My church has a harvest festival every year instead of celebrating Halloween. It's mostly geared toward younger children, about 2 and up. I need some really good party ideas but nothing cheesy. We have planned thus far to have a scavenger hunt, a costume and dance contest. But what else could they do? We wanted to do a fun house but it's difficult because we are a church. Please help with any ideas, favors, decorations etc.
This is going to be the first year our church has a harvest party, we have got a lot of our ideas from fishers of kids. But another idea is to get paper sacks and have the kids make leaf cutouts to decorate them with. So they can put their candy or prizes in. (10/07/2006)
By Renae
Our church does a festival each year also. One of the things the kids love is to do bobbing for apples. I take a big tub and fill it full of water and put some apples in it. They love it. We also do a hayride and an eating contest. We take about 6 volunteers. Last year it was hot dogs, the year before it was pie, and we have also done marshmallows. They also like throwing darts at balloons that are thumbtacked onto a board. Hope this helps. (10/09/2006)
By Sherry
Well you could plan something simple but fun games. Bobbing for apples, ping pong toss, hay maze, pet barn, jumpy house, bible verse prison, bean bag toss, fishing for gummy worms, chicken toss, tons of fun (10/19/2006)
By Peter.S
Hey there,
Each year I organize a fall festival at my church for my Sunday School kids. This year we've decorated the fellowship hall with streamer, balloons, and lanterns made from construction paper as centerpieces in fall colors. We have a biblical scavenger hunt, gummy worm eating contest, and our famous balloon dare. Thats when you play a quick game (like rock, paper, scissors or duck duck goose) and the loser has to pick and pop a balloon from the bag and perform the dare.
PS: My pastor told me that its important when throwing these a "festivals" as alternatives to Halloween, its really important to let the kids know ahead of time why we do things differently. (10/31/2006)
By Sunshine
Hello! I have planned a Harvest Festival for my church for several. I can't begin to put it all in here. I have several web sites that can help though. If anyone else here is interested, I'd like to do an email loop, and maybe we can help each other. I did see a few games on here we have never done before, and hopefully I can help someone else. Are you having a Harvest Fest or a carnival? There is a difference. My email is Candi1990 AT aol.com. I am interested in swapping ideas with anyone, so please email me and we can get a loop going, to hopefully help each other. (09/24/2007)
By Candice
Every year we have people donate baked good for a cake walk! We also rent bounce houses, they go over very well with the kids. We have a coloring contest this is very accommodating to our budget and the kids love it! Lawn bowling is also fun when you use a pumpkin in place of a ball be sure to have extras in case they break. We are going to have a bead booth where we make bead bracelets using the colors from the word list book! Black represents sin, white represents the holly light of Jesus, red for the blood and so on! I hope you got some fun ideas, I know reading the other comments I will definitely use some of those!
God bless you all,
cookie (09/27/2007)
By cookiecrumbles
We give bags w/tickets & church info- the maze (boxes taped together); pumpkin beanbag toss (wood pumpkin with cutout on eyes,nose & mouth); Goliath toss, 6' tall wood cutout man in armor w/Velcro strips (put Velcro on ping pong balls & toss at Goliath; cake walk; treasure chest (filled w/easter eggs & foam peanuts w/ # of prize in egg); fishpond (large piece of wood w/drawing of underwater) throw fishing rod line over the top & someone clips prize; lollipop tree (all sizes small to huge on wooded tree w/ # on racks) kids pick ping pong ball w/ # & thats the candy they get; skate boarding contest; video wall (car game on projector thrown on big size wall). Plan to add game for adults - General Store, asking church members to make cookies, put 3 to 4 in bag w/ recipe & bible verse, also have some small items at the store; kids get 20 tickets/adults 5; we also give out door prizes from community (burger places, bowling, Christian store, etc...) (09/27/2007)
By Sylvia
I have had harvest party carnival events at my home for the past 4-5 yrs, and each year I have more kids & of course my kids are getting older, I also need to find a way to either make straw bales or buy them for sitting and game events, also we do potato sack races, relay races, like corn husking and eggs on spoon (fake eater egg plastic), gummy worm find pudding contest, bean bag toss games, candy land, twister, a movie and popcorn, a lollipop tree and ducky pond, etc.
I need to find a way to make straw bales because can't seem to buy them already made, or if can find someone that knows where to get some already made, thanks. Also most prizes I give out are in grab bags. Prizes they don't know till after and opened, I categorize them by age etc, and I also have fake or real pile of leaves with candy and prizes they have to find towards the end of the night to take home with them and I make a dinner like beef stew, pumpkin soup, MAC & CHEESE and veggies etc.
We try obstacle courses and basketball games as well, we have a glow in the dark basketball, also for the adults I do a bingo game and raffle or door prizes as well, to keep adults entertained as well, hope this helps and hope I can get more ideas and help too. (09/29/2007)
By Tamara
Our church has a Harvest Festival every year out in the country. The children do dress up, but only as Bible characters or cute costumes. Different members of the church decorate their cars in fall themes and open their trunks with candy inside. We go "Trunk-or-Treating from car to car.
We get the adults involved by having a contest for whatever we're serving for dinner that year, for example, last year was a chili cook-off. (10/17/2007)
By Sally
This was our 16th year holding Harvest Celebration. We have over 60 different games and activities. Our large draw is "The Ark" in which children and their chaperons are told a Bible story. We hold it on October 31st each year and everything is free - including the shaved ice, popcorn and cotton candy. We run an extremely tight budget (under $1500). awanababe@ sbcglobal. net I'm more than happy to share our plans if anyone is interested. (11/08/2007)
By HoneyBee
We do a fall festival each year in our small town. Our church is small with very few kids, so ours is geared toward the town kids coming by while they are out "trick or treating". We give away goody bags with a new testament, a tract, or one of those new "cross" tracts that fold and open all different ways. We put in little novelty toys, also, some Christian, some regular but not Halloween. We have lots of games, cupcake walk, Bean bag toss, Candle shoot out (shoot candles with squirt guns). We also do a "guess the jar" where you guess how much candy is in the jar. Closest one wins the jar of candy. But we count it the next day, so we have them fill out cards with address & phone no. so we have them for follow-up, later. We also do a drawing where we give away special prizes if your name is called.
We do face-painting, and give away balloons with our church name on it and "shining god's light" with a lighthouse. We give away "glow sticks". It makes the kids easier to see going down the road in the dark. Plus our theme was "jesus is the light" when we first started, so anything we could do with light seemed like a good idea. We decorate with fall stuff like pumpkins and hay bales and fall flowers. We also have a hay ride some years. Blow up bouncy things are fun.
We use 10 x 10 tents for the booths, they look nice. We give away about 90 bibles a year in the bags. We also do a mass mail-out ahead, to advertise. About 1700 mail boxes. (01/04/2008)
By LAROSE
There is a great site I just found that has lots of ideas for carnival/festival events.
www.carnivalsavers.com- Just click on the FREE Ideas from the list on the left (08/20/2008)
By hmarsh1
We started this at our Church last year and because it was inside, we tried not to have it so messy. You can borrow decorations from people in the church so it is not so expensive, and we asked for donations from everyone, whether it was candy or money to give out a treat at each game per child. We had an apple toss, tossed stuffed pumpkins into a tall cutout box with three pumpkins on it and their mouths were the holes. We had fishing using magnets and paper fish with paper clips behind a sheet, Face painting, balloon animals, a cake walk with cakes donated, decorating a cookie, and when everyone arrived they got to decorate a paper bag to collect their treats.
It turned out great and the kids all did the games several times over! (09/23/2008)
By Dee-Anna
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What about apple bobbing? Always a classic Halloween carnival/party game! Also you could set up a Halloween crafts table at your festival as well. And you could even have a tombola, raffle, lucky dip etc to boost overall profits. Make sure to sort out insurance beforehand however.
Another way to attract people is to have a bouncy castle. Offer food like burgers, slices of pizza, cake, tasty hotdogs, delicious sausage rolls and so on. A sure fire way to increase the profits is to run a few stalls selling books, toys and the like at the event. You could have a lemonade/soft drinks stall.
Sell tea and coffee to raise profits as well. What about a few fun games? You can find several ideas online. Make a list and narrow it down. Music also works well! Hand out leaflets to people at the entrance.
Try to mix things up. Add some fun to proceedings with some cool new competitions and interesting prizes for winners. Ask local businesses to donate them. Alternatively, you could hire a local community dance group for performances.
See if you can rope in your local firehouse to help you to entertain the kids or not. Find out if they are happy to lend a truck for a while. Explore other options in case. Consider costs. Organise planning meetings to discuss things and make decisions. Delegate tasks.
Use a spreadsheet to track costs.
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