Offer crafts and games about pumpkins, scarecrows and sunflowers.
A fall party may be the first school party of the year for kindergarten students. Play simple games and make fall-themed crafts to entertain the children. Since kindergartners tend to have short attention spans, consider having parent volunteers run several games and crafts at the same time. Children can rotate around the stations so that everyone gets a turn to try every activity without a long wait in line.
Bean Bag Toss
Feed corn to a crow with a beanbag toss game adapted from Kaboose.com. (See Reference 1) Paint a large picture of a crow's head on a piece of white poster board, leaving the crow's beak open. Tape the poster board to a large cardboard box. Cut a hole for the crow's mouth through both the poster board and the cardboard box. Children can earn points for tossing yellow bean bags into the crow's mouth.
Fall Bingo
The Idea Box suggests playing a fall version of Bingo, using candy corns as game markers. (See Reference 2) Make Bingo boards featuring letters, numbers, colors or shapes. Write or draw corresponding symbols on index cards. Give each child a Bingo board and a handful of candy corns. Draw an index card and call out the name of the symbol. Children can mark Bingo squares with the candy corn. The first child to cover the board wins the game. At the end of the game, children can eat the candy corn for a snack.
Ring Toss
Challenge kindergarten children to a fall-themed ring toss game, as described by Disney FamilyFun. (See Reference 3) Assign point levels to three medium-sized pumpkins. Paint or draw the point levels on the pumpkins, and set them in a line so that the pumpkin worth the fewest points is closest to the player. Give children three tries to toss hula-hoops over the pumpkins to accumulate points. The child with the highest number of points wins the game.
Sunflower Craft
Children can make a quick sunflower while waiting for parents to arrive for the fall party. (See Reference 4) Pre-cut small squares of yellow tissue paper. Children can scrunch the tissue paper squares into balls, then dip them into glue and stick them onto the edges of a paper plate. Squeeze glue in the middle of the plate, and drop sunflower seeds onto the glue. FreeKidsCrafts.com suggests using black tissue paper to represent seeds if real sunflower seeds are not available.
Paper Bag Scarecrow
Parents and kindergartners can work together to make a scarecrow craft from BusyBeeKidsCrafts.com. (See Reference 5) Stuff a small paper lunch sack with crumpled newspaper. Fold over the top and tape it down. Cut strips of yellow construction paper and glue them to the top of the bag for straw hair. Cut out black circle eyes and an orange triangle nose and glue them to the bag. Draw a smile with a black marker, then add vertical lines across the mouth to look like stitches. Glue a coffee filter to the top of the bag for a hat, and add a construction paper flower.
Tags: poster board, tissue paper, candy corn, candy corns, construction paper