Kid's birthday parties at home

[SillyUnMurphy]

Sorry, I'm duplicating but haven't had any response on AIBU (maybe I'm just v boring)

DD is in year 5 and is settled into a nice friendship group. As the children have got older parties have naturally whittled down to birthday parties with friendship group at home.

DD has a birthday coming up and I have invited her friends to a party at the house, pretty low key. But now I'm feeling anxious; we have a pretty small house compared to most of her friends and there are 10 girls coming. Everything will be centered around being in the sitting room. I know all of the girls and they are great but I'm really worried about them running riot around the house (breaking the TV is my worst fear grin ) or being bored.

I've planned pizza and a movie plus some little activities such as crafts and decorating gingerbread men - maybe some face painting etc. One of my friends is coming to help chaperone.

I know I need to chill the fuck out and let them have fun but has anyone got any tips on throwing an at-home party (and coping mechanisms for me!) they'd like to share?

Karaoke!

Great idea! We’ve got a Kiddie Superstar somewhere at the back of the cupboard

How long is the party for? In my experience, parties at home go better when you plan them and have some structure, especially if there’s ten children coming. Just letting them “have fun” can lead to chaos and fallings-out, etc.

I’m doing an at home party for 9 6 year olds next week. We’ve got some crafts (ordered a few different ones from Baker Ross), glitter tattoos, face paint, hair chalks and biscuit decorating, then I’ll do food, then half an hour prancing round with the kiddie superstar!

It’s 2 - 4.30pm. It’s in the middle of Dec so I was going to put a Christmas film on and do food. Will definitely get some craft stuff and maybe play make up etc.

we have a small house too. move any smaller furniture (for us, toyboxes, TV and stand, standard lamp) upstairs if possible for the duration. Totally agree that the key to avoiding them going feral is structured activity. I plan for more activities than I think we can get through, so there's limited down time. Perhaps it was just my DC's friends but at 10 they still got too hyped up at parties to concentrate on a DVD (fine now at 12). We've always found cake making and decorating goes down really well and takes up plenty of time. Decorating your own paper party bag is a good thing to start with while you're waiting for the last guests.

I used to work in an after school club. You need to think in terms of 'stiring' and 'settleing' activities. Start with something where they have to move around. They will all be excited, so no point in expecting them to be calm. Musical statues is always fun, but also Simon says and games like that. Then have something calmer, like decorate gingerbread men, crafty stuff. Then again something to let off a bit of steam, then calm activity and so on. I'd do food in the middle of it all. Be flexible, if they don't like an activity, move to the next or let them choose one.
For my DS's 7th birthday I got some cute cards and made sure I had everyone's address. They all wrote cards to each other (names in a hat), put stamps on and we walked to the postbox. Took 30 mins in total and they had so much fun and were talking about it a few days later when they all got post.

Sorry, just read year 5. I thought you said age 5. Ignore me.

Lovely suggestions. Thank you all