Games that liven up festivals. Ideas that children can enjoy.
Festivals and fair days are fun events that kids can take part in, aren’t they? In addition to local festivals, many kindergartens, nursery schools, and elementary schools also plan summer festivals, don’t they? In this article, we’ve gathered ideas for festival games and activities recommended for those who want to find games that kids will love or want to know about events beyond food stalls.
It’s packed with fun ideas you can enjoy both indoors and outdoors, so please use it as a reference.
If you’re making the games by hand, having the children help will make great memories!
Games that liven up a festival. Ideas kids can enjoy (1–10)
Super Ball scooping
Didn’t you do this at festivals and street fairs when you were a kid? It’s super ball scooping.
The colorful super balls give the stall that authentic feel and a summery vibe.
Just like goldfish scooping, you use a paper scooper (poi) to scoop up super balls, and you get to keep however many you scoop.
These days, it seems the prizes can vary depending on how many you get.
You know how you get greedy trying to scoop a big ball and the poi tears right away (lol).
It’s the kind of thing that even adults might get carried away with.
Fishing
How about trying a game where everyone goes fishing together? By “fishing,” I don’t mean catching real fish.
You draw pictures to make fish, attach paper clips to them, and catch them with fishing rods that have magnets.
You can use fish you’ve drawn, or you can make three-dimensional fish using envelopes, plastic bags, tissue paper, or pipe cleaners.
Making the fish together with the participating children would be really fun, too.
Set a time limit and see how many you can catch—give it a try!
Plastic Bottle Bowling
Bowling’s popularity shows signs of a modest comeback here and there.
Many malls and shopping centers now have bowling alleys attached.
Some even have kid-friendly lanes with no gutters.
With that in mind, we recommend a handmade, warm-and-fuzzy “PET bottle bowling” booth for festival stalls.
For small children, use empty plastic bottles and a sponge ball; for older kids, use plastic bottles filled with water and a volleyball—prepare pins and balls suited to each age group.
The key to making it a hit is to set a rule where players receive a prize no matter how many bottles they knock down.
Games that liven up festivals. Ideas that children can enjoy (11–20)
Candy fishing
There are probably many small children who have never tried fishing.
Letting them experience the feeling of fishing with a festival “candy fishing” game might be a good idea.
A common version uses magnets instead of hooks.
If the magnet on the line connects with the magnet attached to the candy, they can successfully “catch” it.
The fun of this activity is struggling a bit with the wobbly fishing line.
If you lengthen the line and place the prizes a little farther away, it also works well as a recreation for older elementary students.
It gets even more exciting if you mix in a secret prize among the candies.
target practice
It’s similar to a shooting gallery, but target ball is a safe game that uses balls, making it suitable even for small children.
You can line up prizes on a table and have players aim at them with balls, or you can assign points to targets and vary the prizes based on the total score.
There are many target-throw sets available for rent—panel types, parachute types, and more.
If your festival is large, renting is a good option.
For a small-scale festival, consider making it by hand and adjusting the difficulty according to the ages of the participating children.
darts
Let’s take cool darts and give them a fun, festive twist! Make the target using cardboard, Styrofoam, or similar materials.
A classic style where the points increase toward the center works well, but scattering various point values around the board is recommended so many people can play at once.
For the darts, make sure they’re safe for kids by matching the sticking method to the target material—tape, magnets, or hook-and-loop (Velcro) all work.
Drawing different pictures on the target will also grab children’s interest!
Cardboard Frisbee
Cardboard Frisbee: throw a frisbee at holes cut into a cardboard target! It’s a bit like a strikeout-style game, but since controlling a frisbee is harder than throwing a ball, you’ll enjoy a different kind of fun.
Draw animals, people, or characters on the cardboard target and cut out the mouth area large enough for the frisbee to pass through.
That way, it looks like you’re tossing food into their mouths, creating a unique target.
Feel free to get creative with the drawings and try all kinds of variations!