School Fete Ideas

[Joanne UK]

It's only 2 months away until our School Summer Fete and we need ideas for a couple of more stalls. Has anyone got any really good suggestions - ideally something which always proves really popular and isn't too complicated or expensive to set up.

We're behind schedule and panic is now beginning to set in!

 

[mandymouse]

We always found throwing wet sponges at the teachers very popular

 

[jjpenguin]

second that one!!

I'm probably showing my age here but we had a spinner thing to make pictures.

The egg stall - with half egg shells in sand and a couple of whole eggs, pick the right egg and win an egg & bacon breakfast

And the quick easy and very cheap - double your money stand. Big fish tank with salt water, small cup in the tank, drop your money in, if it goes in the cup you double your money. Don't know if it works with the pound and 2 pound coins but the small ones all just drift away......

 

[irongirlof12]

the classic Tombola ! draws a massive crowd at our school.
2nd Hand book stall
lucky dip dustbin
if you have space you could do a car boot as well
bouncy castle
cakes on a plate
auction for teacher time i.e. 1/2 hour for cleaning you car!
extra large treasure map- x marks the spot

 

[Disney owl]

one that went down well when my kids were at junior school was a human fruit machine.

You have 3 adults with strong bags containing a variety of plastic fruit (borrowed from the nursery?) or cards with fruit on.

At a given signal they pull out a piece of fruit.

Money or prizes given for different combinations.

Make sense?

 

[Joanne UK]

Thanks everyone. Some of these suggestions we have actually got or variations of them. We are doing the wet sponges at Teachers - if we get any to volunteer. Otherwise wet sponges at anyone who fancies it, hopefully it will be a boiling hot day and a good way to cool down.

Definately like the egg stall and Human Fruit Machine - I have put these to the rest of the committee.

Thanks again

 

[DisneyJo]

Great thread I'm on our schools PTFA and always want new ideas!

A few we have are;

Water or wine, cover the top of some new and old (filled with water, coloured if needed) bottles with a plastic cup and people have to choose if it's wine they keep it, make sure there's more water than wine Always popular

Hook a duck, using old paddling pool and little duckies!

We do a teddy tombola with donated teddies, they always go quickly!

Surprise bag, we send home a brown bag (donated from the local takeaway) and ask for them to be decorated by the children and filled with sweets, toys etc totalling £1 -£2, we then run it as a tombola but every ticket is a winner! This makes us about £150 each year for no work

Do you get Baker Ross? Lots of good ideas and little toys to buy!

 

[BRobson]

A pack of Large Playing Cards and do Play Your Cards Right.

A box with loads of holes on the top. Place lollipops into the holes so you cannot see the stick. Colour a few of the sticks and if these are picked out child wins a small prize (bubbles,lucky bag etc) and if they dont get a coloured stick they have a lollipop.

Our school sells the large round balloons that have elastic bands as handles and some sort of rice or beads in them (not very good at explaining myself) Big profit in these. http://www.bakerross.co.uk . If you search Punching Balloons that will explain all

Face Painting

Hope this helps

 

[Joanne UK]

Jo We've got Hook a Duck and a Teddy Tombola. We also do a Football Tombola which is always extremely popular. Re your brown bag idea - in previous years we've done something very similar but filling up plastic cups. Some came back with unwrapped sweets (although we asked for them all to be wrapped) and used hairbands complete with strands of hair! Our PTA Committee all resigned last October and so we're trying to do different things this year.

Jackie - I looked up Punching Balloons but still don't get what they are. Why are they called punching?

Yes we do use Baker Ross. Also a company called toycrazy are very good - it was actually set up by an ex PTA Chair frustrated at not being able to get exactly what she wanted!

 

[higgy66]

What about a pirate treasure chest.

A very large box decorated to look like a treasure chest. (kids could help?)
Fill it with shredded paper and then place various prizes inside - lollies, small fun size bags of sweets, pens, pencils etc. Then charge for kids to have a delve and find some treasure. Prize everytime but at 50p you should make some profit. You could also gice out a gold chocolate coin to every person having a go as an added pirate touch!

Have you asked the local fire station if they could come along with a fire engine? The kids could sit in the front and try on their helmets etc. This doesn't generate any cash but its a real crowd puller - especially the mums!

Do you have a local TA. They could set up one of various things - climbing wall, rope swing and then charge for the kids to have a go. Good advertising for the TA so they're usually willing.

Hope it goes well

 

[BRobson]

Jackie - I looked up Punching Balloons but still don't get what they are. Why are they called punching?

Not a violent thing!! You have the balloon and elastic which goes round your wrist and you use your hand to bat or punch!! the balloon. The beads or rice then makes a noise. They certainly sell well at our fairs.

 

[jjpenguin]

I think a pirate themed anything should do well at the moment!

Let me think....

Make some beanbags to look like doubloons and have people throw them into a treasure chest. All doubloons in the chest and they get a chocolate coin!

And at hook a duck add a pirate duck with an eyepatch and a bandana, captain jack duck, and he's worth an extra prize!

 

[minniemarie]

I'm the lead in our primary school's summer fair for my sins....

Each year we have a theme, this years is the Emergency Services. This is what we have planned.

Fire engine and staff will be present - firemans hats ordered from Baker Ross for children to purchase. Digital photo (if they want) of child sitting in the engine £1.50.

Police - the local bobby is organising for a car to attend and bike stamping to be offered.

St Andrews ambulance service will be doing 2x45mins triage sessions for the p4-p7 where they will also have a shot of using the resuss Annie doll. £3.50 per ticket.

All of the above are giving their time for free.

We will run face painting, tattoos, hair dying, nail art also an arts and craft drop in area where kids decorate, make various items (Baker Ross is a good resource for this)

We have a local author (well known) doing a reading of which we'll sell around a hundred tickets £3.00 each, P1-P3 , this is always very popular and sells out quickly. Author donates her time but we will have a large bunch of flowers to give her.

We also run a water to wine stall, home baking, jam jars where the children are asked to bring in a jar filled with sweets, small toys etc, tombola, luckydip, second hand toys, second hand uniforms (we are a state school) Geo rocks (do a search, good company), lucky dip, PTA stall selling products from Baker Ross, guess the name of the soft toy .....

A huge money spinner is our silent auction where we auction off goods donated by local businesses, parents etc. This does take a lot of time to organise, writing letters to companies etc but it is well worth it.

On the games side we always have a bouncy castle and this year we are getting sumo wrestling as well which will be a good laugh, beat the goalie and a selection of games like hooking the ducks etc.

We run a barbecue, cafe and kids cafe where they can buy penny chews etc. We also have a candyfloss and ice cream stand. We buy the candyfloss already bagged, too expensive otherwise. The ice cream comes from a well known Edinburgh icecream maker, we get it in large gallon containers, two deliveries as it obviously melt quickly.

I'd better get a move on

 

[CustardTart]

Biggest money spinner we ever had was our Crepes Stall. Easy to pre-make mix and offered fillings such as Nutella and sliced banana/strawberries as well as the usual sugar and lemon. First year we hired equipment and still made a lot. After that, we bought a couple of domestic (Tefal I think) crepe machines and they worked just as well. We always had a queue and if you think you're going to run out of mix, it's easy to make more...