PTAers - Good ideas for prizes at school fair

[Kazzia]

Has anyone got some good ideas for inexpensive prizes for stalls at the school fair?

I'm thinking of stalls which are fun but don't raise much moiney such as hoopla, hook a duck etc which cost about 20p a go and nearly everyone wins a prizes.

We always end up getting stuck between the relative merits of plastic tat (who needs more) & sweets (cheap but bad for teeth).

Has anyone got any alternative ideas which cost about 10p each and go down well with kids?

Tough one! We have that dilemma at our PTA and always have either plastic tat or sweets. Maybe something cheap, but not quite so plasticy - nice pencil? Or a home-baked bun - not quite so bad for teeth and kids always like buns? That would also be free, provided you have lots of willing bakers.

Pencils always seem like a good idea but are actually quite expensive i.e. not 10p.

Not sure about buns - have visions of Bunteresque children walking around with piles of donuts!!!

Did wonder about some kind of prize voucher idea e.g. if you get 3 vouchers you get a free go on the bouncy castle.

Bumping for anyone else who's on this evening.

We did prize every time Adopt-an-animal last year. I collected loads of good condition cuddly animals via Freecycle (some needed a 30degree wash), printed out little adoption certificates. I stuck a name label on each animal and wrote the name on each certificate. On the day I sorted the animals into species so they were easy to find and folded the certificates up and put them in a tombola box.
Kids paid 30p a go or 50p for 2 and it was the first stall to sell out completely. You could just tape cloakroom tickets on to save time but it was really fun naming them all and at the end of the day you don't want a hall full of tombolas do you?

Pencils are cheap if you raid your locl Poundland (or similar). We did the giant punchball balloons, and bubbles - 10 for £1 from Poundland - for ours last year which went well. And I've currently got a garage full of frisbees which Tesco were selling off at the end of last summer for 11p each which are destined for use as prizes this year.

We still struggle to get away totally from the sweet option but one thing which has worked to reduce it is having a 'token table' . The children win tokens at the various stalls which they can save up to 'spend' at the token table. That way you can buy things which cost that little bit more because you set how many tokens are needed to get those items iyswim.

Temporary tattoos, nail stickers or glo-sticks.

Cake stall?
Sweet jar - each jar hasd a number on it, children pay xxx to pull a ticket and win the corrersponding jar?

Wine or water - bottles covered in paper covers with numbers on, draw a tocket to see what you get?

Lucky dip?

Treasure island?

We have non uniform days and the penalty for wearing casual clothes is bringing something in for prizes at the school fete. Works well, everybody knows what is expected and you end up with a real variation of stuff.

We also tap local supermarkets and garden nurseries for donations. I also grow sunflowers in platic cups that can be planted out at home.

Also keep you eyes peeled at all times for prizes of any discription in places like poundland or bargain shelf at supermarkets. You'll be amazed at what fab bargains you can collect. In Sainsburys I got plant your own venus fly traps left over from xmas at 10p each, so I just bought the lot, also things like magic code markers where you write in one pen and go over it with another to reveal whats written for about 15p - again I bought the lot.

Furball - I've got a boxfull of those magic spy pens left over from Christmas at our local Sainsbury's too. They must have massively overordered!