There are few holidays kids look forward to with more anticipation than Halloween. After all, what’s more fun that carving pumpkins, wearing costumes, and going trick-or-treating with your friends? Here are some great Halloween apps for the whole family. The best part is that they’re all free, so make sure to download an app – or three!   

Carve-a-Pumpkin

(Available online: Apple App Store)

Halloween wouldn’t be the same without pumpkin carving. How about carving virtual pumpkins to see who can create the silliest or scariest Jack-o’-lantern? Step one: download Carve-a-Pumpkin. You can choose pumpkins of different shapes and sizes, and then create your own designs or select from a host of decorating options that include eyes, noses, and mouths. You can even decorate your pumpkins with stickers. The best part is that you won’t cut yourselves, there’s no mess to clean up, and you can experiment with different designs until you find the one that’s just right.

Make A Zombie

(Available online: Apple App Store)

While you’re at it, why not make a scary zombie or two? With Make A Zombie you can create lots of blood-curdling zombies by combining different heads, hair styles, eyes, mouths, bodies, legs, and clothes. When you’re done, have the kids share their creations with other family members and friends for some spooky fun. They can also print them out and bring them to school share with classmates, or have them copied onto t-shirts or hoodies.  

Monsterfy

(Available online: Apple App Store; Google Play)

Another fun activity is to change your own face into a frightening creature like a ghost, ghoul, vampire or werewolf. Monsterfy lets you swap your face with all kinds of ghastly monsters and then brings you to life with some crazy animations. You can growl, howl, snap, and snarl, and flick your fangs while sharing images and videos with family and friends.  

Halloween Games for Kids

(Available at: Apple App Store)

Dressing up like scary monsters may be a bit much for the youngest members of the family but that doesn’t mean that they should be left out of all the fun. Halloween Games for Kids has lots of Halloween-themed games that toddlers will enjoy that include matching funny pumpkins, tracing letters that are accompanied by Halloween-related images, and spelling a variety of Halloween-themed words. The app also has a coloring book that younger ones can enjoy.

Halloween WordSearch

(Available at: Apple App Store)

For the older kids, Halloween WordSearch is a great choice for some brainteasing fun. Have the kids download the app, select the same word searches, and then see who can find the most words in the shortest amount of time. Do it once the kids are home from trick-or-treating and can’t wait to get comfy on the couch and devour their candy. The app has word puzzles at different levels of difficulty, accompanied by a scare soundtrack to make the mood sufficiently spooky.