Backyard Fall Party Idea For Kids With Pumpkin Theme

My sister and I love to throw parties and we wanted to celebrate the beginning of October with a kid-friendly pumpkin party! Follow along so you can also enjoy the best season of all with your little ones.

I love fall and October and Halloween and pumpkins and pumpkin spice lattes and everything in between. So, it only makes sense that we would decide to throw a backyard pumpkin party for our four kiddos.

Since 2020 is a literal dumpster fire, this is a great option if your community isn’t doing Trick or Treat or if you just don’t feel like venturing out this year.

Take a scroll through to see how to throw the ultimate kid friendly pumpkin party for your family. Also, you can shop all the pumpkin party decor here on my Amazon Storefront.

Pumpkin Party Decor

My sister is the decor queen. We usually split the responsibilities for our party planning and decor (and activities) are hers while I handle the food. Here are the details on the best pumpkin party decor.

• Balloon Banner. Megan made this but got the balloons and “kit” on Amazon. Here is a similar one.
• Food Platters. We got these at the Dollar Tree. I have bins full of party supplies for occasions like this or Galentine’s Day. If you aren’t a weirdo like me, here is an option from Target.
• Fabric Pumpkins. These were in the Dollar Spot at Target! Here is a similar option.
• Garland/Seat Covers/Other Decor. Megan snagged mostly everything at the Dollar Store or had it on hand from other years.

If you want to see some videos – head to our Instagram (me + eatplaycbus) where you can see even more! Pro tip: buy Halloween (or party) stuff on clearance and store in a clear + labeled tote bin for the next year so you are always ready for a party.

Pumpkin Themed Outfits

We like to be very on theme. Well, I was in that lovely part of pregnancy where maternity clothes didn’t quite fit but my normal ones didn’t either. So, I rocked my favorite fall sweater that I will wear until it falls apart.

Megan of course had the cutest sweatshirt from Declan & Crew, a Columbus based online boutique that has the best clothes. You can shop her sweatshirt here, but there are limited sizes left! Take a wander through her whole shop though because she has some amazing options.

For the girls, we lucked out on Amazon for these adorable frilly and on theme pumpkin outfits. I LOVE this style of outfit, I just think they are the cutest. You can find “nicer” ones at Nordstrom or other boutique style store but we opted for the $10-15 versions on Amazon.

• Pumpkin Shirt + Orange Striped Pants
• Pumpkin Shirt + Candy Corn Pants
• Spooky Little Babe Shirt + Spooky Pants
• Pick of the Patch Shirt + Leopard Pants

Pumpkin Party Food

I’m typically in charge of the food for our parties (see Galentine’s Day here!) and sometimes I make a lot of homemade things and sometimes I buy everything. Since this was a party for 4 kids under the age of 5, I opted for more store bought items.

Luckily, the food trend right now is to make pumpkin EVERYTHING so it wasn’t hard to find fun “on theme” items. I shopped at Aldi, Trader Joe’s, and Meijer to find all these goodies.

I really liked everything! I was surprised at how good the Pumpkin Pizza from Aldi was – it was super tasty, I didn’t want to share. For drinks, we just did apple juice and water. But, if you want to make something a little tastier, this is a great option for adults.

If your kiddos don’t like “pumpkin” flavored items, mix it up and grab some regular Oreos or here are a few homemade fall recipes that would be perfect for your party.

• Pumpkin Patch Chocolate Cupcakes
• Chocolate Dipped Oreos
• Mini Pumpkin Cheesecakes
• Graveyard Pudding (this one is my favorite!)

We did have some special spooky brownies from Columbus based baker, Cakes By Kat. They were DELISH. You can shop all her awesome desserts here.

Backyard Pumpkin Party Activities

Megan was a nanny for many years and is just naturally gifted at coming up with fun ideas for kiddos. Olivia might like going to her house more than ours just because she knows it’s going to be fun.

Luckily, Megan has an incredible backyard with a large deck so she decorated her playhouse to be spooky and pumpkin themed. She also set out some coloring books (from the Dollar Tree) with stickers out so they girls could color at their leisure. After the sugar hit, O decided to hop on a table and have a little dance party.

Not picture is the BOUNCE HOUSE that O went CRAZY for when we walked in. It’s the perfect size for any sized backyard or heck, inside. It’s 2020, we gotta do what we gotta do.

Then, we opted for a story time which Riley loved. Columbus based business, My Bookworm Box offered a really fun Halloween Box that included cookie decorating so we read some of the books while they made cookies another day. There was no more desserts needed.

This is one of the most simple and fun experiments for kids… and adults haha. We snagged some plastic cauldrons (again Dollar Tree), foil pans, and plastic droppers to make a spooky volcano. Full instructions are here.

Essentially, you mix baking soda, water, dish soap, and some food coloring in the cauldron and then add the vinegar with the dropper and voila – a spooky volcano! You can check out Megan’s list of 50 fun + easy at home activities for kids if you need some more inspiration.

Megan turned her water and sand tables into some fun sensory bins that all the kids loved. Here is what you need, but feel free to adjust to what you have on hand too.

• Bucket/Water Table/Sand Table. Whatever you got will work! You could even use foil pans from the volcano experiment.
• Leaves. If you are in Ohio, you’ll have plenty of these.
• Rice. She actually dyed this orange! You can see her tutorial on her IG highlight.
• Skeleton Arms. These are hilarious to me. We also used the IKEA tongs if the girls didn’t want to use their hands.
• Plastic Spiders/Puff Balls/Googly Eyes. Toss these in the leaves and rice so they can hunt for them.

Pumpkin Party Fun

Thanks for making it all the way here. We love to throw parties so this was SO fun. Crazy to think that for our Halloween next year, we will have a little dude with us! In true blogger fashion, we also had a little hay bale photobooth and Joel took a ton of cute family photos so here are some additional pictures from our pumpkin party!