Cheap, at home birthday party activities for 4x 6yr olds?

[tinysnickersaremyfavourite]

Aibu to ask for some ideas please?
My DS has his 6th birthday coming up and is determined he just wants to have his 3 closest friends over to our house.
But I'm a bit stumped what to do with them tbh. It has to be indoors as garden is a boggy mess.
Party games like musical chairs, pass the parcel etc would be a bit naff with just 4 kids.
They'll probably want to play a bit with DS toys but I need some sort of organised activity to keep them busy at least some of the time.
Has anyone done similar and got good ideas?

I did this for DD was one when very skint.

Played just dance on the Wii, gave them hot dogs and ice cream and had a few bowls of sweets around.

Loved it

When I not was one

Paint a pot?

A white plate or cup for each child, and let them paint them.

Movie and popcorn.
Paint a pot or craft activity
Make gingerbread houses

Do you have a box of Lego? If so there’s quite a few “Lego party” ideas if you google. Send out Lego themed invitations, play a couple of Lego games and make the cake Lego themed. Hey presto: Lego party!

T shirt painting

Make their own pizzas? Then they could eat them.. Decorate a cake or biscuits for afterwards..?

We don't have anywhere near enough lego for a lego party, ds isn't massively into it.

We don't have a console so can't do that, and the sound on our tv is awful so movie probably isn't the best plan.

I will have a look at pot painting, but I have a feeling DS will veto as he doesn't really do crafty things.

This might sound naff but worked well with dd1 & friends when she was 6.
Packs of glowsticks from Poundland- make into huge patters/tracks/bracelets & necklaces. Blackout the room to see them.
A good hr of fun.

Can you take them to a trampoline play area thing so they’ve done a bigger activity then come back to yours and make their own pizza , watch some TV whilst maybe making some Christmas decorations or something ?

Fair ground games.
Knock the tins down
Hook a duck
Throw the ring round the prize
Skittles

I’m pretty sure that’s what we did for my 6th birthday

The floor is lava.
Keep the balloon off the floor
(We still have loads of fun with that and my youngest sibling is 30, my niece and nephew live it too).
Card games.

Love not live

Definitely cheap crafts. Sticking/gluing. A film? Making pizza a great idea. Biscuit/cake decorating.

What about a treasure hunt? Hide a few cheap presents or sweets around the house, tell them any rooms they definitely can't go in to and then send them off. After dinner you could also have an 'ice cream factory'. Give them a scoop of ice cream each and then various toppings to design their own sundae. It seems to take them ages!

Treasure hunt for gold coins?

Make some cookie dough beforehand then they can roll out, make some shapes, bake, decorate.
Put them on paper plates, cover with cling film and that’s what they take home.
Put music on and give them balloons to dance with.
Let them play with toys.

I think it's fine just having them over to play plus cake.

Our kids like making ice cream sundaes.

Treasure hunt sounds fun too!

To be honest I think 4 6yr olds would be perfectly happy just playing with toys like on a normal “play date”. Put balloons on the door, make the tea more treat-like and have a bday cake and that will make it a party. If you want to do party games I think you could do pass the parcel and they could open a couple of layers each. Musical bumps/statues would work and they could win a round each as the rounds would be short.

It's not naff - when my older two were that age it was absolutely standard to do parties at home right through to about the tenth, and invite one friend per year of age.

Home parties are much harder work than just booking a venue.

The format always involved a craft which could be a take home instead of a party bag - paint a mug or plate as others suggest, fabric paint a T-shirt or fabric bag to hold some sweets as a party bag - some parents did actual woodwork or made candles (there are kits to do this without boiling wax).

A murder mystery game was a bit at one party DD went to - like live roll play cludo. Also a mini escape room game.

Treasure hunts with clues to solve are also well received and fill time. One girl's parents did a ghost walk around the local area around a story the mum had written with a few clues to solve on the way to decide where to go next. The kids talked about it for months afterwards - big hit. You have to know the party guests and tailor it to what's just a little bit thrillingly scary but not too frightening! The dad jumped out from behind a grave in the very old no longer used graveyard on the edge of the village at the end - obviously you have to know your audience!

A novel interactive board game involving cooperation can also work well. We have a ghost hunting one but I'm not sure if it exists in English, this could work:

boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/19378/doctor-who-interactive-electronic-board-game

The small at home parties where parents or older siblings designed exciting interactive games like these are the ones my kids still talk about years later, not yet another soft play or trampoline party.

At that age, I made musical truth or dare.

Decorate a box, put slips with truths and dares on (I did them in different colours) and play like pass the parcel. When the music stops, they open a box and pull out a truth or dare.

My kids loved it and it was their favourite game for many years.

Typical (favourite) dares:

Pretend to be a boy (or girl)
Stand on the front doorstep and shout in your loudest voice "I'm an idiot" (for some reason this was the top favourite dare!)
Pretend to fart
Dance like your dad
Tell a joke etc etc.

Typically, they would want to play for at least two rounds before they got bored, and would usually last about half an hour.

Best free game my kids ever had. You can award a lollipop on successful completion of a dare if you want.

I just made a spy type advent calendar... you can give them hints and riddles to work out & find treasure.
Mine includes a alphabet key .... with (even) numbers instead of letters. A book page: page number a maths question .... I made a dummy page with only the words I want to show = location of treasure.
There are lots more ideas online!!!

Pin the tail on the donkey (you can get pre printed poster for about a quid from places like Wilkos)
Charades/pictionary/who am I type games.
Simon Says type game
Fart competition (OK maybe not that one)

Ooh, I like the ice cream sundae idea.
Pizzas is a bit of minefield because DS best friend doesn't like it, so that means he won't eat the birthday tea!

I was going to do a trampoline park party but a) ds insists he wants to have it at home and b) 3 other kids had one there very recently, so it's rather lost its novelty.

T-shirt painting could be fun, will take a look at that. Or maybe tie-dye.