1st Christmas fair - stall ideas please!

[markymark]

DD1 has just started in reception and the school Christmas fair planning began yesterday - all the year groups have to run a stall. There are several firm favourites already in place (sweets in a jar, splat the rat...) and we could use a little help to come up with a new idea.

Has anyone got any great ideas of things they've done themselves or seen elsewhere?

Thanks!

OK these aren't my ideas but things that they do at my DC school.
My youngest is in Yr 6 now so I can't remember if the ideas are Infant/Junior

Drinking straws cut into lengths and a rolled up raffle ticket in each. The child chooses one, pulls out the ticket (and if it ends with a 5 or a 0 they win a prize)

Lollies stood in a group (IIRC one of those sweet displays.You could use an oasis covered in foil) .If it has a blue 'dot' on the end (marker pen) they get the lolly.

Every class is given a colour.They all bring a gift -under £5, in 'their' colour. Set out as Rainbow Stall.

Pelt the Teacher (with a wet sponge) They all run to volunteer

They do balloons in one of the classes (Costco sell helium cannisters and balloons if anyone has a card)

And of course the tea room. Cakes, squash, tea/coffee

A nail painting stall with glitter Christmas tattoos?
Cookie/cake jars - with all the ingredients weight out and a recipe inside?

Homemade Christmas cards/wrapping paper/gift tags?
Mulled wine mince pie stall?
Posh coffee or soup stall?
A friendship band making stall - show them how to get started and they finish them off at home?

I'm going to shamelessly nick some of these for my own school!
We're having an area for children to choose a small gifts for their parents, they can then wrap them with a little help from some elves, also an area to write a letter to Santa with a gorgeous letter box for them to post it.
Word of warning with the mulled wine, we had some on a stall one year and it was so strong, alot of parents didn't realise (including myself) and had to leave their cars behind and stagger home!

Treasure hunt - find missing penguin/ present fallen off Santa's sleigh, have big grid they guess the square (which is written on back so no cheating), keep a list, one person per square nearest one wins.

Each class makes and decorates a themed hamper (e.g. White Christmas, Night before Christmas) and fills it with goodies (e.g. For night before christmas might have sugar mice, mince pies, carrots, or judging by MN pyjamas!), each class given different theme, best hamper gets a cash prize for class to buy something and hampers are raffled off.

You might be able to find a photographer who would come in and take family photos and give you a cut of the profits.

The wrapping room is a brilliant idea.
You could set up a big table (lots of desks in a line) they can choose their paper, have scissors, some big rolls of Sellotape (other sticky tapes are available) in the big heavy dispensers that they have in school (showing my age).

Then after wrapping, go to another table to select ribbons and bows.
And a tag.

Lots of parents will donate wrapping paper .Lots of 3 for 2 or BOGOF on wrapping supplies.
All you need to add is some helpers (dress them as Elves for authenticity)

The Coconut shy is a huge hit at ours. Also a jar tombola where we get people to give jars filled with, well anything really, sweets, small toy, money and then charge 50p a ticket. The kids love it because they win every time and there's no outlay as it's all donated stuff.

My dh and I ran the rock/crystal stall at DS's primary one year. We made £500!!!

There is a firm that works with schools, on a sale or return basis.

Never underestimate the power of rocks, fossils and stones and kids.

They came with a fact sheet and a velvet pouch, nice pocket money gift.

I can try and find the company if you like?

I remember someone running a stall where you could choose a glass bottle and then use funnels to fill with layers of coloured sand.

The kids loved making them as potential Christmas gifts.

These are great suggestions - thank you so much, I will steal them shamelessly :-)

Binfull - the details of that company would be great - thanks.

The rocks thing sounds great! Can you pass on the details please?
So many Christmas/summer/random fairs to assist with so always looking for new ideas. Thanks

www.juniorgeo.co.uk/shop/index.php?category=2&shop_category_id=18

We held the raffle for the large geode which did really well too.

If I recall the ammonites and coloured crystals sold really well.

I'd love the rock/crystal company too please.

Loads of fab ideas here - I shall be sharing at our planning meeting next week.

Half our tables we hand over to local business - usually mums who work from home... we hire out tables at £5/£10 + a donation to the raffle. might not make loads, but it's 10 tables we don't need to worry about and 10 (usually very nice gifts) for the raffle, with very little work - we find the stallholders via word of mouth or FB (we have a local county page that all local people sell their wares)

one stall that worked well was a bucket and you stuck your name to a £1 coin then chucked it in the bucket. At the end of the fair, a coin is chosen, the winning coin/owner receives 50% of what's in the bucket.

we don't do the stalls by class, but ask different year groups to provide things in exchange for a non-uniform day. e.g years rec-2 provide chocolate = chocolate tombola; 3-4yrs provide tombola items = main tombola; 5-6 we always ask them to fill an empty jar with goodies and wrap the jar in xmas paper = mystery jar stall.

We are doing the present room, with a non-uniform day to rustle up u wanted recyclable gifts (that you wouldn't mind receiving back!)
Face painting
Chocolate tombola
Letter to Santa
Decorating cookies (get really cheap ones from ikea)
baubles decorating
The big man himself obviously
Mulled wine (helps parents cope)
Cake stall

Could you name the company who provided this service for rocks and crystals? Thanks!

Our school have a collection box after Halloween for excess sweets, which parents are delighted to donate. Then we shamelessly sell them back to the kids at the Christmas fair

I read the first response , thought "Bloody Hell they did that at MY DC school too, I wonder if its the same one "........... and realised it was my post and this thread is 7 years old .

Slinks off ............

WhoTF reanimated this thread?

I clicked the geode link and it was 'error' damnation!

Just taken over as Chair of our PTA, so I'm shamelessly stealing the ideas from this zombie thread