Each year, we host two Family Fun Nights - free events for our elementary students and their families. This year, our first event will be held in conjunction with our Scholastic book fair. The book fair theme - safari.

Has anyone held a safari or jungle night? I am looking for activities, games, etc.

Also, has anyone held a family night along with their book fair? Do you offer a drawing or some other incentive to not only attend the family fun night, but to attend the book fair as well?

We are a K -6 building and expect anywhere from 300 to 550 people. (we also serve a free dinner)

Ideas? Please!

Thank you!

Debbie
Conway, MO
debbieinmo@msn.com

We did a Family Night in conjunction with a book fair. We had games in the gym, food in the cafeteria. One of the activities was to put together a fill-in-the-blank story and then we provided materials for the family to create a cover with artwork for their story so it would be a little keepsake of the evening. We also took advantage of the freebies and some of the book profit Scholastic gave us and did drawings for books and some of the trinkets. I put together some prize baskets of sorts, such as a Family basket with a book each for Mom, Dad, and kids and some bookmarks.

As for the safari/jungle theme: we used a jungle theme for a carnival a few years ago and we got cardboard carpet tubes and big sheets of construction paper and made big palm trees, and I found an idea in Family Fun magazine on how to make jungle vines out of brown paper bags. It all looked very cool. The 5th graders helped me make vines and they had fun doing that! We just tried to theme the games we use every year to have jungle names.