Carnival party ideas

Okay I admit it, I am a sucker for throwing theme parties! A few years ago I threw a carnival themed birthday party for my daughter. It was so much fun, the kids loved it!

Today our church hosted a kids carnival and I was in charge of organizing all of the kids games. I wanted to share some of my ideas with you today! A carnival is fun for kids of a variety of ages and adults as well.

Here are some of my game and activity ideas...

A ticket booth at the entrance is a must. You can purchase a large roll of tickets online or in stores inexpensively. Give each child a certain amount of tickets to use for games.

Bean bag toss is one of my favorites. I used sheets of poster board to paint clown faces and made a hole where the mouth should go as a target. I then simply attached them to large cardboard boxes and cut a hole in the box as well.

Bulls eye- I attached a plastic cup to poster board and attempted to paint circles around it {painting a perfect circle isn't that easy}. You can have the kids try to toss ping pong balls into the cup.

A photo booth is also a lot of fun. We assigned one person to be our photographer for the day. I hung a large red tablecloth as a backdrop and then had a box of silly props the kids could use in their picture. The dollar store is great for this!

We also had a face painting booth! You just need a talented artist willing to do the painting!

Ring toss is another good game. I used plastic rings I ordered online and 2 liter pop bottles. The more 2 liter bottles you can get the better!

Lastly we had a kissing booth! I promise it isn't what it sounds like! I filled a jar with Hershey kisses and let each person write down there guess for how many were inside. Winner gets all the kisses!

Here are some photos I took of the games I made and a few from today's carnival! 

For the food you can serve hot dogs, bags of popcorn, and of course cotton candy!

Throwing a large scale party is definitely a lot of work, but if you start planning in advance it helps. I'm looking forward to my next party which is in just a couple of weeks. My daughter's ninth birthday is coming up and we have been planning it for a few months now. You will have to wait to see what theme we are doing though!

Hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend!

                                                                                           Amy