Fall Festival at a Preschool Center

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To avoid offending anybody or stepping on costumes and traditions, many preschool centers, mine included, celebrate a fall festival instead of a traditional Halloween party. This type of festivities allows schools to take advantage of the educational opportunities that it provides instead of commemorating a mere season.

Even though fall here in Florida doesn’t bring much change, in other parts of the country, this wonderful season can be easily recognized by children with the changing colors of the leaves, the pumpkins popping everywhere, and the apple trees ripening with apples.

Fall Festival Ideas

A fall festival celebrates the beginning of the harvest season. Many traditions surround this activity, which is just as fun and could be educational. I usually spend the entire year collecting small prizes for this day (that way, I can take advantage of sales, discounts, and other such offers) and getting donations.

There are many ideas for fall festival activities and games you can use, but today, I will mention some of the ones I have done in my school, which have proven fun for children and parents alike. These are some of my favorites:

Have the children dress up in non-scary costumes, such as superheroes, mermaids, and book characters, and have a parade to receive candy bags.

Have each classroom set up age-appropriate booths and stations where children can play games and win small prizes. Children of all ages can stop by all the booths and stations, but always make sure that you have special ones designed for the specific age the classroom that prepares it serves.

Invite parents to volunteer for special activities such as:
- Read fall storybooks to the children.
- Paint faces and nails.
- Put washable tattoos.
- Help children decorate small real, plastic, or paper mache pumpkins.

Have different types of competitions and games.

Decorated pumpkin exhibit: Invite the families to decorate a pumpkin and turn it into something. Exhibit them on a special table, and have the parents vote for their favorite. The winner gets a prize.

Have an especially decorated photo booth where parents can take pictures of their children. Try to get a volunteer to take the pictures so entire families can have them, and then email the images to them.

Invite special guests that offer other types of activities such as petting zoo and pony rides.

Fall Festival Games

You can use many games for this fun day. As I said before, have each classroom prepare its booth. Make sure they change it every year, and every classroom has to have a different type of booth to ensure you offer a variety of activities. Add more games and ask parents to volunteer for those extra booths.

Remember, they are little kids, and I suggest making them feel like winners with a small consolation prize. One way to do that is to ensure that every booth always has extra candy or stickers for the “losers.”

These are some of the games that you can use. We have used all of them before, and children love them. A trick you can do is to switch things around every year, using different items for the games. That way, you can avoid repeating your favorite ones but always make them look slightly different.

Jack-O-Lantern Toss: Place a plastic jack-o-lantern at a certain distance. Children have to toss candy or small toys inside. If they are successful, they can keep anything they get inside the jack-o-lantern. If they don’t, you can give them a sticker as a consolation prize.

Floating Pumpkins: Kids use a spoon to pick a plastic pumpkin from a small child’s pool. The number on the pumpkin the child catches corresponds to a prize.

Bowling: Use a plastic bowling set. The number of pins the child can put down corresponds to a prize.

Fishing: Place plastic fish in a container with water. The child uses a magnetic fishing rod to pick up a fish. The number on the fish corresponds to a prize.

Scarecrow Dress-up: Provide two or more raggedy clothes. The child that finishes dressing as a scarecrow first wins.

Catch an Apple: Children try to bite apples floating in a container with water.

Pumpkin Rolling Race: Children race from point A to point B, rolling a pumpkin.

Ghosts Ring Toss: Make little ghosts using plastic water bottles filled with white stones. Draw a ghost face with permanent markers. Provide small rings that children have to toss to the bottles’ necks.

Witch Sponge Toss: Kids toss wet sponges into lined-up plastic witches caldrons.

Hay Obstacle Race: Make an obstacle course using bales of hay. Children must run through it—the child who makes it to the other end first wins.

Pumpkin Sweep Race: Use tape to make a course on the floor. Kids race by pushing a small pumpkin with small brooms through the course.

Pie-Eating Contest: Invite parents to volunteer for this game. The winner will receive a prize for his or her child.

Pin the Nose on the Jack-O-Lantern: Make a Jack–O–Lantern out of white poster board and tape it to a wall. Blindfolded children try to pin their noses to the lantern.

Sack races: Children wear sacks to race, and the first one to reach the finish line wins.

Hay Maze: Use bales of hay to make a maze, and have children navigate through it to find the exit. Since the bales are expensive, you can always use boxes and tables to make it more cost-effective.

Fall Festival Foods

Fall Festival typically lasts several hours, at least in my school, since the idea is to have a fun day where entire families participate, have fun, and get to know each other better. To do this, it is necessary to offer different types of food and drinks, that families can purchase and eat in a picnic-style. I always rent cotton candy and popcorn machines and charge a small fee. Children love those things. I also have offered pumpkin and apple pie slices, pizza slices, tacos, chalupas, roasted corn, hot dogs, hamburgers, chips, sodas, prepackaged cookies, candy apples, nachos, or sausage wraps. If you don’t want to make it complicated for you, you can invite vending trucks and “rent” the space or receive a commission of their sales.

Last Thoughts

Unfortunately, the pandemic has forced me to change things around, and these big family reunions were suspended for last year and this one. Still, I try to make it fun for the children, and, like we did last year, this year, we are going to invite them to come dressed up in costumes. Parents will enter the playground through the gate, and children will have a parade to receive candy bags from the parents. After that, parents will leave, and children will go, each class at a time, and play some of the games in the booths we are preparing.

We will take pictures to send to the parents, and the families will decorate their pumpkins for the exhibit in the central hall. Then, each class will see them and vote for their favorite. Ultimately, we will add the votes to discover the first, second, and third prize winners.

Each class will have a picnic in an assigned area of the playgrounds, with a special meal for that day. They will also make crafts, dance, and do special classroom activities.

I know it is not the same, but I aim for the children to change their routine and have fun. After all, one of the good things about preschoolers is that they enjoy and appreciate the little activities as much as the big ones.

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I hope you find these ideas useful and that your fall season is full of joy and happiness for you, your preschoolers, and your family.

Be happy, safe, and creative. I wish you well.

Love,

P.D. Please let me know if you like these ideas worked for you or if you think I need to add or replace something. I aim to help you in any way I can, and I’m not too fond of anything better than posting something that you might find helpful. Also, if you have different ideas and want to share them, I would love to post them.