The kids won’t be trick-or-treating this year, no thanks to coronavirus, but there is still so much we can do to make Halloween feel special. In fact, knowing things won’t culminate in a neighborhood trick-or-treat, I find myself determined to make this the best Halloween yet.

To wit, we started a Halloween Countdown today, and will continue to add a “spooky” activity each day between now and the 31st. So follow along for dozens of ways to make your kids’ Halloween full of haunted magic.

Today’s activity was really just to get into the Halloween spirit (heh) of course, and that meant going Halloween crazy in our kitchen. We kept most of these decorations fairly simple, the most complicated being spider web window clings.

I knew Veronika would be excited when I dumped out a big bag of Halloween supplies. But I hadn’t anticipated how thrilled Travis would be, too!

Immediately, he began using markers to make faces on felt ghost shapes and foam pumpkin shapes and Veronika joined in.

I had Halloween stampers from the drugstore and the kids used these to stamp all over some of the foam pumpkins.

A line of skeleton stickers soon marched across our kitchen cabinets.

We added a fake spiderweb above the kitchen table, dotted with spider rings from last year.

Halloween stickers were fun to put all over orange and black construction paper and then tape to the wall. I also had Halloween cupcake liners which made quick window decorations.

And the ghosts were soon haunting the doorway.

I had intended to only decorate the kitchen, but Travis insisted we continue outside. So soon we had a bush covered with webs and spiders.

And some fearsome faces on the front door!

So here’s to kicking off what is surely going to be a very different but very awesome Halloween. Please add your suggestions in the comments for making this year extra spook-tacular!