3rd birthday party games?

[sooz31]

am foraying into the realm of parties this sunday, low key - just immediate family & neighbours children. keen to get some ideas for fun active things to do - will be a mix of girls & boys (most 2/3yrs but 2 will be 5yrs).

Pls, ould really appreciate thought tips what-not-to-dos etc - ideally do not want to resort to pass the parcel! think they're too young and restless!

tia

sooz

ps have 4mth old girl so not planning anything too involved!

[amylou]

Hi - what about if you cut out a number of party crowns out of card and let the children decorate them with stickers or crayons etc.. then they can wear them afterwards.
I think its quite hard to play party games with them at that age as they dont understand really. You could do something simple like pin the tail on the donkey but not all of them might want to do it - it depends whether they would like the scarf over their eyes.
good luck!

[ionesmum]

My dd (who will be three next week) and I spent a good half an hour today playing Musical Statues. I wouldn't bother having winners and losers, just dancing and then keeping still seems to keep this age group really amused - and of course the littler ones won't stop dancing anyway! You could also have some shakers to play along with the music - or even get the children to make them with empty plastic bottles and rice or pasta - or ribbons to wave around. Also dd loves follow-my-leader - we do everything from pretending to be an elephant to a giant to a swimmer to just patting our heads or rubbling our tummies. I think you are right about p-t-parcel, they played it at dd's pre-school party and the younger ones had to be stopped from unwrapping the whole present each time! hth