Carnival Page
Theme
This is a theme that is a lot of fun and you have lots of room for your own creative juices to flow. You can purchase tickets at most
party supply stores and then hand them out to the children. You can even send them in their invitations telling them
"Don't forget your tickets" - if you go this route keep some at the house as there will be atleast 2 who forget to bring them!
Menu Ideas
Instead of just a table for refreshments you can create a "snack stand". Cotton candy is a must and then hot dogs, popcorn, chips, pretzels. etc. Make signs
ahead of time that tell how much everything "costs" per snack. Then they give you their tickets!
Decorations
The best idea for this theme is the "booths" to make it feel like a real carnival. Other than that you don't need a lot more other than
maybe some balloons. There aren't streamers or anything like that at a carnival.
Games
You will need help from other adults or older kids for this to work with as little mayhem as possible. If there aren't any adults see if some of the older neighborhood kids that you know would be willing to
help. Most of them would be.
Each adult will have to man a booth.If this will not work (you don't have enough adults to help) then do away with the booths or perhaps little plastic bowls for the
kids to drop their payments in. This is where those tickets come in handy. You will have to make price lists ahead of time for all the games. This can be a simple peice of poster board or construction
paper that has a number of tickets that is needed to participate. Then you just stick the paper by the "booth". The kids have to give you tickets to play.
Some games that you can play -
The rubber duckie game (plastic swimming pool with rubber duckies in it and different colored dots on the bottom - you may want to set this one up outside if
possible.)
Bean Bag toss- They have so many tries per ticket. When you get one in you get a prize.
Petting Zoo-If you have a dog, cat, hamster, rabbit or atleast have access
to some of these you may be able to set up a miniature petting zoo.
Moon walk - when these first came out to rent the price was unbelievable. They are a lot more reasonable now. You can rent
a moon walk at a pretty good price if it is in your budget. Be sure to get their tickets from them though to get some of your money back.
You can put some sticks in the ground outside and have a
ring toss.
You can also have a cake walk, and the prize be a special decorated cupcake or something.
Water balloon toss - obviously this is one that you will want to do if you are able
to have this party outside.
Face Painting - you can get face paints pretty cheap and have an adult do the face painting. The kids love this one.
