Planning a Harvest Festival For a Church

RE: Planning a Harvest Festival For a Church Post By hmarsh1 (Guest Post) (08/20/2008) There is a great site I just found that has lots of ideas for carnival/festival events. www.carnivalsavers.com- Just click on the FREE Ideas from the list on the left Report Spam or Abuse RE: Planning a Harvest Festival For a Church Post By LAROSE (Guest Post) (01/04/2008) We do a fall festival each year in our small town...Our church is small with very few kids, so ours is geared toward the town kids coming by while they are out "trick or treating". We give away goody bags with a new testament,a tract, or one of those new "cross" tracts that fold and open all different ways. We put in little novelty toys, also, some Christian, some regular but not Halloween. We have lots of games, cupcake walk, Bean bag toss, Candle shoot out (shoot candles with squirt guns)...We also do a "guess the jar" where you guess how much candy is in the jar...Closest one wins the jar of candy...But we count it the next day, so we have them fill out cards with address & phone no. So we have them for follow-up, later. We also do a drawing...Where we give away special prizes if your name is called.. .We do face-painting, and give away balloons with our church name on it and "shining god's light" with a lighthouse. We give away "glow sticks". It makes the kids easier to see going down the road in the dark. Plus our theme was "jesus is the light" when we first started, so anything we could do with light seemed like a good idea. We decorate with fall stuff like pumpkins and hay bales and fall flowers. We also have a hay ride some years. Blow up bouncy things are fun. We use 10 x 10 tents for the booths, they look nice. We give away about 90 bibles a year in the bags. We also do a mass mail-out ahead, to advertise...About 1700 mail boxes. Report Spam or Abuse RE: Planning a Harvest Festival For a Church Post By HoneyBee (Guest Post) (11/08/2007) This was our 16th year holding Harvest Celebration. We have over 60 different games and activities. Our large draw is "The Ark" in which children and their chaperones are told a Bible story. We hold it on October 31st each year and everything is free - including the shaved ice, popcorn and cotton candy. We run an extremely tight budget (under $1500). awanababe@ sbcglobal. net I'm more than happy to share our plans if anyone is interested. Report Spam or Abuse RE: Planning a Harvest Festival For a Church Post By Sally (Guest Post) (10/17/2007) Our church has a Harvest Festival every year out in the country. The children do dress up, but only as Bible characters or cute costumes. Different members of the church decorate their cars in fall themes and open their trunks with candy inside.We go "Trunk-or-Treating from car to car. We get the adults involved by having a contest for whatever we're serving for dinner that year, for example, last year was a chili cook-off. Report Spam or Abuse RE: Planning a Harvest Festival For a Church Post By Lester Diaz (Guest Post) (10/07/2007) Hey, I need inexpensive ideas for a harvest festival if anyway can toss me some ideas I would greatly appreciate it, it gonna be tough since I am the new Youth Pastor and they embrace Halloween here as if there was nothing wrong with it! Help we need ideas, prayer and support! Pastor Les Report Spam or Abuse RE: Planning a Harvest Festival For a Church Post By Tamara (Guest Post) (09/29/2007) I have had harvest party carnival events at my home for the past 4-5 yrs, and each year I have more kids & of course my kids are getting older, I also need to find away to either make straw bales or buy them for sitting and game events, also we do potato sack races, relay races, like corn husking and eggs on spoon (fake eater egg plastic), gummy worm find pudding contest, bean bag toss games, candy land, twister, a movie and popcorn, a lollipop tree and ducky pond, etc. I need to find away to make straw bales because can't seem to buy them already made, or if can find someone that knows where to get some already made, thanks. Also most prizes I give out are in grab bags. Prizes they don't know till after and opened, I categorize them by age etc, and I also have fake or real pile of leaves with candy and prizes they have to find towards the end of the night to take home with them and I make a dinner like beef stew, pumpkin soup, MAC & CHEESE and veggies etc. We try obstacle courses and basketball games as well, we have a glow in the dark basketball, also for the adults I do a bingo game and raffle or door prizes as well, to keep adults entertained as well, hope this helps and hope I can get more ideas and help too. Report Spam or Abuse RE: Planning a Harvest Festival For a Church Post by sa syl (1) | (09/27/2007) Profile | Contact We give bags w/tickets & church info- the maze (boxes taped together); pumpkin beanbag toss (wood pumpkin with cutout on eyes,nose & mouth); Goliath toss,6' tall wood cutout man in armor w/velcro strips (put velcro on ping pong balls & toss at Goliath; cake walk; tresure chest (filled w/easter eggs & foam peanuts w/# of prize in egg); fishpond (large piece of wood w/drwing of underwater) throw fishng rod line over the top & someone clips prize;lollipop tree (all sizes small to huge on wooded tree w # on racks) kids pick ping pong ball w/# & thats the candy they get. skate boarding contect; video wall (car game on projector thrown on big size wall).Plan to add game for adults - General Store, asking church members to make cookies put 3/4 in bag w/recipe & bible verse,also have some small items at the store; kids get 20 tickts/adults 5; we also give out door prizes from community (burger places, bowling, christian store, etc...) Report Spam or Abuse RE: Planning a Harvest Festival For a Church Post By cookiecrumbles (Guest Post) (09/27/2007) Every year we have people donate baked good for a cake walk! We also rent bounce houses they go over very well with the kids. We have a coloring contest this is very accommodating to our budget and the kids love it! lawn bowling is also fun when you use a pumpkin in place of a ball be sure to have extras in case they break. We are going to have bead Booth where we make bead bracelets using the colors from the word list book! black represents sin white represents the holly light of Jesus red for the blood and so on! I hope you got some fun ideas, I know reading the other comments I will definitely use some of those! God bless you all, cookie Report Spam or Abuse RE: Planning a Harvest Festival For a Church Post By Candice (Guest Post) (09/24/2007) Hello! I have planned a Harvest Festival for my church for several. I can't begin to put it all in here. I have several web sites that can help though. IF anyone else here is interested, I'd like to do an email loop, and maybe we can help each other. I did see a few games on here we have never done before, and hopefully I can help someone else. Are you having a Harvest Fest or a carnival? There is a difference. My email is Candi1990 AT aol.com. I am interested in swapping ideas with anyone, so please email me and we can get a loop going, to hopefully help each other. Report Spam or Abuse RE: Planning a Harvest Festival For a Church Post By Sunshine (Guest Post) (10/31/2006) Hey there, Each year I organize a fall festival at my church for my Sunday School kids. This year we've decorated the fellowship hall with streamer, ballons, and lanterns made from construction paper as centerpeices in fall colors. We have a biblical scavenger hunt, gummi worm eating contest, and our famous balloon dare. Thats when you play a quick game (like rock, paper, sissors or duck duck goose) and the loser has to pick and pop a ballon from the bag and perfrom the dare. It is so much fun !!!! God Bless PS: My pastor told me that its important when throwing these a "festivals" as alternatives to Halloween, its really important to let the kids know ahead of time why we do things differently. Report Spam or Abuse RE: Planning a Harvest Festival For a Church Post By Peter.S (Guest Post) (10/19/2006) Well you could plan something simple but fun games. Bobbing for apples, ping pong toss, hay maze, pet barn, jumpy house, bible verse prison, bean bag toss, fishing for gummi worms, chicken toss, tons of fun Report Spam or Abuse RE: Planning a Harvest Festival For a Church Post By Sherry (Guest Post) (10/09/2006) Our church does a festival each year also. One of the things the kids love is to do bobbing for apples. I take a big tub and fill it full of water and put some apples in it. They love it. We also do a hayride and an eating contest. We take about 6 volunteers. Last year it was hotdogs, the year before it was pie, and we have also done marshmallows. They also like throwing darts at balloons that are thumbtacked onto a board. Hope this helps. Report Spam or Abuse RE: Planning a Harvest Festival For a Church Post By Renae (Guest Post) (10/07/2006) This is going to be the first year our church has a harvest party, we have got alot of our ideas from fishers of kids. But another idea is to get paper sacks and have the kids make leaf cutouts to decorate them with. So they can put their candy or prizes in. Report Spam or Abuse Request: Planning a Harvest Festival For a Church Post by lewis_admin (1319) | (09/30/2006) Profile | Blog! | Contact My church has a harvest festival every year instead of celebrating Halloween. It's mostly geared toward younger children, about 2 and up. I need some really good party ideas but nothing cheezy. We have planned thus far to have a scavenger hunt, a costume and dance contest. But what else could they do? We wanted to do a fun house but it's difficult because we are a church. Please help with any ideas, favors, decorations etc. Dionna from MD Answers: RE: Planning a Harvest Festival For a Church You aren't going to believe this, but at a lrg Harvest party my church held a few yrs back, the most popular activity was cardboard boxes!! They collected lrg cardboard boxes, attached them end to end, and created a tunnel that spread out over the gym floor in twists and turns and straight-aways. The boxes weren't decorated on the outside, but that would be a nice touch - you could even create a theme of various Biblical locations for each section of the tunnel. There was always a line of little ones to crawl thru this activity. I wasn't involved, just sat back and watched, so I'm not sure what they used to attach the various boxes, if they had them afixed to the floor, or if they were decorated on the inside, but the kids sure loved it!!!!!!! (09/15/2005) By Tripleb RE: Planning a Harvest Festival For a Church You could do a fun house theme on a minor scale. Have kids place their hands in covered baskets and if they guess what they are touching, they win a prize. Use grapes, cotton balls, boba* balls, cooked spaghetti... Or tell them it's fish eyeballs and cow brains. Make sure to have hand wipes available. *Boba balls are the little tapioca balls you find in asian tea beverages. (09/16/2005) By cookwie RE: Planning a Harvest Festival For a Church Dionna, your message interested me. Here in the UK most churches ALWAYS have a harvest festival, and NEVER have Halloween as it is regarded as "not taking evil seriously". Things we have done - barn dances [do you call them square dances in USA] with bales of straw/hay for seating. Eats- potatoes baked in their skins with beans, cheese or sloppy joe type fillings. Childrens game 'pin the tail on the donkey' people perform songs - 'Hole in My bucket' 'Old Macdonald had a farm' and dress up as old time farmers. competitions for best decorated straw hat. games where you have to make animal noises. Pass-the-parcel with forfeits in each layer, again animal related. bobbing for apples. as its a church event, you may want to pick out some of the bible stories relating to farmers/seeds/shepherds/harvest - perhaps write things like "Parable of sower" etc on cards, and get people to mime the bible story for the audience to guess. Love Angela (09/16/2005) By angalmond RE: Planning a Harvest Festival For a Church Our church has a party on Halloween night as an alternative to Halloween called Festival of Lights --- the biggest hit for children is our fishing booth-- just make a booth with a curtain for someone (usually some of our teenagers) to hide behind and when the children throw thier line in they "catch" a small bag with candy or small toys in it! Our youth minister always has a short worship service with songs and games. For children a little older, they like bobbing for apples. Tina in NC (09/16/2005) By Tina in NC RE: Planning a Harvest Festival For a Church Hi Dionna, Our church does a cake walk. A few weeks in advance, we make cupcakes and decorate them. Some look like baseballs, lady bugs, hamburgers, grapes etc. The children LOVE choosing their prize! (09/16/2005) By Tedebear RE: Planning a Harvest Festival For a Church Our church has done several harvest festivals. We do a cupcake walk. It's like musical chairs except with numbered circles on the floor. We also had a fortune tent with a gypsy, which was really a witnessing tent. We rented blowup bouncers, had hayrides, pony rides and carnival games. Some of the games were so easy you could put them together yourself. Magnetic fishing in a kiddie pool, little tykes basketball, knock down bottles, etc. (09/20/2005) By Nancy RE: Planning a Harvest Festival For a Church We have held a small harvest party at our house and I have some ideas. you can have a scare crow relay were kids have to run to a marker (cone or stake or whatever you can find)put on extra large cloths like Big boots, straw hats and ovralls then run back to were they started and take them off letting the next kid in line have a try. You can decorate with garlends of fake fall leaves from craft stores and boques of real ones. You can put out jack o' laterns lite with christmas lights (when carving make sure to includ a hole in the back for the cord to slip through). indian corn is wonderful and very decorative. make foam owls with close pins glued to the backs so you can clip them around. you can make your fun house by closing of one part or room of your church with fabric or boxes then inside hanging ribbon from the roof with balloons tapped to the ends so they bob along the bottom. a fun thing for younger kids is to have a card board box with a elphants head painted on and a hole where the trunk is supposed to be then a adult with a grey sock on there hand puts there arm through it like a trunk and then kids hand the elpahnt a peanut. Then the adult can give the kids candies in return. You can make a fun house mirror from tin foil and add some light bulbs painted in lime greens and sholking purples for fun effects. bubble machines would be even more fun. a mystery box would also fit in well here. For this take a box and add a big enough hole for someone to fit there hand in and feel the contents. You can put in things like a candy cane, squirt gun, cotten ball, ect. Anything with a distinct shape or feel to it is good. a diffrent idea for favors is an apple, carmel sheet and pocicle stick so kids can make there own carmel apples. You also might want to include glowsticks, candy whistles, stickers, and mini bubble packs. (09/27/2005) By gloria RE: Planning a Harvest Festival For a Church why not focus on fall harvest foods? bobbing for apples, apple pie eating contest, making homade applesauce, ect. Josie, PA (10/02/2005) By Josie,PA New ideas Hey! Our church has a Harvest Festival every year instead of kids going out trick-or-treating. Last year we decorated our fellowship hall with cute scare crows (about $6 each), bales of hay (donated by members), pumkins, squash, and gords(all donated by church members), plates with decorated leaf sugar cookies, artifical fall leaf garland to line tables, small cheap fall flowers that were given away as door prizes for the adults, fall colored streamers. We also give out a treat bag, which is also used in the decoration. We use brown paper bags and stamp a fall colored leaf on the bag. It looks quite cute and fits in with the fall decor. One of the games we play is the Lazarus game (which is usually called the mummy game) We briefly tell the story of Lazurus and pick teams of 5-6. Each team picks a "Lazarus" and all the other children are given rolls of toilet paper. The children wrap "Lazarus" in grave clothes for a timed period (approx. 5min.). Each team is judged on how well they have covered "Lazarus". "Lazarus" busts out of his/her grave clothes. (09/19/2006) By Amanda Report Spam or Abuse