Our church does this. Along with the games and haunted house, this year they added a soup buffet. There were lots of tables in a central location so parents could sit and talk but still see the kids playing games.
It was a lot of fun. The planning committee made lots of soup and bought rolls. It went over very well.
Our haunted house was a major event at our fall festival. The line was extremely long the whole time. Several kids kept going back.
We have our King/Queen ceremony that night and used to have our Talent Show that night also. Our principal wants the talent show in the spring. Our ham supper is always successful, too bad I dislike ham.
We just changed to a Fall Festival last year. The games can pretty much stay the same......it is the decorations that make the difference.
We also added a hay maze and had our school photographer come with a fall background to take pictures. They just used polaroid film and then put the picture into a button or a keychain.
We also changed our cake walk to a junk food walk since we can no longer do home made items. I like the no-bake idea but we usually don't have adults playing the game.
We also tried a salsa contest to try to involve all of our hispanic families. That went over great but now we can't do it because of the health safety codes and home made items. We are trying to get a concrete answer from the district but for now the principal said no.
Bingo is another option.....might keep the adults busy. It doesn't have to be a huge thing. I made a small fall bingo game and used Candy as the word (instead of bingo) and then used fall themed stickers to make the cards.(apples, pumpkins, leaves, etc...) We used wooden leaves as the markers. We had some adults play this as well. Might have had more if they weren't getting candy for playing.
This past fall we were unable to do a Halloween activity night because it was too late to anything going. Lots of disappointed kids. I am trying to get a head start for the fall. I would much rather have a Harvest festival making costumes an option. We would like to keep trick or treat lane open and add a no-bake sale (like cookies in a jar). I would like some suggestions on activities and games we could do. We will most likely do this on a Friday evening (6 to 8). Your ideas have been beneficial in the past. Thanks!
