Craft ideas for three year olds

[thehouseofmirth]

As the weather can't be relied upon I thought I'd better have the back up of some indoor activities for DS's 3rd birthday party next weekend. Last year they decorated crowns. I usually love thinking of stuff like this but I am slightly pregnant and have no brain and little motivation. Any suggestion for party friendly (ie not hideously messy) crafty stuff?

What is your theme? My DS just had an animal themed party and I printed out some butterflies and birds from the internet then gave them glue, feathers, bits of coloured tissue paper and googly eyes to decorate them. There are loads of print-out websites where you can stuff for them to decorate. My 3 year-old also loves stamping, could buy a load of stamps and ink from Wilkinson (very cheap).

Or maybe get them to do a nature collage.

ANIMAL MASKS.
lITTLE PEOPLE MADE OF CLOTHES PEGS/ PIPE CLEANERS
SCRAPBOOK
MAIL BOX AND LETTERS MADE FROM CARD BOXES, AND OLD ENVELOPES.
pOSTER PANTING
mURAL FOR THE WALL (LARGE ROLL OF PAPER AND SOME INK.
sHPING LISTS (USE OLD MAGAZINES)....
hOPE IT HELPS...
cRACKERS AND SURPRISE/PASS THE PARCEL.

oK...REALY NEED TO LEARN TO SPELL..SHOPPING LIST...SORRY... ;)

You can make play dough in bulk (2 friends have done this for 3rd birthday parties). No idea how myself but I imagine you can find a recipe on the internet. Fine if you can do this in an area where no risk of it getting trodden into carpet IMO ...

slightly pregnant?

Dragonbutter 7 weeks and at that stage where I feel mildly but constantly crappy and overtaken by a feeling of total lethargy and general apathy.

Thanks for all your suggestions. We don't really have a theme but DS has requested a "monster" cake so I have decided on:
Biscuit decorating
Make a monster
Mask decorating
Make a shaker (good chance to use up all the Laughing Cow cheese triangle boxes we've accumulated)

There will be some dancing games, pass the parcel and I thought I'd do a treasure hunt. I thought I could allocate each child a symbol or picture, ask them to find 10 of them and then when they hand them in they get a prize. Does that sound like a sensible way to do it for 3 year olds?

I am also making a pinata in the shape of a monster (though the thought of equipping 3 yos with a hitting stick feels a bit counter-intuitive!)

could always try the kind of pinata with th epull strigs as opposed to hitting sticks, although when we did this was prob as dangerous as all the kids were pushing to get there first and pull all the strings

rockets from loo rolls and paper aeroplanes?

You could do pin the tail on the monster, but using blutack instead of the pin. You will have to make a big paper monster and separate tail, and mark the winning spot in advance for the children to aim for! Rope some helpers in to monitor taking turns, and make sure you write the childrens names on the monster to mark their attempts, and prove that everyone has had a go. We stuck ours to the patio window, and used a soft scarf as a blindfold.

can 3 year olds do pin the tail?
whatever you do try to have some background music during the whole party, this always help uplift the mood

Are you going to do all those things, Mirth? If so, total respect - esp in your condition! DD has her 3rd birthday party in 2 wks and I hadn't intended to do half of those things . Mind you, your strategy sounds much more structured than my plan which was to pray for good weather!

Question for Dylsmum - this is going to sound like a really stupid question (FWIW I blame it on the 2 large glasses of vino) but with the string pulling pinatas, are they made so things only fall out when last string is pulled? Was going to get one for DD's party but thought it might be shortlived if first string happened to be the right one IYSWIM?

Lola it is my intention. However, my to do list is growing in inverse proportion to my motivation... DS is going through a very unsharing phase atm so just letting everyone play with his toys could be painful for everyone involved and after last year (we had a monsoon during the week leading up to DS's birthday and on the day itself) I would rather had a bad weather back up plan than the nervous breakdown I almost had last year!

I regularly do crafts for this age group and one craft is enough. It will be very hard to supervise them for longer.

And a couple of party games.

With the food, and singing Happy Birthday, this is more then enough.

Lots of sticking is good for 3-year olds. If you want to make their creations extra special, you can laminate them afterwards.

Belgo, parents are staying so supervision luckily not an issue! Unless they all get drunk...

thehouseofmirth- it's even harder to supervise small children doing the crafts when their parents are there! You have to explain the craft to the parents first, then they all chat (and get drunk if there's alcohol), and you'll be left supervising the kids anyway - except it's hard to supervise children when their parents are right next to them because you feel you are intruding on their parental territory!

I much prefer to do crafts with small children without their parents being there. It's a lot easier to keep control that way.

Decorate their own fairy cake/biscuit. You can buy plain cupcakes, or make them yourself (!) and make a variety of icing, and cake decorations and they make teir own cake.

What about child's play in Hillsborough? They do craft packages to take away.

You can buy wooden crafts on Amazon we were planning on using wooden treasure chests to decorate with stickers or felt tips and then fill them with chocolate coins for the treasure to go in the party bag

Wow, that sounds terribly ambitious and organised. I'm afraid all we did was rent a bouncy castle and serve food. Trying to get parents and kids listening to instructions and being rounded up seemed like too much work.
But then I suppose it depends how many people you have as well.