Fall Festival at a Preschool Center

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To avoid the possibility of offending anybody or step on costumes and traditions, many preschool centers, mine included, choose to 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 celebrating a mere season.

Even when here in Florida fall doesn’t bring too 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 too. I normally spend the entire year collecting small prizes for this day (that way I can take advantage of sales, discounts, and things like that) and get donations as well.

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

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

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 served.

Invite parents to volunteer for especial activities such as:
- Read fall storybooks to the children.
- Paint faces and/or 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 in a special table, and have the parents vote for their favorite one. 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 get photograph, and then email the pictures to them.

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

Fall Festival Game Ideas

There are many games you can use 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. Besides that, you can add more games if you want, and ask for parents to volunteer to take care of those extra booths.

Remember they are little kids and I suggest making them feel like winners with a small consolation prize. A way to do that is ensuring 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 get away with repeating the favorite ones, but always making them look a little different.

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

Floating Pumpkins – kids pick up a plastic pumpkin from a small child’s pool, using a spoon. The number on the pumkin the child catch corresponds to a prize.

Bowling – use a plastic bowling set. The number of pins the child is able to put down corresponds to a prize.

Fishing – place plastic fish in a container with water. Child use a magnetic fishing rod to pick of a fish. The number on the fish correspond to a prize.

Scarecrow Dress-up – provide two or more of 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, and draw a ghost face with a permanent markers. Provide small rings that children have to toss to the bottles neck.

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 have to run through it. The child that makes it to the other end first, wins.

Pumpkin Sweep Race – make a course on the floor using tape. Kids have to race pushing a small pumpkin with small brooms through the course.

Pie-Eating Contest – invite parents to volunteer for this game. The winner will get a prize for his or her child.

Pin the Nose on the Jack-O-Lantern – make a Jack-O-Lantern in cardstock, and tape it to a wall. Blindfolded children try to pin its nose to the lantern.

Sack races – children wear sacks to race, and the one that gets to the finish line first, 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.

These are some fun games that you can use if you don’t have time to make some yourself.

Fall Festival Foods

Fall Festival normally lasts several hours, at least in my school, since the idea is to have a fun day where entire families get to 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 are going to enter the playground through the gate and children are going to have a parade, to receive candy bags from the parents. After that, parents are going to leave, and children are going to go, each class at a time, and play some of the games in the booths we are preparing.

We are going to take pictures to send to the parents, and the families are going to decorate their pumpkins to be exhibit in the central hall. Then each class is going to see them and vote for their favorite. In the end, we are going to add the votes to discover the 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd prize winners.

Each class is going to have a picnic in an assigned area of the playgrounds, with a special meal for that day, and they are going to make crafts, dance, and do special activities in the classrooms.

I know is not the same, but my goal is 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 any of these ideas worked for you, or you think I need to add or replace something. My goal is to help you in any way I can and I don’t like anything better than to post something that you might find useful. Also, if you came up with different ideas and want to share them, I will love to post them as well.