Trunk or Treat! Sell baked goods, hotdogs, popcorn and lemonade to raise funds. Have parents volunteer to decroate car to participate and others donate candy. I did this last year at our school and it was a HUGE success. We have 500 + kids in our school and we only had 15 cars.... we will have more this year now that people see how cool this is for kids!

We do a trunk or treat and pumpkin decorating event. It doesn't require a lot of people becuase the parents provide the stuff to go in the trunk and we also ask kids to bring their own pumpkins. we provide all teh stuff to decorate them and we do a concession stand. We are a k-4 school and it's a big hit. Parents like taht it's low key.

We did a family game night last year combined with a speaker on a parenting topic. So while most of the parents listened to the speaker, we had the cafeteria set up with a bunch of board/card games for a wide variety of ages of kids. Many of the games we had donated from local stores or game companies; a few were purchased; a few were borrowed from my family's stash. I was, literally, the only adult volunteer in the room. But that's because the local high school sent over about 15 kids who needed community service hours and were thrilled to get them by playing games for a few hours with younger kids. A few parents came in here and there to play. We had people rotate games every 20 minutes. At the end of the night we raffled off some of the games to the families in attendance as door prizes. Took a few hours to get the games together by asking for donations or going out to buy a few, and then just the time that night. The high schoolers came in 45 minutes early to learn how to play the games and eat pizza for dinner. If you can get your hands on some responsible high schoolers, it's very easy (and cheap).

1) You could do a trunk or treat-- or a haunted maze and hayride--- could get a few volunteers from Kohls to help and they will donate funds back to the school-- local farms sometimes donate hay as well--

2) A Field day--- getting with your gym teacher... and see if she/he has some activities you could set up-- be creative with what you already have in the school-- our had made football goals out of pvc pipe-- so we had a football goal kick stop--- bean bag toss, again could charge for a band or tickets to play each area---

3) Basketball or kickball game -- teachers against - 5th graders--- concessions available for purchase-- with the principal as pitcher--- or the official--!!!


Reading night-- with guest readers in different areas-- and you could decortate the area to represent the book being read-- (haunted scary area, adventure, etc... ) maybe giving out paper made bookmarks, or have this be a station-- make your own bookmark with stickers and curling ribbon, precut the bookmark--- concessions available-- or get with a bookstore or scholastic and sell books as a fundraiser during event-- Hope these help--- tell us what you end up doing and good luck!

We are doing an OUTDOOR movie night.....using a large white tarp that will be mounted on the side of the building and our school projector/sound system. We are doing it as a free event but you could charge admission and sell concessions.

You could see if parents would donate bake sale items and have that as your fund raiser.

At our Halloween costume carnival last year, we asked high school art students to do face painting. They had a set few (easy) designs that kids picked from to make it go faster. We had carnival games (but you mentioned having a spring carnival) which were either free or we charged a quarter for and offered prizes. We also contacted community members to come and set up booths. We had a police safety booth and the local dance school set up a table, provided the music and showed dance moves to the kids. If it is outdoors on a non windy day, you could also set up a coloring table with printouts from the internet and a basket of crayons. If you know anyone with a sound system or Ipod system, you can blast the newest kid friendly tracks (the Kidz Bop and 'Now That's What I Call Music' cds are great). I hope some of these ideas work for you! Good luck.