Party at home --sanity check-- suggestions

[Acunningruse]

Having a "small gathering" for 7yo DD birthday- what was meant to be a handful of children now closer to 10 including younger siblings. Mix boys and girls.

Any suggestions, other than a vat of wine for afterwards?

Im planning (please be sunny):

• a craft activity which will probably last all of 30 seconds
• pass the parcel
• pin the tail on the donkey
• musical statues
• DD is insisting on a pinata
• some kind of treasure hunt in garden maybe? But for what? Not sure about this but would like to get them outside at some point

Food:

• sandwiches

-pizza -crisps

• veg sticks
• fruit
• mini sausages
• chocolate fingers

May go full on retro and do a hedgehog 🦔 🤣

Any suggestions/tips?
Thanks

I've done a few parties at home now and although I've organised some activities try not to over engineer it, put some music on, get the toys out and let them free play for a bit.

I've always done picky bits so lots of crisps, sausage rolls, sweets, chocolates etc. Always a hit!

I’ve done quite a few parties at home. It can be hard when young siblings tag along (how young are they?) as they won’t necessarily get some of the games or sit for long to do an activity. Our format was : half hour craft activity at the kitchen table. Baker Ross is your friend! We did birthday crowns one year (pre cut from coloured card) and gems egc to stick on and another year cardboard swords for a pirate themed party. Then half an hour of games in the sitting room, I stayed in the kitchen to clear the crafts for tea then kids came back ate and we had half an hour of games at the end. Then 2 hrs done and home time. My daughter is turning 7 and we were going to do a party at home but it didn’t work out this time but I was going to buy fabric paints and a load of white T-shirts and do that as an activity and they could take it home at the end.

If you get a cheap little disco ball from a
amazon and some balloons they will entertain themselves dancing for quite a while.

for the treasure hunt you could hide some little toy figures or just cardboard shapes that they collect and then swap for a prize
or do a scavenger hunt/colour hunt.

I think at that age they’ll be more likely to see it as a big play date rather than you needing organised fun necessarily- the only thing you have to watch out for is dynamics if someone gets let out. Treasure hunt sounds good and will keep them occupied. The only thing I’d be wary of is the piñata. Kids love them but every party I’ve been to with one has seen at least one kid being hit with the stick/hitting themselves with the stick so it needs quite a lot of supervision and control to avoid tears.

was coming on to say the same thing re the piñata- make sure there’s a big distance between child hitting it and everyone else- voice of experience- eg mark out a barrier that the others can’t cross such as a hose or skipping rope on the ground and police it. They have to queue behind it, would also say one hit each so each person has a go , and announce that at the beginning, so everyone gets a hit, then go round again.

with the treasure hunt agree with pp to have cardboard tokens or similar that they hunt for and then swap for something, so someone doesn’t collect and eat all the toys or sweets. I got DC to colour in card eggs all different patterns (it was Easter) and we then cut them in half with a zigzag cut. We hid one half of each egg and handed out the other half and the children had to find the matching one to their egg and then swap it for a little chocolate egg, but you could print out or draw any pictures and cut them up - works well for that age group if they are fairly similar so it’s not too easy/takes longer. I miss those days ( ex primary school teacher so I loved the party organising) now it’s all cocktails and drinking games if we say we’re going away for the weekend…