Candyland Theme

At the kid's school this last week they had their Winter Wonderland event. Our theme was CANDYLAND. I volunteered to help with the decorations. Here's some ideas for how to decorate and some ideas for carnival-like games to play. This is what we came up with:

 GINGERBREAD HOUSE

 I was in charge of decorating the main entrance of the school to look like a gingerbread house. I used precut foam gingerbread that I painted with glitter glue to make them sparkle. My husband and I also spent an evening cutting out all the gumdrop shapes out of glittered scrapbook paper. The roof was made out of circular craft foam that I found in packages of 24 at the dollar store. One of the other mothers had the inflatable gingerbread men- they added just the right touch I think.

This is how it looked from the inside looking out...

CANDY DECORATIONS

The candies were made from blown up balloons stuffed in clear plastic and then tied on the ends with ribbon.

One mother made all the beautiful lollipops and candy decor for the tree. The suckers are painted Styrofoam (and glittered) wrapped in iridescent cellophane with a dowel rod for the stick.The candies on the tree were toilet paper rolls wrapped in cellophane and tied with ribbons.

OTHER DECORATIONS...

These are decorations that I made:

 Peppermint trees 

We took branches that had fallen from a recent heavy wet snow, set them in cement in a #10 can and then spray painted everything white. Then we added white lights and peppermint ornaments.

 gingerbread boy

 gingerbread girl

 We hung them on the bathroom doors

 5 ft tall gumball machine. The "glass" part I covered in vinyl to give it a shiny look.

 "Hershey's" Kiss. I took a cardboard cake round and put it in the bottom of an open plastic walmart bag. Then we stuffed a layer of old wadded up walmart bage into it until it was full and then tied it at the top. I then took tinfoil and wrapped it around my "mold" and shaped the top like a kiss. I printed off the tag to say LEGACY instead of Hershey for the final touch.

 OTHER DECOR

We had Penguin inflatibles and the kids made all the candycanes that we hung up all over the school. We also put up paper to look like the Candyland game board all over the walls. One mother even wrapped up buckets to look like cupcakes.

CARNIVAL GAMES

We had carnival games set up in the gym. Here's a few:

 Lollipop Tree

Each lollipop has a colored bottom on the stick- they got a prize to go with whatever color they pulled. Then they got to keep the sucker.

 This is a Velcro Tic-Tac-Toe board. The kids threw the balls trying to win. Everyone got a prize at the end, regardless of if they won or not.

 This is a "Plinko" board (like on the Price is Right).

We called it a "GUM DROP" since they dropped the ball to play

 We called this the "tootsie roll".

We had 3 kids rolling the dice at one time, whoever got the highest rolls had corresponding prizes, although everyone got a prize.

 "Christmas Tree Toss"

This game is basically ring toss.

 We used glowing necklaces for the rings.

 On this game you had to try to bounce a ball off the table and into the cups.

 Here is the side view.

Duck Pond

The kids pulled a duck out of a plastic swimming pool and got a prize that corresponded with whatever # was on the bottom of the duck.

 I Spy

Kids got to look for various holiday themed baubles in the canister.

We also had a bake sale, craft, pictures with Santa, a cake walk, and a hay ride, although I didn't get pictures of those events for some reason.