We charge a 50 cent admission. We rent out big bouncies and slides and we sell hotdogs and popcorn. Could you ask each room parent to provide a game? They can be simple things like face painting, treasure hunt, nail painting, fishing game, sucker tree thing, that sort of thing that is fun and inexpensive to do. One parent we have works at publix and the donated cookies for a cookie decorating booth.

I think this is a great way to end the year and reward the students! Especially if they haven't had a field trip in so long!!! That is sad. Children need extrinsic motivation, especially young ones.

Good luck!

i forgot to mention there are roughly 380 students

well let me start by saying thank you to your reply. i would like to have a dunk tank. some volunteers and myself would do some face painting. if my nephew's schedule isn't full his group will come and perform.see, my daughters school has been so busy trying to get grades up that they haven't been rewarded in so long (they haven't had a field trip in seven years!!!!). so this carnival woul be on the last day of school. we would barbeque and give prizes to honor roll students and students "caught for being good".i had thought about charging an admission just to kind of give us a head start for the next year. but i don't want it to be extravagant, just enough to show them that there is a payoff for doing hard work.

Well, I would start 2 ways. First, I would search " carnival" on these boards, and extract as much information as you can.

Then, set up a tentative plan as to what you want to accomplish, how much time you have ( 1/2 day, full day) and whether or not you want events that require volunteer supervision, or whether they are self sustaining " stations" that require little supervision. As far as costs, that depends entirely on what events you do. it can cost anywhere from $200 to $20,000. Will you have a band? Will you rent bounce houses? Clowns? prizes? food?
The list is virtually limitless.

Is this during the school day, or is it after school hours, where families are included? Doyou plan on charging? How much has your PTO allocated for the event? If it's during school hours, then you will have to work within a finite budget and plan accordingly. If you plan to charge for games, food, etc.. then what you charge will be a function of what you spend.

Once you spend some time thinking through some of these thing, and after doing research, come back and let us know some of your specific ideas.. and we can then guide you in a more specific direction! For example, how big is your school? Ages of kids, etc...

we look forward to helping you.. so come back with more questions

i am considering on trying to have a carnival at my daughter's school for the end of the year. does anyone have any pointers or rough ideas on how much that would cost, places that help out or anything? where do i even start?