10 Tips for an awesome traditional birthday party
My daughter turned 5 a couple of weeks ago, so I decided to hire the local village hall and set about planning a party full of good old traditional party games and the kids loved it. To save you from any stress if you are planning to do the same, here are my top 10 tips -
1. Always have something for the children to do as they are arriving and between the games.
My party had a unicorn and superheroes theme, so I set up a superheroes obstacle course for the kids to play around on. If the children are quite young, you could borrow lots of ride on toys and have a race track or you could have a lego table, crafts, anything you want but it needs to be something that they can keep going back to.
This is also something that will entertain the children between games, keeping them up in the air, popping them etc, but they also make a room say ‘party’ like nothing else can.
You’ve got to do it, the most traditional of all party games surely? Well these days, there are certain expectations to uphold! Make sure you have enough layers for every child to have at least one turn at unwrapping, you may need to have 2 parcels on the go at the same time to make this possible.
Put a little toy, temporary tattoo or sweet between each layer so that every child gets a prize.
Before the game starts, explain to the children that if the music stops on them and they have already had a turn, keep passing it on until it reaches a child that hasn’t yet had a go.
4.Musical statues or bumps
As you know, the children dance around to the music and when the music stops, they either bump down on to their bums or stand statue still - a great game for tiring out the kids so that they settle down to eat! Every time a child is called ‘out’, give them a token treat, or sweet and give them a ‘well done’ they’ll be chuffed to bits.
5.Pin the tail on the donkey
I’ve mentioned in a previous blog that I am a big fan of this party game, you can now get all sorts of themes and versions. We used a ‘pin the horn on the unicorn’ but I made sure that I had written all of the childrens’ names on the stickers before hand as it can be quite time consuming doing it during the game and getting the kids to remember what number they are, is just a lost cause!
I recommend using a scarf to blindfold them because if you use the blindfold that comes with the kits, the children will find a way of peeking, it’s just programmed into them, they can’t help themselves!
Traditional party food is sandwiches, crisps, cocktail sausages, carrot sticks etc and this is great but I wouldn’t get too hung up on sticking to traditional with this one. Go with whatever makes life easier on the day, platters and pre made packets from supermarkets are easy or if you have a helper in the kitchen then you could have somebody cooking up some pizza and chips.
At our party, I made up a food box for each child containing a sausage roll, crisps, carton, wrapped biscuit and a piece of fruit but other good ideas are carrot sticks, yogurt tubes, cheese sticks, pizza or sandwiches. It made it quick and easy and I knew everybody had got one of everything.
This is another game that can be tailored to the theme or characters of the party. All you need to do, is print off 4 different pictures/colours or names relating to your theme (I chose Superman, Captain America, Spiderman and Batman for my superhero theme) and stick them up in the four corners of the room. The kids all dance to the music in the middle of the room and when the music stops, the person in charge turns around and closes their eyes while the children all choose a corner to run towards.
They can choose any corner they wish and as many or as few can go to that corner, so you might have some corners with lots of kids, some with just 2 or even none. The person with their eyes shut, calls out a corner and everybody in that corner is now out. The remaining children go back to the middle of the room and start dancing to the music until it stops and they again choose a corner (it can be the same one or a different one, it’s up to them) and the party goes on like this until only 1 person is left in and is a winner.
Alternatively, you could have the four corner names on balls or pieces of paper in a bag and they can be picked out at random, saving anybody the stress of choosing themselves.
Depending on your budget, and how many sweets you want the kids to eat at the party (eek), is what will depict what you choose as prizes on the day. I recommend having a tub full of little prizes like sweets, temporary tattoos, stickers, plastic tat etc for the runners up at games like four corners, pin the tail and musical statues and also a few bigger prizes like lucky bags or colouring sets for the winners.
Make sure you have plenty, just in case you get more than one winner per game - it happens ;)!
Sometimes the children just want to be free to run around, throw some shapes on the dance floor, so try to guage how the party is going. If they need a little break from the games or you finish early, crank the music up loud and turn the lights down so that they can get stuck in. I like to bring out the Black Lace album and teach them a bit of agadoo & superman, personally, he he but you’ll have to see how the kids feel about that. It could go down like a lead balloon!
This can be quite a big deal in some schools but there doesn’t seem to be that competitive edge among my kids’ friends so I’m lucky. The traditional route would be the named plastic party bag with a slice of cake wrapped in a napkin, some sweets, bubbles and a load of plastic tat (which the kids love might I add). I like to add something that whistles, just to please the parents *she says with an evil grin*.
You don’t have to go down this route though, you could look at the theme you have and choose something that fits. My daughter went to a pirate themed party once and they all got a foam pirates sword instead of a bag and when it was my sons climbing party, I bought all of the kids a water bottle and stuck a couple of extra bits to the outside with sellotape and hung them from carabiners from a bungee line. Just use your imagination.
There are, of course, many more traditional games that they can play, these are just my preference. But it’s a great starting point if you just want that traditional birthday party full of good ol’ fun.
Red Beau Creative Party Boxes
