Games that liven up festivals. Ideas that children can enjoy.
Festivals and fair days are fun events that kids can take part in, aren’t they? In addition to local festivals, many kindergartens, nursery schools, and elementary schools also plan summer festivals, don’t they? In this article, we’ve gathered ideas for festival games and activities recommended for those who want to find games that kids will love or want to know about events beyond food stalls.
It’s packed with fun ideas you can enjoy both indoors and outdoors, so please use it as a reference.
If you’re making the games by hand, having the children help will make great memories!
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Games that liven up festivals. Ideas that children can enjoy (11–20)
Cardboard Frisbee
Cardboard Frisbee: throw a frisbee at holes cut into a cardboard target! It’s a bit like a strikeout-style game, but since controlling a frisbee is harder than throwing a ball, you’ll enjoy a different kind of fun.
Draw animals, people, or characters on the cardboard target and cut out the mouth area large enough for the frisbee to pass through.
That way, it looks like you’re tossing food into their mouths, creating a unique target.
Feel free to get creative with the drawings and try all kinds of variations!
PET bottle darts
At first glance it may seem plain, but once you try it, it’s guaranteed to be a blast! That unexpectedly exciting game is “Plastic Bottle Darts.” The rules are simple: stand a plastic bottle upright and drop a pair of chopsticks from above, aiming for the mouth of the bottle.
Despite its simplicity, the real appeal lies in its depth—it tests focus and fine motor skills.
It’s perfect for summer festivals and fair-style events at preschools, kindergartens, and elementary schools, and by adjusting the distance or the number of chopsticks to match the age group, students of any grade can enjoy it.
It’s a game with very simple prep and materials, yet it creates unforgettable memories.
Yo-yo fishing
Yo-yo fishing is a classic at night stalls and temple fairs.
There’s a hook at the end of the paper string, and you use it to snag the little rubber ring attached to the yo-yo water balloon and lift it out.
Since the string is made of paper, it will tear if it gets wet, so be careful to keep it dry, and lift slowly while considering the weight of the yo-yo.
Ball rolling game
The ball-rolling game is where you roll a ball over a bunch of paper cups lined up, and you get the prize in whichever cup the ball lands in.
Since all you do is roll the ball, it’s a festival game that even small children can enjoy.
You can put prizes in the paper cups, change the cup colors and make it a points-based game, or put winning tickets in only a few cups—feel free to get creative.
If you keep the prizes separate, you can get just the paper cups and a ball at a 100-yen shop, so it’s very easy to set up.
Handmade food stall
When you think of fair and festival events, the first thing that comes to mind is food stalls, right? How about making the stalls themselves out of cardboard? Not only the day of the festival—building the stall is fun too, so it’s perfect for building excitement and atmosphere leading up to the event.
It’s surprisingly easy: just combine a few large cardboard boxes to make the table section and attach the roof on top.
Let the little kids take charge of decorating the signs for takoyaki or cotton candy—they’ll have a blast.
If you have red cardboard, you could even make homemade lanterns!
Stacking empty cans
Precisely because it’s a fun festival, it’s important to stay mindful all the way through to the final cleanup.
By washing the empty cans generated during the festival and using them for a game, people may become more conscious about keeping the venue clean.
The rules are simple: within a time limit, players compete to see how many empty cans they can stack.
Even if the stack collapses, you can try again as many times as you like within the time limit; your record is the highest number of cans you successfully stack.
Even when it feels like you’ve reached your limit, boldly going for one more layer can be the key to victory.
Games that liven up festivals. Ideas kids can enjoy (21–30)
Goldfish scooping
Goldfish scooping—the classic sight at summer festivals and fair stalls.
Didn’t everyone try it at least once as a child? It’s also fun just to watch goldfish of various sizes, from red ones to black telescope-eye goldfish, gracefully swimming about.
And goldfish scooping really shows kids’ personalities: some plunge their poi into the water without hesitation, while others carefully survey the different fish and think hard about which one to scoop.
You don’t see it as often these days, but it’s something you’d love for them to experience at least once.