I would suggest a couple of websites to check for ideas.
The first is
www.birthdaypartyideas.com
. They have people write in with birthday party ideas. Go out there and then click on kids parties, then there is a whole list of ideas. Click on Beach Party, and there areat least 30 entries written by people. They usually go into way too much detail on how they made the party invitations, but usually they have a list of games they played relating to the party theme. I have found for every 10 or 15 that you read you get a couple of good original ideas. It is a little tedious reading them all, but once in a while you hit the jackpot with some really original ideas.
The second website I would check out is
www.schoolcarnivals.com
. They also have themes for your school carnival, and they have a "tropical party" theme. They have some games that you can play relating to the tropics or the beach. I checked them out and found a couple that looked pretty good if I was having a Beach Party Carnival.
Also, at
www.schoolcarnivals.com
or I think Oriental Trading has them, they have sand art bracelets that you can buy. They are just clear tubes that you fill with sand and then they have a connector that makes it a bracelet. They come with 5 or 6 different colors of sand. We used them last year and it went over really well. We bought extra sand and squirt bottles (made for sand) at Michaels. I would not use Kool Aid, what a sticky mess plus must be way more expensive than colored sand. One thing is with the bracelets we made a fixture to keep the bracelet straight while filling it up. Just a couple of eyehooks on a board, but the bracelets have a tendency to curl up while you try to fill them.
They do make a machine that you can rent that makes lick-a made sticks, if that is what you were trying to do with the kool aid. I know where we rent our inflatables they always try to throw in the machine. I think the kid picks 4 flavors and the machine fills their tube with the four flavors. We never tried it, but if that is what you want to do there is a machine that does it. I think it was more expensive per tube than we wanted to pay.