School parent group Fall Festival Chairs and PTO (Parent Teacher Organization) Family Fun volunteers, are you trying to plan a school fall festival that people actually want to attend?
Planning a massive event like this is an awesome way to build community and raise a ton of money for your school, but it can also feel completely overwhelming because of all that’s involved.
The biggest nightmare is always trying to balance the needs of the crowd.
How exactly do you keep an energetic kindergartener entertained while making sure the middle schooler doesn’t roll their eyes and leave early?
The answer is to come up with fall festival games and activities that the students actually want to do.
That’s exactly what we’re covering in this post, so read on for all of the details!
Classic Fall Festival Games Good for All Ages
Let’s start off with some tried and true fall festival games that everyone will enjoy, no matter their age or stage:
Pumpkin Putt-Putt
Hollow out a large pumpkin, carve a wide mouth at the bottom, and challenge kids to sink a hole-in-one with a putter.
Witch Hat Ring Toss
Screw cheap plastic witch hats (stuffed with paper to make them somewhat sturdy) to a sheet of plywood and have players toss plastic rings or glow necklaces onto the points for a prize.
Candy Corn Catapult
Let kids launch candy corn into target buckets using DIY catapults made from popsicle sticks and rubber bands.
The Gourd Roll
Create parallel lanes using hay bales as bumpers.
Players roll bumpy, uneven gourds down the lane to knock over pins.
The unpredictable rolling will make everyone laugh.
Temporary Tattoo Booth
Get a pack of fall or Halloween themed temporary tattoos and recruit some volunteers to be tattoo artists for the day.
The Pumpkin Patch Punch
Make a vertical game board with holes big enough for red solo cups.
Hide prizes of different sizes, types, and denominations in the cups and then cover with a piece of gift wrap tissue paper, and secure it to the cup with a rubber band.
Slide the cups into the holes and let each gamer choose one cup to punch and choose their prize.
This sort of game design makes it easy to replace the empty cups so more kids can play.
And it also means you won’t need a huge game board either since you can replace the prize and recover the cup..
Cake Walk
Write the numbers 1-15 on sheets of paper and tape to the floor in a big circle.
Participants walk along the circle to music being played for an updated take on musical chairs.
When the music stops, the participant standing on the chosen number wins a baked good prize.
If you’re also sponsoring a cake decorating contest, the entries can be the prizes for the cake walk game.
If you’re not, ask families for donations of baked goods so that there are plenty of prizes for this popular game
Pumpkin Tic-Tac-Toe
Paint a simple grid onto a straw bale or a wooden pallet.
Use small orange and white pumpkins as the game pieces.
Tailoring Fall Festival Games by Grade Level
A game that makes a five-year-old jump up and down with excitement is going to make an eighth-grader cringe.
If you want to say no to burnout and stop the event from turning into total chaos, you have to create different zones for different ages.
Here’s how to handle the mix without losing your mind.
Elementary School Fall Festival Games (Grades K–5)
For the littlest crowd, keep the rules incredibly simple and focus on high energy and instant prizes.
Here are some fall festival games perfect for elementary school students:
Donut Bobbing
Hang donuts from strings on a horizontal pole.
Two volunteers can hold the pole to adjust the height for the participants or create a PVC pipe frame.
The kids have to eat the donut with their hands behind their backs.
It’s hilarious to watch and avoids the ick of traditional apple bobbing.
Bonus points if you get powdered donuts (for maximum messiness and cute pictures).
Pumpkin Bowling
Cut the stems off small sugar pumpkins and use them as bowling balls to knock down ghost-painted 2 liter plastic bottles.
Weight the bottles with some sand or small rocks or pebbles so they are easier to reset into the bowling formation.
The Scarecrow Dressing Race
Put kids into teams and have them race against the clock to fully dress one teammate in oversized flannel shirts, overalls, and straw hats.
Candy Corn Guessing Game
Put a massive jar of candy corn at the front gate.
For one ticket, everyone guesses the number.
The closest guess wins the jar at the end of the event.
Turkey Feather Hunt
Hide brightly colored craft feathers all over the grounds.
Tell the little ones the festival turkeys lost their feathers, and give a tiny prize for every five they find.
Middle School Fall Festival Games (Grades 6–8)
Middle schoolers want to look cool, hang out with friends, and ideally see a teacher do something completely embarrassing.
The Teacher Dunk Tank
This is your absolute biggest moneymaker. If you can get the principal or a beloved coach in the hot seat, the line will go around the block.
Glow-in-the-Dark Yard Games
If your festival goes into the evening, set up a glow zone with LED cornhole or giant wooden blocks with glow-sticks taped to them.
Inflatable Obstacle Course
They might think they’re too old for a regular bounce house, but they will fiercely compete against each other in a timed inflatable obstacle race.
High School Fall Festival Games and Activities (Grades 9–12)
If your school parent group covers the older grade levels, think about friendly competition and unique games and activity experiences to keep everyone engaged and having fun at the fall festival.
Classroom Escape Room
Partner with the drama club to turn a room into a spooky escape game with a ten-minute timer.
Cornhole Tournament
Set up a bracket with a prize they actually care about, like local coffee shop gift cards or a prime school parking spot for a week.
The “Haunted Hallway”
Let a student club build a haunted house walkthrough in a dark hallway as a mini-fundraiser.
Bonfire Lounge
Set up a patio heater, some inflatable lounge chairs, and a student DJ for a laid-back hangout spot.
The chairs can be raffled off at the end of the evening as a door prize.
Fall Festival Games and Activities for Older Attendees: Don’t Forget the Parents
A fall festival is a fantastic family friendly activity, so you’ll want to include some activities that appeal to the grown ups too!
Trunk-or-Treat Car Show
Have parents or local businesses park in the lot, decorate their trunks, and hand out candy while everyone votes on the best design.
Autumn Photo Booth
Set up a cute backdrop with hay bales, corn stalks, and plaid blankets so parents can snap their own family pictures.
Bake-Off & Silent Auction
Host a pie-baking contest judged by school staff, then slice, box, and give as Cake Walk prizes (game described above) or sell the entries alongside a silent auction filled with themed raffle baskets.
Over to You
A fall festival is a fantastic family fun events that your community is sure to love and ask to be put on repeat every year!
The key to keeping the event fresh is to offer a wide variety of games and activities that appeal to the age set of students of your school community.
The mix of fall festival games outlined in this post is sure to help you plan a fun and memorable event.
Need help planning the other details?
This post has all of the details you need to plan a fabulous school fall festival.
More Resources for an Fantastic Fall Festival
Make sure everyone knows about your PTO’s fall festival by promoting it with a cute flyer!
Our two page fall festival flyer design makes it easy for parents to step up as helpers and eases coordinating volunteers and donations.
