We did the family fun and games night last school year. We had over 200 people in attendance. It was crowded, but was it fun! We had people RSVP so we would have a close idea of how many people we would have to handle. We narrowed down the games to the ones that were simple and could take large amounts of people at a time. We used the packet plans and had people rotate between the games. We also had refreshments in the cafeteria so there was a group in there throughout the evening too. We are already planning to do it again. The favorite for the evening was the Mom and Dad Calling-what a hoot!
Sounds like the Halloween Dance went really well. You might have posted your plans in another post, but can you quickly go over the essence of the Halloween Dance. Did you have costumes, Halloween events, what type of music etc?
As for the Family Game Night packet from Family Fun, I thought it looked fabulous but we have 550 kids, so I am afraid of a huge turnout and not being able to handle the crowds. Also, there are always a group of parents that don't seem to "notice" or "mind" that their kids are playing dodgeball with the balls for Spud, or running around playing tag amongst all the other families. Maybe I am too much of a control freak, but I am always afraid that once 3 or 4 kids start "goofing off", that you need to stop it instantly or it will quickly get out of hand.
I liked the concept of the Game Night for a controlled group like Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts, but need more convincing that it will work with a large school. I will admit I have two girls, so putting 3rd -5th grade boys together with balls just scares me.
Okay, our first Halloween dance was a great success..they even want us to do another dance in December, but with all the problems between Christmas, Hannukan and everything else, I don't think I want to be in the middle of all that.
What I thought we'd do is a family fun night. Play a bunch of gym games. I got the packet from here, but some of the games seem a little too wild for the amount of kids I think will attend. We have 350 kids in our school alone, and even if 1/4 of them come, when you add in parents that comes to a lot of people running around. I'm toying with the idea of splitting the groups into two different nights, K-3 and 4-6, but I always worry about the families that have kids in both groups. Something else of me to think about.
I loved the idea of the Mommy/Daddy call game. Do you guys have any suggestions on other large crowd games that we can play? I know that my son would love to play dodge ball...kids agains the parents. Has anyone even dared to try this?
