Halloween Safety Tips For Kids Trick-Or-Treating

Halloween Safety Tips For Kids Trick-Or-Treating - Halloween is a fun, festive time of the year for kids and parents alike. However, the Halloween celebration does come with its share of accidents and mishaps, therefore, the proper precautions must be taken to keep things fun and safe. Here is a complete guide of safety tips to follow this Halloween.

Costume Safety Tips

While many people seek out the cutest, most authentic looking costume pieces to adorn their children, costume safety should be their first priority. When buying or designing a costume for your child, consider the following:

• Find a costume that is bright in color. Trick-or-treating is traditionally done during the evening, which means you have a heavy amount of traffic both on and off the sidewalk. Keep your child visible in these low light conditions for both pedestrians and vehicles with a bright-colored costume.
• Use reflective material. For increased visibility, look for reflective material for your child's costume, even if you have to equip your kids with orange, safety vests lined with reflective borders. You can also attach reflective tape to your child's costume or trick-or-treat bag.
• Keep in mind that a mask can obstruct your child's vision. Even if they tell you they can see through the mask, some children aren't fully aware that the mask is partially blocking their field of view.
• Test costume makeup on a small area of your child's skin. Spot testing Halloween makeup will help you test if your child is allergic to it.
• Make sure the entire costume fits well. Your child should be able to move about freely when wearing the costume (including the shoes). Avoid costumes that can get easily snagged, or can cause your child to trip and fall.
• Any weapons or props should look and feel harmless. Make sure weapons like swords and sickles are soft, bendable and do not have a pointed end. Any harmful looking weapons, including guns and ammunition should be brightly colored (preferably in bright neon colors) so they aren't mistaken for real weapons.

Trick-or-Treating Safety Tips

Before you set out on your trick-or-treating trip with your kids, make sure you go over the following guidelines and safety tips:

• Trick-or-treat in a group and make sure the children in your group stay together. Children should never venture out of sight from their guardian, and should never enter a house unless they know the person and their guardian is accompanying them.
• Carry a flashlight at all times. Flashlights will keep you and your party visible, while also lighting your path.
• Always use the sidewalk and crosswalks near busy intersections. Walk on the side of the road that is facing traffic so that you can see oncoming traffic at all times. Be sure to look both ways when crossing the street.
• Be careful around fire lit candles or luminaries.
• Do not allow your children to eat candy until it has been inspected. Children might be tempted to reach into their bags for candy before you've gone home to inspect their loot. Explain to them that you need to check the candy first for safety reasons.
• Toss any candy that has an open wrapper. Examine candy that can possibly be a choking hazard, or too difficult for your child to eat and take them away. Also avoid any homemade treats unless you know the person who served them and can attest to the food's safety.
• Don't just leave your children with all their Halloween candy. On a good haul, your children can accumulate more candy during Halloween than you would ever consider buying them in an entire year. After inspecting the candy, you should set it aside and distribute it to your children in limited amounts. The last thing you want is your children eating a year's worth of candy in one night!

Making Your Home Safe for Halloween

Now that you are aware of how to keep your children safe during Halloween, it's time to consider the rest of the neighborhood. Here is a list of safety tips for your home to keep other trick-or-treaters safe:

• Avoid using fire lit jack-o'-lanterns and luminaries. To prevent the risk of burns or a fire in the neighborhood, look for safer methods of lighting up your Halloween decorations, like child-safe, battery powered, plastic bulbs.
• Keep your home is well lit. Make sure that the driveway, front door and walkways are properly lit to avoid trips and falls.
• Make sure your walkways and steps are free of any debris. An excess of Halloween décor can be considered debris if it prevents your visitors from safely making it to your door and back. Clear a safe path for them to walk on.
• Control your pets and make sure they are leashed or inside. You don't want your dog barking and scaring small children. Make sure your pets that aren't used to visitors are caged, leashed or kept in a room where they won't cause trouble.

More Halloween Tips

• If you feel comfortable letting your older children venture out on their own, make sure you know the route they are taking and that they have a cellphone and that they use it to check-in.
• A good alternative to trick-or-treating in a neighborhood would be to attend an organized event, or even visit a local mall to avoid the dangers of moving vehicles.
• Invite the children of friends, family and neighbors to accompany your kids so that you have on large group that is easily visible to traffic.
• Serve your kids a hearty, pre-Halloween meal so that they are too full to stuff themselves with candy when they return from trick-or-treating. ( symptomfind.com )

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5 of the Best Towns to Celebrate Halloween

5 of the Best Towns to Celebrate Halloween - For kids, Halloween is infamous for costumes and trick-or-treating; for teens, horror flicks and potentially a day off school; for college students, lingerie and beer; for parents, watching their children do all of the formerly mentioned (lingerie and beer aside). If you love everything about Halloween, then put on your disguise and head to one of these cities that knows how to party, whether it’s rated PG or R.

Halloween Key West-Style (Toast to Life/Flickr)

Party-Hardy: New Orleans, Louisiana

New Orleans and its above-ground gravesites can be creepy even when it’s not Halloween, but The Big Easy sure knows how to celebrate. Second in size only to Mardi Gras, All Hallows’ Eve is celebrated with elaborate costumes, drinking, dancing, and parades. Even the zoo gets in on the action with “Boo at the Zoo.” And while you're there, chow down on what New Orleans is most known for, its tasty local cuisine—try a po’boy and some beignets to replenish your appetite during all your wickedly awesome fun.


Sexiest: Key West, Florida

The annual Key West Fantasy Fest is one word: risqué. During the week-and-a-half before Halloween, clothing is sparse, lingerie is welcomed in public, and Captain Morgan is about as frequent as water. The Pretenders in Paradise event has up to a $10,000 cash prize costume contest; the Duval Street’s mile-long street fair promises lively libations and costumed frivolity; and Captain Morgan’s famous parade, with 70,000 frolicking partygoers, finishes out the celebrations on Saturday night.


College Town: Ohio University, Athens, Ohio

Reigning supreme as one of the nation’s top party schools by the Princeton Review (and numerous other sites), Ohio University’s insane Halloween parties date back to the 70s, when the indiscretions of the college culture were a bit more hush-hush. The Annual Athens Halloween Street Party is considered to be one of the largest block parties in the nation, typically attracting more than 20,000 people to the streets of downtown Athens. If you’re going, be smart and call a taxi. Each year a few dozen people take the festivities too far and end up in the back of a cop car.


Historical: Salem, Massachusetts

The site of the historic Salem Witch Trials of 1692, Salem, Massachusetts has witch-tastic events all through October. The activities vary from haunted corn mazes to spooky boat cruises, topping off the month with the Salem Witches’ Halloween Ball and a firework finale on Halloween night.


Kid-Friendly: Disney World or Disneyland

There is no better way to have fun on Halloween than to dress up as a princess or prince and go trick-or-treating with the ones who inspired the costumes in the first place. Disney Parks celebrate Halloween with parades, fireworks, and costume parties, complete with meet-and-greets by kids’ favorite Disney stars. The events are on the tamer side and not so scary, as they are geared toward grade-school aged children. ( away.com )

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Can Halloween be good for the environment?

Can Halloween be good for the environment? - Trick or treat! Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays, and now my son is old enough to be excited about it, too. But lately I've been feeling a little frightened by the environmental impact of all those plastic bats and fun-size candy bars. What's a green Halloween-lover to do?

Halloween may offer the Lantern a chance to dress up as his namesake, but it doesn't provide many other opportunities for the eco-conscious. Any holiday that involves creating a ridiculous costume that you're going to wear exactly once while you gorge on prepackaged junk food is not exactly tailor-made for going green.

Let's start with the reason for the season: all that candy. Diets rich in sugary foods are typically considered less eco-friendly than those with modest amounts; in Sweden, for example, a model diet crafted by a team of environmental scientists suggested consumers cut down on sweets by about 50 percent. A British report (PDF) called that recommendation a "medium" priority for greening our food choices. (One risk, the report noted, was attracting accusations of "nanny state misery-guts spoilsportism"—a pretty good description of how people react if someone tries to take away their candy.)

Does Halloween put a scare into the environment?

Do sweets deserve such a bad rap? In total, the National Confectioners Association projects at least $2.2 billion worth of candy will be sold this Halloween season—and that's a low estimate, including only what's specifically marketed for the holiday. That means a lot of extra, nonrecyclable packaging for all those fun-size candy bars. It also means millions of pounds of cocoa and corn syrup that needs to be farmed, processed, and shipped. (Now, if you eat candy instead of dinner on Oct. 31, you may be replacing calories from other sources—so you can subtract that from your Halloween toll. But the Lantern guesses that many Halloween candy binges involve a few extra calories, too.)

To take a specific example, consider the Cadbury Dairy Milk bar—which received a "carbon audit" by the British-based organization Carbon Trust. According to the analysis, a 49-gram chocolate bar has a carbon footprint of about 169 grams—a ratio of 3.45 grams of CO2 for every gram of chocolate. That ratio stacks up pretty well compared with meat but is a good deal worse than most fruits and vegetables or bread. Digging down, one interesting result is that the milk used in the candy bar turns out to be by far the largest component of its carbon footprint—suggesting that dark chocolate may be an environmentally friendlier choice.

But other ingredients in candy create other concerns. Corn syrup—that now-ubiquitous sweetener that is a major ingredient in many candies—has been criticized as the product of subsidized "monoculture" farming that wreaks havoc on the land. Cocoa presents another problem. Like coffee, cocoa flourishes in many of the world's biodiversity "hot spots"; as a result, cocoa cultivation has resulted in the destruction of millions of acres of environmentally fragile rainforest. Still, there's a flip side: In Brazil, some environmentalists—and chocolate manufacturers—argue that more eco-friendly cocoa cultivation techniques may offer the best hope of encouraging local farmers to save the rainforest. The hope is that as the market for carbon credits expands, cocoa farmers might be paid both for their crops and for the carbon sequestered by the surrounding forest—creating an incentive against deforestation. In general, the big candy manufacturers have begun placing a greater emphasis on sustainable cocoa farming—if for no other reason than to ensure that the world's cocoa supply doesn't disappear due to overproduction.

So, how do you make a greener Halloween? First, buy an organic pumpkin—but make sure it isn't coming from too far away, given how much cargo space your future jack-o'-lantern would take up in a truck. Second, try to make costumes and decorations out of old material rather than spending money on something that may never get another use after Nov. 1. Third, do your very best to hand out snacks that aren't so bad for the planet.

Assuming you don't want to be the only house in the neighborhood offering juice boxes on Halloween, your options for eco-friendly treats are pretty slim. You can't do homemade because of concerns over unwrapped treats. It is possible to purchase organic, bite-size chocolates, lollipops, and gummy bears, but these aren't perfect replacements: If you can even find them, you'll have to pay a hefty markup—and those candies still require a lot of processing and extra packaging. (For an expert's take on greener Halloween candy, check out the ridiculously comprehensive Candy Blog, which did a Green Halloween series two years ago.)

The Lantern's advice? Like your mom probably told you, try moderation: Give out one candy per trick-or-treater instead of three, and don't feel the need to stock up on a whole new set of decorations every year. The orange-and-black holiday is never going to be very green, but if you don't go overboard, the environmental toll doesn't need to be quite so scary. ( slate.com )

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Halloween heatwave to hit UK this weekend

Halloween heatwave to hit UK this weekend - Halloween revellers can look forward to spring-like temperatures as one of the warmest Octobers on record comes to an end this weekend.

After several days of rain, those out trick-or-treating will enjoy dry and sunny spells with highs of up to 18C, mainly in the South and East.

The UK average temperature for this October so far has been 11.5C, making it the seventh warmest in records which go back to 1910.

A couple walk their dog among the autumn coloured trees (Pic: PA)

A spokesman for MeteoGroup, the weather division of the Press Association, said: "Parts of the country such as East Anglia, the South East and perhaps Lincolnshire look set for maximum temperatures of up to 18C when the sun breaks through, which is very mild for this time of the year.

"It will be windy in other parts of the country, with cloud and some rain expected in Northern Ireland and north-west Scotland."

This month started with exceptionally warm temperatures, such as when Gravesend, Kent, registered a record high for England of 29.9C on October 1.

Wales also broke its October temperature record on that day with Hawarden in Flintshire registering 28.2 °C.

So far England and Wales have had just over half their usual monthly rainfall for October, although Northern Ireland had 163% of its usual monthly total. ( mirror.co.uk )

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October's Skywatching Treats for Halloween

October's Skywatching Treats for Halloween - The eastern sky these fine late October nights is filled with deep sky treats for stargazers of all types. There is a bit of something for everyone.

For the naked eye observer, the first of the brilliant stars of winter start to peek over the eastern horizon: Capella and Aldebaran. Three of the nearest galactic star clusters are visible to the naked eye: the Pleiades, the Hyades, and the Perseus Moving Cluster.

The October night sky map here provides a reference showing where to look to see this month's night sky treats.

Galactic star clusters are groupings of stars which share a common origin relatively recently on the astronomical time scale. Their stars are often similar in color and brightness, and share a common motion through the galaxy.

The Pleiades is a compact cluster of young bright stars located 410 light-years from the sun. It was known as the Seven Sisters in antiquity, although really only six stars are easily counted with the naked eye. How many can you see? Its Japanese name is Subaru, and its six brightest stars are well depicted in the logo of this Japanese car manufacturer.

The Hyades is much closer to us than the Pleiades, 150 light-years away, but its stars are older and fainter than those of the Pleiades, so it covers a much larger area of the sky. It is easily spotted as it appears to surround the bright red giant Aldebaran.

But, this is merely an accident of perspective, as Aldebaran is only 65 light-years away, much closer to us than the Hyades.

The Perseus Moving Cluster is less well known than the Pleiades and Hyades. It surrounds Mirfak, also known as Alpha Persei, which is 593 light-years away and an actual member of the cluster.

Although all three of these clusters are easily visible from a dark sky site with the naked eye, they all benefit from a closer look with binoculars. Look in particular for the many pretty pairs of stars they contain.

Under very dark skies, the Pleiades show faint wisps of nebulosity from a dust cloud through which their stars are passing at present.

More October sky treats

Binoculars reveal several other deep sky treats in this part of the sky.

Circling the "north star" Polaris directly opposite the Big Dipper is the bright W-shaped constellation Cassiopeia. The upper part of the "W" points the way to the Andromeda Galaxy, number 31 in 18th century astronomer Charles Messier's catalog of deep sky objects.

In binoculars, the Andromeda Galaxy looks like a small faint cloud. We are seeing only the bright central nucleus; long-exposure photographs reveal that the galaxy is far larger than our moon in the sky.

If you have a telescope and a dark country sky, look for Andromeda’s two satellite galaxies. These are farther away than you might expect from photographs; those same long exposure photographs mislead by making the main galaxy seem much larger than it appears in small telescopes.

Once you’ve located the Andromeda Galaxy in binoculars, see if you can see it with your naked eyes.

In a dark moonless sky it is about the farthest object visible to the naked eye, looking like a tiny wisp detached from the Milky Way. If you spot it, you can say that you’ve observed something over two million light years away with nothing but your unaided eye.

Trick to see star clusters

About halfway between Cassiopeia and Mirfak look for the Perseus Double Cluster. This gives you two galactic clusters for the price of one.

These clusters are much farther away than the first three we looked at. They are about 7,000 and 8,100 light-years away. Early astronomers mistook these clusters for stars, and assigned them the letters "chi" (Greek) and "h" (Roman).

They are also known by their numbers in the New General Catalog: 869 and 884. It’s a mystery why Messier didn’t include them in his catalog, since they are far brighter than many objects he cataloged.

Finally, take a look with binoculars or a telescope at the area around Capella.

The constellation Auriga forms a beautiful circlet of bright stars, enclosing one of the richest areas of the Milky Way. There are many bright star clusters in this area, including three in Messie's catalog. ( space.com )

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Fewer Babies Born on Halloween

Fewer Babies Born on Halloween - "Happy Halloween" and "Happy birthday" may not be sentiments heard very often in the same breath, according to a new study. The research finds that the number of babies born drops on Halloween day, but spikes on Valentine's Day, a day with more positive associations.

Most surprisingly, the birth decrease occurred not just among moms who scheduled C-sections or induced labors; spontaneous births rose and fell along with holidays as well.

The researchers aren't sure how this holiday-birthday difference comes about, but the findings suggest that moms have some control over when they'll go into labor, said study researcher Becca Levy of the Yale University School of Public Health.

"We know from other kinds of research that an individual's will can have an impact on different hormonal factors," Levy told LiveScience. "It's possible that there's something going on with mothers either wanting to give birth or not wanting to give birth on a certain date, and that might affect a hormonal cascade, which could have an impact on the timing."

Holiday labor

Levy and her colleagues began investigating the birth-timing question as a way to understand how personal beliefs are related to health. Some studies have suggested that the human will can triumph over the body, including in cases where terminally ill people seem to "hang on for the holidays" — though findings on whether that is the case have been mixed.

Levy chose Halloween and Valentine's Day because neither holiday is major enough to affect hospital staffing, but both holidays have strong emotional connotations: Valentine's is associated with happiness and love, while Halloween's associations are considerably darker. [Read: 13 Halloween Superstitions Explained]

The researchers used birth certificate data to look at the timing of births taking place one week before and after both Valentine's Day and Halloween from 1996 to 2006. That made for a total of more than 1.6 million births around Valentine's Day and 1.8 million births around Halloween. The researchers then compared the day-to-day differences in natural, induced and Cesarean births on the actual holiday with those on days around the holiday.

What they found was striking: On Valentine's Day, the likelihood of giving birth went up by 5 percent compared with the weeks before and after the holiday. Births from spontaneous labor spiked 3.6 percent, while induced births went up 3.4 percent. Cesarean births were 12.1 percent more likely on Valentine's, which might suggest women deliberately schedule C-sections to have Valentine's Day babies.

Halloween showed a mirror-image effect. All types of births decreased on Halloween as compared with the surrounding two weeks, the researchers reported this month in the journal Social Science & Medicine. The chance of giving birth on Halloween went down by a total of 11.3 percent, with 16.9 percent fewer C-sections, 18.7 percent fewer induced births and 5.3 percent fewer spontaneous births.

Mind matters?

There's no way to tell whether the changes in spontaneous birth happen because mothers consciously hope against Halloween babies and dream of Valentine's-themed birthday parties, or whether the process might be unconscious, Levy said. Either way, the findings do suggest that psychological and cultural factors may be at play in the seemingly spontaneous process of labor, she said.

"We don't know the mechanisms, so that's certainly something that needs to be explored," Levy said, adding that since the study was based on birth certificates, there was no way to tell how the moms in the study felt about Halloween or Valetine's Day births.

To find out why the holidays seem to influence birth timing, the researchers would need to conduct a much smaller study on expecting mothers, monitoring their hormone levels and feelings about certain potential birth days, Levy said. ( LiveScience.com )

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