School carnivals offer entertainment for everyone involved.
Running a school carnival is a twist on traditional fundraising efforts. Students, parents, teachers and people in the community donate money at the carnival, with all the proceeds going to the school. For a successful school carnival, parents and students play just as big a role as the students. School carnival games and ideas increase the amount of money brought in by the event.
Clown Contest
Host a clown contest for any willing participants, including students, younger children and parents. Advertise the contest on the fliers and posters for the carnival. Hold the contest in the middle of the day, when the carnival is at its busiest. Divide the event into different age groups and offer small prizes for the winner or winners of each group. Require participants to have their makeup and costume ready by the time the contest starts. Let the audience pick the winner by cheering for their favorite clowns.
Art Display
Ask the art teachers at the school to pass along the word that the carnival will boast a large art display. Students and teachers donate their favorite pieces, and each piece hangs in a central location at the carnival. Raise money by displaying the art in different tents and asking for a small donation to view the pieces. Or sell some of the artwork. Make sure that the participants know that the work is for sale. You can even offer a small percentage of the sale price to the artist to encourage more people to donate their work.
Face Painting
Run a face-painting and/or body-painting booth at the carnival. Fill the booth with nontoxic paints and colored hairsprays like those sold at Halloween. Carnival guests pay a small fee, and volunteers paint their faces, arms, legs or hair with the paints and sprays. If the volunteers don't have much experience in face painting, offer a few set designs, including cat faces and stars.
Wheel of Fortune
Ask for donations of plastic bottles and remove the labels from the bottles. Write fortunes on small slips of paper and place one slip of paper in each bottle. On some of the fortunes, draw a small star, which indicates a winning bottle. Cap the bottles and toss them in a large plastic pool filled with water. When a guest makes a donation, he picks a bottle from the pool. Keep small prizes on hand for the winners.
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