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"Sell" hotdogs, hamburgers, popcorn, lemonade, cupcakes, and ice cream cones at a food booth. Have a friend or older child run it. Send food tickets ahead in the mail or give them out as the children arrive.

To avoid cooking during the party, just sell popcorn, cupcakes, ice cream cones, and lemonade.

DECORATIONS

Using card tables and tents, set up a fairground in your house or apartment or outside. Here are some ideas for booths.

* Food Booths

* Fortune-teller's Booth. Ask a friend to dress up as a fortuneteller.

* Game Booths. Ask friends or older children to run them.

* Horror House Booth. Set up a tent. Ask a friend to dress up as a witch who tells children eerie stories and asks them to stick their hands into bowls of "cat's eyeballs" (peeled grapes), "monster brains" (cold spaghetti and oil), "a giant's tongue" (cooked beef tongue), "mice brains" (raisins soaked in water), "toad's eggs" (tapioca). The horror house is best for children ages eight and up.

FAVORS, PRIZES, ITEMS FOR TREAT BAGS

Pinwheels, balloons, tickets, play money

INSIDE GAMES AND ACTIVITIES, NONCOMPETITIVE

1. Fortune-teller.

2. Sock Ball Booth. Children throw sock balls at a grownup's head sticking through a poncho or a sheet of plastic.

3. Polaroid Picture Booth. On a huge piece of cardboard, draw a monster with a wide-open mouth. Cut a head-size hole inside the mouth. A child stands behind the cardboard and sticks his or her head through the hole. A grownup stands in front and snaps a photo of the head in the monster's jaws.

INSIDE GAMES, COMPETITIVE

1. Raffle. The birthday child draws the name of one of the party guests out of a bag. The winner receives a prize.

2. Penny Pitch Game Booth. Put plates on the floor. Children take turns trying to toss pennies onto them. Each plate counts for different points. Whoever gets the most points wins.

OUTSIDE GAMES AND ACTIVITIES, NONCOMPETITIVE

1. Candy Hunt

2. Spud

OUTSIDE GAMES, COMPETITIVE

1. Relay Races

2. Pie-Eating Contests

3. Tug of War

4. Hose the Target. Set up a stepladder on the grass near a garden hose. Put several different-sized stacks of paper cups on a table or sawhorse a distance from the ladder. Ask the children to climb the ladder and try to knock the cups off with water from the hose. Increase the distance and add rocks to the cups to make it harder.