Homecoming Week is a much-anticipated week in high school and college. It’s filled with week-long spirit activities getting the students, staff and community riled up for the big game. It’s also a week of hard work getting those Homecoming parade floats ready in time. Here are some ideas for Homecoming floats if you are having trouble brain-storming.
First let me begin by saying that you should be able to find all you need for these projects at your local retail store, lumber yard, and party stores. If not get creative, and ask your neighbors for help, especially if you see they have cardboard boxes, outdoor carpeting, or scrap wood they don’t want anymore!
Cheer / Spirit Float:
Show your school’s Homecoming game energy with a float completely filled with school color, spirited cheerleaders, or the dance or step team. Decorate the entire trailer with your school colors. You can use poster board or sheetrock building material to go along the outside of the trailer. Paint these a school color. In another school color, paint in big bold letters something relating to Homecoming, like “Let’s go Knights” for example. Then use garland in that same writing color to outline the boards. You can buy skirting material in school colors and/or a neutral white or tan color to sit below the boards outlining the trailer. This will help cover up the trailer’s tires. For the area you’ll be standing on, boarding and frame material can be bought at your local lumber yard. If you don’t want to build a “stage”, you can just use the bottom of the trailer itself to stand on. Decorate the floor with balloons in school colors, pom poms, cardboard cutouts of a #1 for your school. The cheerleaders, dance, or step team in their outfits can then climb aboard and stir up the madness for the game.
WIN Float:
Decorate the trailer along the same lines as the one above (boards outlining the trailer, fringes, etc. all in school colors). On the trailer floor have cardboard cutouts of a #1, and cutouts inferring a Vikings “kill”. For example, if you are the Vikings and you’re playing the Panthers, have a cardboard cutout or stuffed animal panther roasting over a fake fire. The stakes and fire can be make of real sticks, and the flame for the fire can be a cardboard cutout. Another example, if you’re playing the Sharks, have someone’s boat as your float. You can have fishermen students up top with their big game reels and big cutout or stuffed animal bloody and defeated sharks on display. You want to express that your school is going to “kill” (defeat) the other team.
Football Team Float
You can’t leave out the most important part of the Homecoming parade – the football players! The team’s float should be the biggest, best float out there. Think of your team’s arrival. For example, if your mascot is the Pirates, have a huge float themed a pirate ship with the football team players riding on it. If all of them won’t fit on the float, they can walk beside it, dressed in their jerseys or whole outfits, but still wear pirate hats. If your mascot is the Warriors, have some horses. The mascot and the players in their jerseys should be riding on them. They should be decorated with feathers, ribbons in their horses mane, and anything really Warrior- and school color-related. The rest of the football players will be walking with this group. They can wear Warrior headgear or face paint. The team floats should be at the end of the Homecoming Parade to wrap up the festivities and leave them with the excitement and strong attitudes needed to win the night’s game.
Class of ___ Float
For the Class floats, decorate a flat trailer with skirting, poster or boards as above. You’ll want to have your class colors and maybe your class flower as the theme. Make sure you have large cardboard cut outs of the class year you are representing. You don’t have to put 2010 or 2015, but just the last part of the year, 10, 15, etc. Refrigerator boxes are usually tall enough to use as cut outs. You can also use sheet rock which is more sturdy. Cut them out and paint. You can make stands for the cut outs out of leftover boards / wood. Set up the year against the back part of the float. Otherwise, if you put the year sideways in the middle, it will read correctly on one side of the street, and be opposite on the other side of the street. This float should have the class officers riding on it.
No-Riders Float
It may not be as fun, but having a float in the parade without people riding on it is an option. Some no-rider floats could be a school clubs decorating a small trailer to reflect both their club and their Homecoming spirit. Examples of this: the Spanish Club decorating a small utility trailer in skirting to hide the sides of the trailer all the way around. On the floor or wooden platform added across the trailer rails would be a huge pinata of the rival team’s mascot. The pinata could be made to appear busted open with pieces of candy on the bottom of the floor / platform. Then, you could add wording to the side of the trailer made out of cut out letters saying something about Victory. It could be in English, Spanish, or Spanglish. Another example: the FFA club (Future Farmers of America) could use a tractor or loader as their float. The bucket part of the tractor could be carrying the rivals slaughtered mascot (made of stuffed paper, leaves, straw, wood, cardboard, or it could be a large stuffed animal). The tractor bucket could have poster board attached to its sides saying “Slaughter the ___ (rival mascot)”.
