If you are looking for the easiest and quickest way to decorate your home for Halloween that will make the biggest impact with the smallest effort, then decorating your yard like a Halloween graveyard or cemetery is the way to go. Who doesn’t love a funny Halloween tombstone?

Easy Halloween Graveyard Ideas

Creating your own front yard graveyard with Halloween tombstones is fun and this is one time when no precision is needed and the kids can do it all! Making your own Halloween graveyard is easy to set up in minutes and take down in even less time. This is a great Halloween decoration solution for busy families.

DIY Graveyard with Halloween Cemetery Decorations

Let me start this with a tiny, little admission… I am NOT a big holiday decorator. But I realized that decorating for a holiday together like Halloween as a family is a tradition-building event.

I decided I needed to plan something that the boys could do so we settled on creating a pretend graveyard in our front yard. These pictures are from many years ago when this article was first written. Today I am updating it with some fun and new tombstones, graveyard decorations and Halloween cemetery decor fun that are available.

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Top Halloween Tombstone Decorations

Halloween tombstones are usually made from foam and very light. You keep them in place in your front yard graveyard with stakes that come with the tombstones.

It takes minutes to create your Halloween cemetery and after Halloween, you can take it down in minutes, remove the stakes and store the styrofoam gravestones in a large leaf bag on a high shelf in your garage or attic.

• 6 Foam Tombstone Halloween Decorations for Yard Decorations or Halloween party – I like these because they look like old grave stones that have been long forgotten.
• 17″ Halloween foam graveyard tombstone 6 pack – these are interesting because they have more clear shapes and raised areas and come in a variety of jewel tone stone colors.
• 17″ Halloween foam graveyard tombstone 6 pack with different sayings and styles – these seem a little more scary to me…but it just may be me!
• This Halloween sign 3 pack has 3 beware and danger signs- this might be nice to mix into another set or use the keep out signs around the yard.
• This traditional Halloween tombstone set is Amazon’s choice and looks very realistic.
• This set is glow-in-the-dark cemetery decorations and set on corrugated plastic instead of foam – this will make them pretty at night, but less realistic during the day.

Top Skeleton Bones for Yard Halloween Cemetery

We decided since this was a really scary graveyard for Halloween, we needed some skeleton bones as well. I think it was a good decision, but which one to choose?

1. Halloween Sinking Skeleton Bones

This life size groundbreaker skeleton with stakes for Halloween yard decorations is one of my favorites because it is easy to install and good for some attention from those who pass by.

2. Bag of Bones Skeleton for Halloween

This 28 piece set bag of bones that comes in a bag is what we chose because you can use them multiple ways, not just for Halloween.

How We Created Our Halloween Graveyard

Supplies Needed for Decorative Graveyard

• 6 Halloween tombstone set that comes with stakes – the one we used is no longer available, but most like this one
• Bag of bones

Directions for Halloween Cemetery Decorations

Step 1

Head out to the front yard with the kids with your supplies. Have them lay out where they want the tombstones to be staked first.

Step 2

Stake the gravestones and Halloween tombstones where you decided they should go.

Step 3

Have the kids decide what they want to do with the bag of bones. Do they want to spread them around or create a skeleton on the ground?

My kids decided to make a full skeleton on the ground which turned into an anatomy lesson…benefits of doing things together {giggle}.

Finished Halloween Graveyard Decor

This full front yard decoration for Halloween could literally be done in about 10 minutes from start to end. My kids really got into the fun and we willingly spent a little extra time.

Our Experience with Creating a Homemade Cemetery

This project starts with this: This is a strange rock wall encased area in my yard.  Don’t ask me how it ended up this way.   It made more sense on the house plans than in real life.   The grass doesn’t grow well in this very shaded area and it functionally serves no purpose. It reminds me of a place that a tortoise would live.   Since I am not ready for a 120 year pet commitment, let’s go with plan B! Plan B is a festive Halloween Grave Yard!

I really don’t understand Halloween decorations.   It all seems very morbid, but stay with me…

The boys helped me pick out the tombstones, a.k.a. styrofoam grave stones.

Oh, and they wouldn’t leave without the plastic bag of bones.

I directed a general grave yard layout session with the boys and handed out grave stones. They set them up all by themselves and then arranged the bag of bones into a skeleton. It was then that we had a little Anatomy Lesson (after all, it was a home school day). 

Our bag of bones was missing some MAJOR BONES.  And despite my two summer cadaver-dissecting experience, I was not able to distinguish whether we were missing a Tibia or a Humerus…let alone the obvious Fibula, Radius, Ulna and pelvis omission.

You can see our bone anatomy activity here: Skeleton for Kids

Geesh! Anyway, the boys arranged our little graveyard without my assistance and I think it turned out… …frightfully morbid?

Maybe I should re-think that big, old turtle thing.

More Halloween Decorations and Fun from Kids Activities Blog

• Our favorite easy homemade Halloween decorations!
• We love this pumpkin night light for kids to keep the scary away.
• Make this Halloween window clings idea…it is a scary cute spider!
• We have the cutest 30 Halloween craft ideas for kids!
• These Halloween treat ideas are so easy to make and fun to eat!
• Make easy Halloween drawings with this printable step by step tutorial.
• Our favorite pumpkin carving kit is pretty cool! Check it out.
• These Halloween games for kids are sooooo fun!
• These homemade Halloween costumes are fun for kids of any age.
• This spooky fog drink is the most popular of all our Halloween drinks.
• These Halloween coloring pages are free to print and scary cute.
• I love these Halloween door decorations that the entire family can help create.
• Send your kids to school with this fun Halloween lunch!
• Don’t miss out on these Halloween crafts!
• How cute is this vampire decoration? Perfect for Halloween!
• You just have to check out this list of Halloween Hairstyles!
• Make your own DIY Halloween treat boxes!
• Make a construction paper pumpkin for Halloween!
• Stay out of the dark with these Halloween Luminaries!

How did your Halloween cemetery decorations go? Did your kids love creating a graveyard in your front yard with Halloween tombstones?