Carnival Games

Fun Carnival Games for for kids

See our Carnival Theme Birthday Party Ideas for more fun ideas

Carnival Games

Can Pyramid Use empty cans (paint them bright colors) and stack them in a pyramid shape on a table. Have guests throw bean bags at the pyramid and try to knock them over.  Either 6 or 10 cans will work and you may want to make a few extra to speed up the re-set process. We Spray painted plastic milk containers silver and used it as our pyramid toss.

Ring Toss Fill 2 liter bottles with water and set them in a triangle shape about 4 feet from where the children will be throwing the rings.  Make a triangle from 6, 10 or 15 bottles.  Buy rings from Oriental Trading or recycle old butter tub lids by cutting rings from them. We made this ring toss game by recycling water bottles.  We hot glued them down to a large box top and then decorated around them.  The white tops were worth 1 point and the blue tops were worth 3 points.

Duck Pond Grab Carnival guests pick rubber ducks out of a wading pool - they win a prize according to the number on the bottom of the duck. Write the numbers 1 - 5 (repeat numbers according to how many ducks you have) on the bottom of the ducks and place in the pool full of a few inches of water. In back of the pool on a table have 5 baskets with different prizes and number the baskets 1 through 5. Carnival guests pick up a duck to see what number is on the bottom then win the prize that corresponds to the number of the prize basket. If the carnival guest picks up a duck with the number 4 on the bottom, they get a prize form the number 4 basket. It’s a simple game, but children love it! The more ducks the better in the pool … give them away for party favors after the carnival. On these ducks (see picture) we simply put a "W" on the bottom of some of the ducks for "winner" - then the child got to pick a prize.  *If you want your duck pond inside use foam peanuts or rice in place of water.

Ping Pong Ball Toss Set out fish bowls or use large plastic cups for this fun game.  If you use large plastic cups hot glue them onto a large piece of thick cardboard.  Line the bowls or cups up side by side so there are no gaps between the containers.  Give players 3 ping pong balls and tell them to try and get the balls into the cups.  This is harder then it looks because the ping pong balls bounce around!  You can also choose several random cups and color them a different color and if a ball lands in the special cups the player gets a bigger prize.  Tip:  Make sure and contain this game with at least 3 walls as the balls tend to bounce everywhere.  For this Ping Pong ball game we used large and small cups - the larger cups were double points since there were fewer of them.

Super Tic Tac Toe Create a super Tick Tac Toe board (at least 4' x 4' ... if you have the room make it as large as possible!) with butcher paper or a large sheet and duct tape for the lines ... or if you have a large flat area of concrete you can put the duct tape down directly on the ground.  Buy or you can make several beanbags and give each player 3.  Tell them to make a tic tac toe (either 3 beanbags in a row across, down or diagonal) to win a prize.  We made this Tic Tac Toe board from red butcher paper and it is 4.5 feet x 4.5 feet.

Circle toss Create a large playing board with a sheet or butcher paper (at least 4' x 4').  Cut out paper circles about 3" in diameter)  and glue them on the playing board - space them at least an inch or more apart in a random design.  Lay the board on the ground and about 4' from the board make a line where the players will stand behind to play.  Give each player 5 - 10 pennies (or recycle water bottle lids) and ask them to try and get their markers to land completely in the circle - they can't hang over the circle onto the playing board.

Racetrack Players move across a racetrack to win a prize.  This game can be played 2 ways but both require a large racetrack.  Make the racetrack by laminating large sheets of butcher paper about 15 feet long and 8 feet wide.  Divide the track into 6 long lanes with at least 10 spaces in each lane.  Color or put down 6 different colors or construction paper into the lanes - one color per lane.  Carnival players pick a color and stand in their lane.

Jail Roundup A fun carnival game that kids really enjoy!  Decorate an area or a several large appliance boxes as a jail and have volunteers dress as western sheriffs or police officers.   Guests pay the sheriff a ticket to put someone they name in jail for 3 minutes.  Give the sheriff a whistle and handcuffs to go and arrest the person the player has named.  The person is then brought back and placed inside the jail.  They can either wait the 3 minutes or pay a ticket to get out right away.  This is the "Jail" we made from large appliance boxes before it was decorated around the bottom with hay bales and pumpkins.  All the kids wanted to be "arrested"!  The sheriffs had a table to the left where they kept track of everyone's time.

Party games just for girls - Girls birthday party games 

Party games for boys only - Boys birthday party games

Party Games for all ages - Birthday Party Games