Hit me with your best 'low stress' party games for age 6/7 please!

[mummabubs]

As per title....

DS goes to a village school, only 20 of them in the class. Normally his friends have parties at soft plays/ trampoline parks and invite everyone, but round here that's £250-300 before you've even started on party bags. He turns 7 in October and wanted to invite everyone in his class so we decided to do a 2 hour party at home with a magician booked for 40 minutes. I figure food and cake is 20 minutes, so we have an hour to 'fill'.

Typically only 8-10 kids go to the parties we've been to, but perhaps we underestimated how attractive this party would be because none of the others have been in the village and the magician thing is novel, but with not all replies in we've already got 16 kids currently down to attend. 😂 As no one in his class has done an at home party before we don't have any other experiences to go on!

Our house isn't huge, we have a living room and a play room (but on different floors), small kitchen and dining room. I'm really happy that DS will have so many of his friends to celebrate with... And equally we're also slightly terrified of how to fit everyone here and also entertain them all to stop them running wild.

I think games/ structure is the way forward. The only game I'm not as keen on is pass the parcel, purely due to the stress of trying to make sure everyone gets a turn 😂 Any ideas for indoor (or outdoor) ideas welcome.

Magic tips on how to survive are a bonus- I've already told DH his backup plan to drink isn't feasible and we will move our very small number of valuables upstairs and then block off with a stairgate. I'm currently feeling torn between loving that we've taken parties back to being more simple and at home to utter fear of what have we signed up for!? 😂🤦🏻‍♀️

Ime they will all just run around and entertain themselves.

But you could try musical statues. Pass parcel. Hide and seek.

Often there's ones if you Google. Like passing balloon between knees to person behind without touching with hands

You could do a treasure hunt towards the end for them to find their party bags?

The chocolate game has gone down well when we've done it... very 80s - roll a six, put on hat, scarf and gloves and try to cut a piece of chocolate with a knife and fork to eat while everyone is trying to roll a six.

You may not have room but what about ‘the floor is lava?’ Just keep taking away the things they are standing on ubtil there is a winner-musical chairs style. Or i did a Halloween hanging donuts game where the kids had a limited time to eat the donuts hanging in string, it was messy and didnt make sense but they enjoyed it.

Make a quiet, chilled corner. An A3 piece of card and let them decorate it, stickers, glitter pens etc, Ready made poster for the bedroom wall!

Bubble tubes for the garden
Hokey Cokey - I used to teach KS1 and they didn’t know it!
If you don’t mind mucking in, the Superman song (whatever it’s called - with the actions - ski, spray, SUPERMAN), or “I am the music man” and get them to dance along
We used to play corners - each corner of the room is a corner. Play the music, when it stops they all have to pick a corner and run to it. Adult either has eyes closed and shouts a colour, or pick one out of a hat. Those children are all out. Repeat until you have a winner.

A friend’s mum did a penny treasure hunt for her party and I still remember it. She just hid a load of pennies (probably £2 or £3 worth?) around the garden and everyone went bonkers trying to find them. You got to keep any pennies you found.

Treasure hunt/shopping list - put pictures and a £ price and make shopping lists, they go round to find each thing and write down how much. Tell you the total to get a prize. You can do themed (eg we did Pokemon themed)

Definitely colouring pages

Sleeping lions- everyone has to lie down and pretend to be asleep, if you move or make a noise you're out

I miss proper kids parties. Everyone here does expensive trampoline etc type parties and kids don't know how to play proper party games anymore. We've always done at home parties

Musical bumps, musical statues, newspaper islands - when the music stops they have to jump on an ‘island’ then you reduce the number of islands, sardines, team game races outdoors eg egg and spoon, water buckets that have to be filled in relay, scavenger hunts. Start off with a game that children can join in as they arrive so not hanging around like hunt the chocolate coins/marbles/football cards/smallcollectable items and hide them in different rooms.

Apple bobbing and love the sound of the game snapdragon for halloween that appears in an Agatha Christie book called Halloween Party I think in a children’s party scene where raisins are put in a large shallow bowl, brandy is poured over and set on fire and children have to grab the sweet treats - maybe not!

I told my husband about this game as we played this at my childhood birthdays and he looked at me like I was mad 😂😂😂 I loved it though!

In my head this is the dream, I'm not sure his class would be chilled or calm!

I loved it too @mummabubs 😂

A variation on the treasure hunt - hide a load of toy coins and set up a ‘stall’ of sweets and tat and let the kids fill their own party bags (just keep a few coins back for those who don’t manage to find many)

@mummabubs I loved it too. We used to play it at the school Christmas party, but the teachers used to freeze the mars bars

Oooo I'd forgotten about sleeping lions, another classic!

I feel similarly, we could just about afford the fully catered parties if we watch the pennies (have two DC so we'd need to ensure we could afford both). But there's almost like a magic that's a bit lost with it all to me. Or maybe that's nostalgia talking!

Outrageous!! 😂

Piñata in the garden
Pin the tail on the donkey
Get them some magics to try after the magicians act?
Old favourite - who can balance an empty paper cup on their head the longest

Thank you, the idea of a "joining in as you arrive game" is genius. His birthday is late October but I really really hope there's a chance of a dry day as our garden is actually the biggest space so would be great to be able to send them all outside to hunt.

Pass the parcel
Musical statues
Musical chairs
Musical beans
Corners
Dancing comp
Treasure hunt

Piñata and pin the tail on the donkey

I love the idea of the penny treasure hunt!

Your class obviously hadn't been to Butlins. ;)

Nelson’s Eye. 😂

The chocolate game is great.
I love the game where groups race to turn one person into a mummy using toilet roll. The kids like it because it's mad and looks like it's chaotically messy, but actually it's perfectly easy to tidy up.

Agree with a quiet/simple craft corner, I always do this and it's always used.

If you have a room with no breakables just letting them go a bit crazy with balloons usually fills a good 15-20 mins.

I reckon the magician will take up more than you think, usually I do first half hour free play and arrivals, then half hour activity, then half hour for food, and last bit more free play. So I don't think you'd need many games in the free play bits. I don't do any but always have a bouncy castle going. I think you only really need games if there's no entertainer. I went to one the other day which was just free play in the (admittedly huge and well stocked with bouncy castle, big climbing frame etc) garden and everyone just went feral, loads of fighting.

What’s Nelson’s Eye?

Grandmothers footsteps is always good. Added bonuses is to put adult with a decent camera next to "grandma" and get some good photos.

Find the Pound, a la Motherland.