Fall Festival at Home

One year it rained and our church’s outdoor festival was cancelled. We made an impromptu festival in our house. Some of the games we created were:

• Bean Bag Toss - We got several plastic bowls and a bean bag (you could use a small ball). I dropped some candy in the bowls so the kids got the candy from the bowl they hit.
• Hool-a-hoop – We were fortunate to have two hool-a-hoops, so we had a little contest. The winner got candy.
• Jumpin’ Bean – If you don’t have hool-a-hoops, you could have a jumping contest. Just have the kids jump in place until only one is standing. You may want to do this one last as a way to wear the kids out and settle them down to go to bed.
• Bowling – We got some plastic cups and set them up like bowling pins and a ball. Depending on how many you knocked down, decided how many pieces of candy you got.
• What is that? – I gathered several things from around the house like a tube of toothpaste, a pair of socks folded into a ball, a wooden spoon, etc. I put them I a box and covered them with a blanket. The kids reached in the box and without looking had to say what it was. This is fun especially if you have small toys and squishy things.
• Long Jump – This was a standing long jump. We used tape to mark several distances. If they jumped on or below the first tape, the child got one piece of candy. If the child jumped between the second and first tape, they got two pieces of candy. If the child jumped between the third and second tape, they got three pieces of candy. You get the idea.
• Penny Walk – This is an old party game. Line up jars, cups or bowls at one end of the room. Then you have one child per jar line up across from their jar on the other end of the room. Place a penny between each child’s knees. They must walk with the penny between the knees across the room and deposit the penny in the jar. You can do it with just one jar and take turns. Everybody who gets the penny in the jar gets candy.
• Relay Treats – I got this one from a school holiday party. You need two bowls, a big spoon and candy like M&M’s or Skittles or Sweet Tarts. Pour the candy into one bowl and set at one end of the room. Set up an empty bowl at the other end of the room. Have the child use the big spoon to scoop up as much candy as they can, walk across the room and then put the candy in the empty bowl. Whatever candy makes it into the bowl, the child gets to keep. To make it more challenging, place a smaller cup in the empty bowl. Whatever makes it into the cup is the prize.
• Obstacle Course – Everybody gets candy for participating. Devise your own obstacle course. Time the kids as they go through it to make it a little competitive. Your course could include crawling through a tunnel (under a table or through a series of adult legs, lots of fun when the tunnel tickles), over the hill (a chair), around the mountain (a chair or kitchen island), into a cave (a table with a long cloth), along a ravine (walk a straight line: tape or 2x4 piece of wood or broom), and out of the forest (coats, through a coat closet or create a coat rack with a broom (one adult holds one end and another adult holds the other and the coats are hung on the broom)).
• Hot and Cold / Treasure Hunt – hide a special prize. The simple version the kids walk around and you simply say if they are hot or cold / close or far from the treasure. A more complicated version is the treasure hunt where you give cryptic clues where the treasure is buried. Clues can include “Cute and fuzzy, Beware of the Wild Animals” (a bunch of stuffed animals). “A reflection of me won’t appear before you” (a mirror)
  

Halloween is not really a holiday for me and my family, but the Fall Festival sure has a lot of family fun to offer.