Fairs and carnivals are a fun time for the whole family. The rides, the food, and most importantly, the games! If your school or neighborhood is thinking about hosting a fair and you’re wondering how you can be a part of it, party games are a great way to pitch in!
They’re easy to prepare; and once you’re set up, you pretty much don’t have much work at all to do. And you can make quite a bit of money too, so that’s a definite plus. Here are a few fun and simple fair and carnival games for kids that you can make yourself.
Bowling
Recycle all those empty plastic drink bottles that you have cluttering up your storage cupboard and use them to make your own bowling pins. You can use any appropriately-sized ball you have around the house as the bowling ball. You can even make this a fun project for the kids, and get them to paint and decorate the bowling pins and even the ball.
Ball Throw
So the majority of carnival games do involve some type of throwing action, but for this game, you can up the ante by having a board with players’ names and their scores on it. You can even make this a multiplayer game with two players taking turns. Label a bunch of basins with boards that say things like ‘10 points’, ‘30 points’, ‘double score’, etc. Then give players balls to throw and collect points. You can even give them an added incentive by saying whoever gets the highest score at the end of the day wins a prize!
Ring Toss
Gather up a bunch of similar sized bowls or containers and a ring that will fit around them. You can fill some of them up with fun toys, stationery, sweets, whatever your heart desire. If it’s for a fair or carnival, you can charge people to play as well.
Quack, Quack, Quack
So, this one requires a couple more supplies but the result is totally worth it. You’ll need a mini inflatable pool, a toy fishing rod, a couple dozen rubber duckies and a similar number of magnets. Glue the magnets onto the ducks and the end of the fishing rod; paste papers with prizes written on them under a few of them; fill the pool up, and let the ducks swim!
Balloon Dart
This is another fun and easy carnival game that you can make with just balloons, a peg board, and a dart. Blow up a bunch of colorful balloons and tie them through the holes of the peg board. Allow three tries per participant and see how many balloons they can burst by throwing the dart.
Through the Monster’s Mouth
This is one of the easiest games you can make. And it’s pretty versatile, so you can make it however you like. All you need is a cardboard cutout of a cartoon monster (or any other character, it’s up to you), and pick a place to cut out a hole (the mouth would be the best choice for a monster). Then all you need is a tennis ball that players can use to throw into the hole. You can even make the cutout yourself; although a bit more time-consuming, it is definitely a fun project to do!
