The Carnival was Complete with a Little Help from OTC

One of the things I love about the end of the school year is the annual (for the last 4 years anyway) spring carnival. I am on the planning committee for our carnival but nearly all of the work and all of the stress for this event is on my teaching partner, Maria. The carnival is her baby and each year all of the stress, hard work, & planning are forgotten the moment the carnival is over. 

Our carnival is a true community event. The PTA sells food & hosts the dunk tank. (Starbucks for any third grader who dunks the principal. Yeah, I bribe them!) We have a parent whose two older kids I have had in my class bring in bounce houses and this year we had the police and fire departments bring in some of their cars/trucks. 

We have local high school students volunteer come in and run the face painting station. It is truly a community event and I love to see all of the kids having so much fun! 

This year we also had help from The Oriental Trading Company. As a brand ambassador for them, I was gifted several items that helped make our carnival an even bigger success. Some of our stations were starting to show their age. We were able to replace one with a football toss game. This required an inflatable football player/catcher. 


Rather than doing a cake/cupcake walk last year we had a licorice walk. This year, thanks to OTC we had a lollipop walk with we had a licorice walk. This year, thanks to OTC we had a lollipop walk with star-shaped swirl lollipops. This game was a hit! Sadly, we ran out of the lollipops well before the end of the carnival. These grape suckers were a huge hit! Next year we will need to make sure we have a lot more than 3 dozen! 

The carnival committee, okay, okay, Maria, orders quite a bit from OTC for carnival prizes. This year we were able to offset this a bit with donations of metallic shaped smile face rings, an assortment of gliders, and a super toy assortment. For some stations, kids were given any one of these wonderful prizes, for other stations they were allowed to select their prizes. No matter what everyone kids from ages 2 - 69 had a blast and in the end that is all that really counts. And it was a blast, even when it was exhausted! 

 Do you have a school carnival or some other fun activity like this at the end of the year? When and what is it? Do you participate running a game? Or do you just attend for fun? Please let me know in the comments below how your school celebrates the end of the year (and raises money too!). 

Disclaimer: Some of the items mentioned in this post were provided to me for review. All comments and thoughts are my own.