ideas for preschool open day

donna73

Hi hope I am posting in the right place, if not feel free to move it.

I am on the committee of my daughter's preschool, and we are currently in the process of moving to a new building, where we'd like to have an open day once everything is ready.
We will do a homemade cake stall and cups of tea/ coffee, maybe face painting, and I was thinking we could give a balloon to each child, and a flyer to any adults with session times and info about the preschool on. The actual building isn't that big but we do have a bit of outside space we could use too.
We run as a charity so do not have lots of funds to use, any ideas for stalls, activities etc we could do on the day?

fengirl_2

When I worked for the Lottery I went to the opening of a pre-school we had funded where they had people dressed as the Tweenies wandering about talking to the children. Mind you, I tought they were terrifying!

moo2moo

Invite your mayor or mayoress along. There should be an on line form to fill in from your local council website. Free and you can ask them to wear their chains and wot not. Kids love it.

Do you have a community play association? We have "Wrexham Play Association" who charge £20 per year for membership but go on to hire bouncy castles and a coconut shy for £3 per day each.

How about balloon modelling? thats something you can do yourself, unless you're as cack-handed as me. No matter how many times my 5 year old demonstrates the art of making a dog or a flower I end up with something looking like a string of sausages. Balloons usually work out at 8p each. There are lots of on-line instruction guides too.

Savvy_Sue

Think a bit about whether you want to raise funds, or more awareness at this day. If it's awareness, then I would concentrate on having your 'normal' activities going on alongside the tea and cakes, but get plenty of helpers in to 'show visitors around' as it were - nothing worse than WW2 breaking out between two little darlings while you are distracted by their parents' questions!

If it's raising funds, do you have any contacts with the local infant / junior schools? If you do, see if they would lend you any of the bits and pieces they've probably got for summer fairs - fishing for ducks is always popular at this age, or a treasure hunt where coins are hidden in sand (although I confess I don't remember how this one works!)

MommaCC

A teddy bear hunt is always great fun, using either cardboard cut outs, or better still - the real things, and setting parent & child on a mission to find the missing cuddlies

donna73

great idea mommacc, i think they would like that! thanks

Matthew_Pericard

Hi, I'm not sure if this would be much help but when my kids were at preschool we held a number of activity and fund raising days at which we invited the a number of small local animal based charities. This was amazing! All the kids thoroughly enjoyed the interaction with live animals. We found this not only provided entertainment for our activity day but helped raise awareness of the local charity and its needs.

I would definitely recommend this for your event

ashlea170706

how about guess the name of the teddy? or how many sweets in the jar? you could have a raffle also get some people to bring some things in from home so you can sell them and make some funds things that people dont want others usually do! or you could have a tombola (dont know if thats spelt right) hope its some help! ash

code-a-holic

I am the secretary for a playgroup, like you are charity funded, we hold 4 fundraisers a year - if it wasnt for these we would not exist!
We have a cup stall. Ask parents to fill a mug at home and donate. They are wrapped in cellophane. We stick a raffle number on each and fold teh other in a box. A £1 per go. We asked local companies for donations for fundraising and a company gave us £50 mugs. So this year we have been doing these ourselves(the commitee). Always goes down well.

We held a halloween party last year - the saturday after halloween and asked shops in town if we could have their used decorations. The hall looked fab and had a good turn out.

Trying to recall past stalls....
Raffle,
Lucky dip,
Face painting,
Cake stall,
Cup stall,
Guess the teddy's name,

Have also done car wash saturdays, quiz night in village pub

Bonaventure_babes

Hi donna73.Make sure to get the photographer from your local paper to visit and maybe you should have a short, ready prepared piece written about how far the preschool has come and your hopes for the future:D