Christmas party for 3 and 4 year olds- games suggestions

[scarylea]

Hi

Can I ask your game suggestions please for a Christmas party for 3 and 4 year olds? Thank you.

We did a 3rd birthday party for my son recently and found pass the parcel worked well. So as not to cause arguments, we did a prize in every layer (just a chocolate lolly, but could be a small Christmas toy) and then instead of a main gift in the middle we did a tiny suitcase with the items needed for the next game inside and the "winner" got to open it. Then did pin the tail but for Christmas could do stick the red nose on rudolph - draw/print big rudolph picture which you can bring out at the right time, put red pompoms and double sided stickers in the suitcase for them to use. Then the winner gets to open next suitcase, which has pictures of characters for a scavenger hunt. We printed and laminated 1 character per child and hid them around the house and garden so they had to go on a search for them and work together to find them. They loved this so would do more different characters in future. Finally we did a kind of lucky dip dig - put things to find in a giant bucket of shredded paper or similar. We didn't do prizes in there, we did 3 types of vegetables and they had to find one of each to win (it fit the theme) but you could do something Christmas themed instead. Then they all got the same main prize at the end for completing all the games. All the children seemed to enjoy these games and didn't need much support to do them so worked quite well. Hope that helps!

Pass the parcel. Musical statues. Pinatas are popular here.

At that age I found that children really just wanted to play with our dc's toys, and weren't very keen on party games. By 6 or so party games really come into their own, particularly as they are used to following instructions in a group in school.

I would suggest moving any precious or delicate toys out of sight and setting up three or four play situations - like a trainset in one corner, dolls in another, a kitchen with toy food in another, a box of dress up and some jigsaws and let them get on with it.

I agree that age find it a bit difficult to join in structured games.

Pin the nose on Rudolph?
Pass the parcel
Bean bag tossing into a bucket

Maybe Christmas themed colouring sheets? Huge tub of crayons?