DIY Carnival Party Games

In case you missed yesterday's post on the party decorations, we recently had a birthday party for my 7-year-old and 2-year-old. Their birthdays are 10 days apart and I just don't have the energy to do two birthday parties two weeks apart! I'm hoping they let me get away with sharing birthdays for a few more years :)  This year, we decided to go with a Circus theme.  In addition to some fabulous entertainment and face-painting, we had a selection of DIY Carnival Games to keep the kids occupied.  The idea was to have the kids play the games to earn tickets and then trade their tickets in for prizes (in lieu of goodie bags).  This worked great for the older kids, but the little ones just had fun throwing balls and balloons around, so we ended up putting together prizes for them, as well.

Here are our Simple Homemade Carnival Games:

1.  Ring Toss - This one was made from paper towel rolls, paper plates, and poster board. 

 

And the little ones had so much fun playing it!

2.  Mouse Hole Roll - This one was great fun and just used a box and some plastic golf balls that I found on clearance at Target.

My original idea was to set this up on a table, but the balls kept rolling off and bouncing everywhere so it went on the floor instead.  {The little ones may have been cheating here :) }

3.   Can Toss Tumble - This classic game was easy to make with aluminum cans and scrapbook paper.  It got a little crazy during the party with cans and balls flying everywhere so I recommend having a large space and one person devoted just to helping with this game!

4.  Penny Toss - This was probably the easiest game to put together and the kids loved it!  For added fun, you could let the kids keep whatever pennies they get on the target.

 

5.  Goldfish Toss - For the last game, I used a piece of cardboard that I had lying around.  (I'm seriously turning into one of those craft hoarders who keep everything because it "might" come in handy for a project!  I may need an intervention!)  I painted it with our primary colors theme.

Then, I hot glued some clear plastic cups to the board.

For the prizes, I put goldfish crackers into ziploc bags and tied them up with ribbon and our winner printable.  I made all the signs and goodie bag favors using PowerPoint and the

The kids earned tickets when they won each of the games and at the end of the party, they traded them in for prizes.  We had 3 buckets worth different amounts of tickets.  Now, I have a confession to make.  While I did buy some of the prizes, most of them were things that we had around the house from countless other birthdays, church parties, and goodie bags from previous years, so really I spent about $10 total on the games and prizes (including a large box of goldfish). 

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