
• 🏃 Gross Motor Development — Large-movement activities develop the coordination, balance, and muscle strength that underpin physical confidence and school-readiness fitness.
• 🧩 Problem Solving — Working through a challenge — figuring out how pieces fit, how to balance a stack, or how to make something work — develops the perseverance and logical reasoning skills children use across every learning domain.

Halloween is the perfect occasion to peruse the backyard for creepy crawlers, spiders and such! This Halloween version of a traditional Easter egg hunt is guaranteed to be a hit amongst preschool bug enthusiasts. No need to be squeamish, mom. Preschoolers are only hunting for toy bugs—this time! This preschool Halloween activity is perfect for holiday parties or fun with just a few friends.

What You Will Need

An Assortment of Toy Bugs

Paper Lunch Bags (One for each participant)

What to Do

Step 1:

Hide the bugs the way you would hide Easter eggs for an Easter egg hunt. Depending on the weather, the creepy crawler hunt can be done indoors or outdoors.

Step 2:

Give each participant a paper lunch bag.

Step 3:

Instruct preschoolers to look for the hidden toy bugs. Let them know that they will be able to keep the bugs they find as a prize.

Step 4:

Once all the toy bugs have been found, have preschoolers count up the number of bugs they have. The preschooler with the most bugs wins an additional prize. Preschool Activities recommends awarding the winner with a pack of gummy worms!

Tip: Keep some extra toy bugs on hand to pass out to preschoolers who may not have found as many as their fellow creepy crawler hunters.

More Creepy Crawlers Hunt Fun

For even more fun and games, have preschoolers decorate their paper lunch bags before the hunt with the Halloween stickers, crayons, etc.

Helpful Tips for Parents - Rainy days are activity opportunities, not obstacles. Build an indoor obstacle course, create a fort, or set up a water tray in the bathtub. - Keep activity sessions shorter than you think necessary. Ending while children are still engaged leaves them wanting more — far better than waiting for meltdown. - Join the activity briefly, then step back. Your presence signals importance; your withdrawal enables independence. 5 minutes of participation often unlocks 30 minutes of independent play. - Connect activities to real life: cooking math, laundry color sorting, grocery store counting. Embedded learning is the most transferable kind. - Rotate activities every few weeks rather than making everything available at once. Novelty dramatically increases engagement and play depth. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### Are screens acceptable as a preschool activity? The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends limiting screen-based media to 1 hour per day of high-quality, co-viewed content for children aged 2–5, and avoiding screens except video-calling for children under 2. The quality of content and whether a parent is watching and discussing together matters enormously — passive, commercial, or violent screen content has negative effects; educational co-viewed content has minimal harm. Screens are not a substitute for the physical, social, and creative activities that develop preschool brains. ### How do I handle the mess from activities without discouraging my child? Establish a predictable cleanup routine rather than reacting to mess with visible frustration — your emotional response to mess teaches the child's relationship to mess. Contain messy activities to mess-appropriate spaces (outside, a table covered with a vinyl cloth, the bathtub). Make cleanup part of the activity, not a punishment for making it. Children who participate in cleanup develop responsibility; children who are sent away while adults clean up in frustration learn that making things is risky. Related reading: See also our science experiments and our obstacle course ideas for more ideas on this topic.