Kids To Do: Wallace and Gromit, a Halloween Hootenanny and an Orchestra costume party

Here's how to have fun with the little ones this weekend:

Being frightened is not our thing - in fact, we're emeritus members of the Scaredy Cat Crybaby Club. So we're not taking in any All Hallow's Eve horror movies or haunted houses, no matter how much fun they might be. The 2005 animated classic Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit is about as intense as we like our thrills to get in our Halloween festivities (that, or a candy apple in our trick-or-treat bag - gaah!).

In this adventure, Nick Park's stop-motion heroes are running a high-tech garden-pest control company humanely collecting cotton-tails - until something goes wrong and they accidentally create a mutant bunny.

A word to the wise from one who knows: Even though nothing horrible or truly scary happens, the film has a couple of sequences that may unsettle the very little or those unfamiliar with the horror-film tropes parodied. (What's that at the top of the stairs? No, you look.)

It's tough enough being a little one. There's the growing pains, the teething, the constant grind of play-and-nap - and don't get them started on cognitive development. So, the Halloween whirl can be a bit overwhelming (Why am I in costume and going door-to-door? Do I suddenly have a job? Is that a were-rabbit?).

Designed for the smallest of small fry, the Halloween Hootenanny at the Garden State Discovery Museum is a bit more low-key, with trick-or-treating stations in the parking lot and at exhibits inside, plus crafts, games, music and more. Good practice for the big night.

Conductor Michael Butterman and company exchange their usual penguin suits and princess gowns for something more festive as the Philadelphia Orchestra gets into the Halloween spirit with a Costume Party Concert. The program features pieces illustrating the shifting characters of the music, including Prokofiev's "Midnight," from Suite No. 1 from Cinderella, Adam Glaser's March of the Little Goblins, and Danny Elfman's Suite from `The Nightmare Before Christmas.'

You can match the orchestra and get an early start modeling your outfit (hey, you've been thinking about it all year - show off!).