We have gotten our bounce houses in the past from our local fire department. As long as they aren't using them for the same night they will let us use them at no charge and as a added benefit they bring out a firetruck for the kids! Most of the firefighters are parents at our school so they love coming out!
"Life is not measured by the breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away."
We jsut had our carnival and we made a profit. We had many different games for all ages. We did not spend much money on games. We used games that we already had and made them fit our theme. Here are a few of the big hits.. (our theme was rodeo)
Bull riding
Dunking booth (kids loved it)
Rock wall
digging for gold this was a bucket filled with sand and they would find small rocks we painted.
Needle in a haystack.. we got dum dum candy and placed in the haystacks.
I hope these few ideas helped. Hope all works out.
When I was involved with elementary PTO our Spring Carnival (or Spring Fling) was the school's big annual event. It was run by the PTO but the school was very much a partner. The principal set the expectation every teacher would sign up as a volunteer of some sort. Those not available had to work out a pre or post-event volunteer activity or see him about being excused.
This was a huge help. During the year, teachers would be encouraged to participate in PTO activities, but it was never required. Since this was the ONE thing all year that they had to do, no one seemed resentful.
It may be too late for this year, but if you can get the principal's cooperation and have something like this in place that will give you a big headstart of the volunteers.
I am in my second year as a carnival chairperson. This year we made or purchased our games so we won't have to continue renting. We also purchased a cotton candy machine and a sno kone machine. These are machines that will be used across all the buildings in our district. I suggest caution about buying less expensive bounce houses because the quality may be closer to a backyard quality and not commercial. This could be an insurance issue. We do everything by tickets and charge $0.25 per ticket the day of the event and $0.20 for advance tickets. This is a profit event for us. We have about 400 students attend and it is an elementary level event. We do rent our inflatables and it costs $850 for four of them (a joust, a speed pitch, and 2 bounce houses because of popularity). Our budget is $3000.00. Granted, this year we exceed that; however, the equipment and games are investments and a portion of the cost was carried over from last year's carnival profit. We will make more than half of the expense from these purchases back this year. We also purchase all of our prizes from Oriental Trading Company. Schoolcarnivals.com is an awesome website. There are others as well if you search "school carnival." Good luck.
Go to schoolcarnivals.com They have a million games to make, and there are many you can do with ordinary household items. I loved the tic tac toe with the teachers faces idea. We did most of our games last year for under $200. The toilet seat toss was a big hit too. Kids throw toilet paper through the seat. There is something very exciting about this with the boys!
