After I posted my feedback, I realized I should have explained more about it being an inter generational event. I believe grandparents have much to teach children and children have much to teach adults. Children have a way of seeing things much more clearly than adults. I believe it is good for children to see adults living their faith. And I think its especially good for children especially boys to see men participating in faith-based events.
Additionally, I"d try to think of ways to use all of the senses - touch, smell, taste, and hearing as well as sight. Can you think of a way to include music? (The music booth might need to be in a different room from the others.) Maybe you can do face painting. I'd even paint the faces of the adults present to make it a fun event. Have fun.
When I was in the Methodist Youth Fellowship we used to call it a Booth Festival, but it is the same thing. I thought if you knew this other name for it, you might be able to do a web search under both names.
You might want to look in the Old Testament to see what happened at Harvest Booth Festivals in Biblical times. I know it is a Jewish tradition. I think its celebrated even today in that faith. As I remember it, its somewhat like our Thanksgiving, where God's people gave thanks for the bounteous harvest.
I would try to create some sort of booths for the children to travel between. I'd set up a table and try to surround it with a curtain or room divider, but that isn't necessary. At each table or booth, I'd have one activity for the children to participate in. One might be guessing the number of beans in a clear glass container. The next booth or table, would have something like dunking for apples. The next would be using a magic marker to make a face on a pumpkin. The last booth or table would have harvest themed refreshments. I suggest muffins and juice or milk. I believe one of our responsibilities as Christians is to teach our children how to eat nutritiously. No cupcakes please. I know they are cheaper and easier, but there is nothing that can take the place of good homemade food.
I am sure now that I have you started, you'll be able to build on my ideas. Best of luck! and God Bless you in your endeavors.
PS Are you sure you don't want to make this an inter generational event?
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Request: Planning a Harvest Festival For a Church
Archived on 10/29/2009
How do you plan a church youth harvest festival?
Joyce from Philadelphia, PA
Feedback:
RE: Planning a Harvest Festival For a Church
The church we used to attend does this very thing each year, starting with a contest, guys against the gals to see who can bring in the most bagged candy to hand out. We set this up as a carnival, such as golf, face painting, maze, hay ride, ring toss, fish pond, etc. Candy is handed out at each game. (09/25/2008)
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 cheesy. 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
This is going to be the first year our church has a harvest party, we have got a lot 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. (10/07/2006)
By Renae
RE: Planning a Harvest Festival For a Church
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 hot dogs, 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. (10/09/2006)
By Sherry
RE: Planning a Harvest Festival For a Church
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 gummy worms, chicken toss, tons of fun (10/19/2006)
By Peter.S
RE: Planning a Harvest Festival For a Church
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, balloons, and lanterns made from construction paper as centerpieces in fall colors. We have a biblical scavenger hunt, gummy worm eating contest, and our famous balloon dare. Thats when you play a quick game (like rock, paper, scissors or duck duck goose) and the loser has to pick and pop a balloon from the bag and perform 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. (10/31/2006)
By Sunshine
RE: Planning a Harvest Festival For a Church
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. (09/24/2007)
By Candice
RE: Planning a Harvest Festival For a Church
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 a 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 (09/27/2007)
By cookiecrumbles
RE: Planning a Harvest Festival For a Church
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; treasure chest (filled w/easter eggs & foam peanuts w/ # of prize in egg); fishpond (large piece of wood w/drawing of underwater) throw fishing 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 contest; 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 to 4 in bag w/ recipe & bible verse, also have some small items at the store; kids get 20 tickets/adults 5; we also give out door prizes from community (burger places, bowling, Christian store, etc...) (09/27/2007)
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 a way 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 a way 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. (09/29/2007)
By Tamara
RE: Planning a Harvest Festival For a Church
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. (10/17/2007)
By Sally
RE: Planning a Harvest Festival For a Church
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 chaperons 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. (11/08/2007)
By HoneyBee
RE: Planning a Harvest Festival For a Church
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. (01/04/2008)
By LAROSE
RE: Planning a Harvest Festival For a Church
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 (08/20/2008)
By hmarsh1
Harvest Carnival Ideas for Church
We started this at our Church last year and because it was inside, we tried not to have it so messy. You can borrow decorations from people in the church so it is not so expensive, and we asked for donations from everyone, whether it was candy or money to give out a treat at each game per child. We had an apple toss, tossed stuffed pumpkins into a tall cutout box with three pumpkins on it and their mouths were the holes. We had fishing using magnets and paper fish with paper clips behind a sheet, Face painting, balloon animals, a cake walk with cakes donated, decorating a cookie, and when everyone arrived they got to decorate a paper bag to collect their treats.
It turned out great and the kids all did the games several times over! (09/23/2008)
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)
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)
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)
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)
