Christmas fair for preschool-year 2....what activities besides bloody face painting??

[lilQuidditchKel]

Hey all

Our preschool/nursery (up to yr2) is having its annual Christmas fair next month.

We need to set up a booth and do something interesting that will entice the children to pay us a small amount. In the past I guess face painting has gone down well.

Any other ideas for things we could do?

Manicures?

Wii station is a bit premature methinks...

TIA!

Manicures - especially with lots of glittery pink always goes down well and is relatively quick.

Our fair also has decorating a plate to put mince pies on etc for Santa and decorating biscuits - but this is pretty messy. They also sell oats with glitter in as 'reindeer food'

They also do one where the little ones choose a present for mummy / daddy and then helpers wrap it and help them to write the card. Parents donate books, toiletries etc. I still treasure the wooden teddy my DD2 got me last year! Price range is normally 20p - 50p.

Precut red card into stocking shapes.

The children stick a cotton wool strip across the cuff, then decorate.

Cut snowflakes with the children, then stick the snowflake onto old CDs, stick a loop of cord on, voila a tree decoration.

HTH

Ooooh these are really super ideas. THanks so much! Any more are very welcome still!

SmileyMiley - re the plate decorating, how was this done? Were they proper china plates which were painted at the fair? Or were they plastic, or paper? Just wondering about details....thx again.

Decorating biscuits - buy rich tea,couple of bowls of coloured icing, lots of decorations and plastic sheet underneath.

One that we did quite successfully was to buy keyrings from baker ross which the children could put a picture in. We then had wrapping paper/sellotape/gift tags so that they could wrap it up as a surprise Christmas present for their Mum or Dad. It does require quite a few helpers though as parents obviously need to stay away.

Another Baker Ross idea, get clear baubles for the children to decorate with porcelain pens - they always go down well at our fair.

Hi Prufrock & thanks...for the key rings, what kind of pictures were put in? If it was one of the child, how was it done there at the fair? Polaroid?

tattoos from Baker Ross - dead cheap, quick and popular.

if you have time make salt dough decorations - use Christmas biscuit cutters and make a hole in before you bake. - charge to paint and glitter them

Baker Ross has scratch art craft which is easy and with virtually no mess. The range includes Christmas decorations/crowns/masks etc, mostly costing about 30p each so you'd make a small profit at 50p and a better one at £1.

If you do manicures then you should offer something for boys - Baker Ross also has a box of 144 pirate tattoos for about £9.

Or, and this is the best thing I ever made, make a treasure island. Easiest to make with playdoh but I've also done a real 'sand' version. Use a plastic tray, build a big yellow island in the middle with a few bracken palm trees and Playmobil pirates/rowing boat etc for decoration, put blue playdoh round the edge for the sea and put in a few plastic sharks/dolphins. Then make a 'treasure island' sign on scrolled up paper, possibly singed around the edges and fixed to two twigs/straws and pushed into the playdoh. Make flags using white sticky labels folded around a cocktail stick, children pay money, write name on flag and stick it where they think the treasure is. Either choose winner randomly, or draw a cross on a sheet of cellophane and hold it over the island and whoever is nearest wins. We gave out a 'shark game' from Woolies as 1st prize that cost about £5 and was in a nice big box!

at our local school they did manicures for the girls and stick on tattoos for the boys did a roaring trade and dd and ds loved it charged 50p each!

Oh you are all so helpful, thank you.

I'm new to school fundraising events (obv!) ... so am wondering how materials for the fair are normally funded. Eg, who buys in the tatoos, nail varnish, materials for decorations, etc? Does the parents' association normally expect individual parents to volunteer/donate items, or does the association buy all the materials needed?

Thx...

ours it is some and some 0- I've made salt dough decs in the past and not claimed my expenses, but when i HAVE BOUGHT FROM bAKER rOSS ETC CLAIMED MY COSTS. (Ooops sorry!)

nail varnish just ask for donations - lots of people will have the odd bottle lurking in a cupboard, and buy up cheap oddments in lurid colours in bargain bins

Hook a bag game always popular at school with little ones - ask for donations of soft toys, place in gift bags with handles, child hooks a bag with a long pole. Prize every time, 50p a go!

Buy some really cheap terracotta pots. Either paint them before hand in red and green, or just leave them unpainted.

Provide paint, glitter, sequins etc. for children to decorate their own pots.

Have you got access to a laminator?

Cut out large "labels" with the words "Father Christmas please stop here for " on them. Leave a border round the edge. Charge for decorating the border with sequins, glitter, pens etc.

Laminate the labels, puch a hole and put a ribbon through to hang on the front door.

Pictures were just ones the children drew - we used felt tips and glitter glue.

Another really good game which can earn lots of money if you get some competitive parents is the marble flowerpot game.
Get an old fashioned pot flowerpot with a hole in the bottom slightly bigger than a marble. Sit it upside down in a big, deep tray, which you fill with about 100 marbles. Supply a variety of spoons - different shapes/sizes. Contestants pay £1 and get 1 minute to put as many marbles into the pot as they can, and the winner in each group gets a prize - we split it into under 7's, under 16's and adults. Last year we had 2 Dad's who had about 10 goes each to try to get the top score!

Am currently stealing these ideas for our preschool fair!

LAst year we raised over £400 (only about 30 children but do fair straight after nativity so you get [arents/grandparents etc) we had

Presents for Mummy/Daddy - all cheap presnets we picked up in sale so small bottle of hand lotion, socks that were £2 for 5 pairs but sold them as individual pairs, child paid £1.50 picked a presnet we wrapped and wrote the tag

Make your own reindeer food (oaks and glitter) plus another commitee member kept all baby food jars and cut material out for lids (attached with elastic band) and stuck reindeer stickers on front

Raffle - 2 main prizes are adults hamper (wine/chocs etc) and childrens hamper (toys, selection pack, colouring etc) then any other prizes such as vouchers/day passes as smaller raffle prizes

Children made salt dough stars and decorated them at school we put a tree up and hung them on and sold them

Lucky dip (small xmas related prized from poundland normally stickers/pencils etc)

Hook a duck (prize small packet haribo)

But going to mention decorating paper plates to put santas mince pie on for this year plus the tattoo idea!

Love the marble idea!

and if we get organised we are going to send a letter to parents asking if they'd like a letter from santa, we'd ask parents to provide childs name/age and one thing they may like for xmas ie doll/game etc and then type the details up on a christmassy letter and post (I can do this at work charge £1-£1.50 a letter and they get it couple of weeks before xmas

Message withdrawn

LilQuidditchkel,

Re paper or real plates. We used real plates (cheap ones from Ikea I think). Once painted, the parents had to bake in the oven for 10 mins to set the paint. (But it wasn't dishwasher proof). We also did a little bowl, plate and mug for the children's christmas breakfast.

thx smileymylee

Name the teddy - see if you can get a local shop to donate one (one of those great big ones that kids love but parents dread winning!). Make up a big chart on a piece of card with 100 name options on it (Fluffy, Dumpy, Cuddly, Fred) and charge 20p a guess. Winning one wins the teddy.