October is chock-full of interesting and creative ways to earn money for your school needs. In our last post, we discussed food-centric PTA fundraising ideas. This post, we're stepping away from food and bringing on PTA fundraising ideas centered around science, cats and Halloween.
Let's get started!
October Holiday PTA Fundraising Ideas
October 14-20 - Earth Science Week
This is the perfect opportunity to add curriculum to your PTA fundraising ideas.
- Offer a Name Your Plant activity. Let students pick out and purchase a plant in a small pot. Next, have volunteers write the plant's name (chosen by the student) on a small, "fancy" nameplate that students can put near the plant or glue to the pot at home.
- Provide a list of good plant names - such as Green Beauty or Flowing Fiona - for younger kids to choose from. Names that start with the same letter as the name of the plant, such as Sierra, the succulent, are good. Have fun with this!
- Offer a Quicksand Experiment for sale. This is really fun experiment and simple to do! PTA members can put together contents for the experiment in Zip-Lock bags along with the directions. Let students purchase these kits ahead of time for an easy fundraiser that gets kids doing science at home. Download free labels and directions by subscribing below.
October 29 - Cat Day
Cat day is the perfect opportunity to show some enthusiasm for man's second best friend! (Some would say man's first best friend!)
- Allow students to enter a cat drawing contest. Award prizes for various categories such as: funniest cat, most colorful cat, sweetest cat, etc. Give each participant a cat pencil or other small cat token. Post all drawings in the school so that others can appreciate the illustrations.
- Choose 4-5 funny cat pictures from the Internet and allow students to vote for one to serve as the unofficial PTA mascot. Students can pay a small fee to vote for their favorite cat and enter into a drawing to win some cat-themed prizes.
- Place the winning cat on your PTA bulletin board and allow him/her to "stand by" important information. This is an easy way to bring attention and humor to your bulletin board throughout the year.
Halloween PTA Fundraising Ideas
Halloween provides the perfect occasion to drum up some fun and earn some money. Here are three of our favorite ideas.
Goodie Bags
- Allow students to preorder Halloween Surprise Bags. Fill small Halloween bags with an assortment of items from pencils to bouncy balls to wrapped gummy teeth candy.
- Consider placing prize tokens in a few of the bags. The students that get a prize token win a bigger prize - such as an inflatable hammer or something fun of the sorts.
- Don't worry about putting the exact same thing in every bag. That's part of the appeal of getting a surprise bag. You do, however, want to make sure that the bags are pretty evenly filled with fun stuff.
Yucky grabs
This fundraiser is a bit more work, and a bit more mess... but it is the one kids would remember for years to come.
- Students buy tickets to a Halloween Yuck Grab. These are known by many names and you have probably done this yourself.
- Choose containers to put items in. Make sure the containers are liquid proof.
- Decide on a theme - for schools you may want to make it more tame, less grotesque. Something like Spooky, Yucky Halloween Mystery Boxes is good.
- Cover the containers and write down what item the students will be touching.
- Allow students to place their hands inside the box without looking at whatever is inside. Tell them ahead of time not to put their hand all the way into the very bottom...this is for touching, not immersing hands in.
- Some ideas are: oiled up noodles (brains), pudding and some liquid (witches brew), corn silk (goblin hair), balls of slime (giant boogers), balls of wax from Wixi Sticks (earwax), fruit salad mixed with oatmeal and water (vomit).
Hallo-Grams
This fundraiser is similar to a Valentine's exchange, with hearts and flowers replaced with friendly ghosts and pumpkins.
- Younger students can purchase Hallo - Grams for their teachers and families.
- Older students -middle and high - may purchase for friends to be delivered during the day. Younger kids may not understand if they don't get any.
- You have the option of adding a piece of candy or pencil, etc. to the Hallo-Gram.
Whether you decide to hold a fundraiser with food or one without, October is filled with holidays and events that provide perfect themes that your PTA can use to create excitement and fun for the entire school.
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