This response might be too late, but here's an idea that I just posted under the topic of Fall Family Night that works well as a fall carnival game:


Cornfield Bowling (or Cornfield Ring Toss)

Materials needed: ten one-quart milk cartons, brown wrapping paper (e.g. butcher paper), yellow and green construction paper, markers, tennis ball or rings (depending on which game you want to the participants to play). Note: the rings could be made from plastic plates that had their inner portion cut out.

Instructions for making the bowling pins or ring toss targets:

1. Fold over the top of ten one-quart milk cartons and seal with packing tape (or duct tape). Cover each carton with brown wrapping paper. (Note: If you are going to be playing ring toss, you might want to add some or dirt inside each carton before sealing them.)
2. Draw 10 ears of corn (the size of the length of the milk cartons) on yellow construction paper. Cut them out and glue an ear of corn on one side of each carton.
3. Draw 20 leaves (just a little taller than the corn) on green construction. Cut them out and glue them around the corn. Note: if you can use colored exact index paper and a copier rather than drawing the patterns by hand, your task will be easier.
4. Draw 10 enlarged kernels on yellow construction paper (big enough to cover the top portion of the milk cartons), number them from 1-10, cut them out and glue one on the top of each of the milk cartons.

To play: Set up the ten ears of corn in the configuration used for bowling pins.
Depending on the game you are using, the players adds up the sum of the pieces that they either bowled over or caught with a ring. In theory, either one of these games involves one turn per player, but you might have to allow extra turns (or move the player closer to the pins) before the person succeeds in his/her attempt to knock down or ring any pins.] Younger players can have their parents or older siblings help with the addition.

Award different prizes depending on the sum. You can figure out how you want to handle that using a range of numbers. One of the prizes could be a small bag of popcorn.

-Patricia, aka Murf the Surf
groups.yahoo.com/group/Elementary-Lesson-Share/
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I know some of you are always looking for games or trying to decide whether to make your own.

I was at Target this week and saw a bean bag toss game that looked pretty sturdy. If I recall it was something like "Tailgate Bean Bag". It looked pretty sturdy and the dimensions were maybe 30"w x 36"h. I think the cost was $49.

Bean Bag Toss would be pretty easy to build. But then again, if we were facing this at MY house - we'd be searching to buy one or calling my dad for help.

Our biggest hit is always the jumping thing- Moonwalk. One year we had two. We rented one then they gave us one for free. (Negotiate-Negotiate!) Last year a local company donated $350 and we negotiated the blow up slide, and crawl through thing. The kids loved it!! Then we do the usuals, 2 basketball throws, football throws, can throws (win free drinks) We always get Coke or Pepsi to donate drinks and give them a huge thank you in the paper. The cake walks are huge but we have the classrooms donate Twinkies, Ding Dongs, Lil Debbies etc..., We also order prizes from Oriental Trading as well as give away candy so the kids don't go home with a bunch of sweets. Have Fun!

We do our fall festival in November. Last year we did 'Let it Snow' theme. All the crafts were snowman, cold related. We purchased items from OTC. We had music playing, decorated with a blow-up snowman, picture booth with a snowman, white lights around the gym etc. It was a huge success! Everyone talked about it for weeks!

We do a big Halloween carnival (our school has been doing this for over 30 years). Although we do rent some things, many of our most popular games are homemade. We do the toilet paper toss (rolls of tp into a toilet), milk bottle game (knock down the milk bottles), bean bag toss, pick-a-pencil (pencils stuck in a hay bale - specially marked ones win) etc. We do a cake walk, bake sale, costume parade, homemade haunted house (one grade does it to raise money for their graduation). We also do a silent auction of baskets - each class is responsible for a basket. We do more sophisticated things too, but this is the core and none of this stuff costs much money.

Let me know if you have any more questions -

What is a bungee run and bungee bull. We pushed our festival back because we needed more planning. Last year we had all kind of things for the elementary kids, but nothing for the middle schoolers. (We're K-8).

Would they be something older kids would like?

We are a first year PTO & no funds right now, so we need to do very inexpensive things.