Entertaining three year olds at birthday party

[legalalien]

Well, inspired by various threads where the consensus view that the only way to make new friends with children / get your children to meet others their own age was to through caution (pride) to the wind and keep asking people, I diligently invited several people / neighbours that I don't know terribly well, but who have children about the same age as DS, to his birthday party. As well as our adult friends, who I do know.

And it seems you are right, people do like to be asked to these things (stands to reason, I'd like DS to be sent birthday party invites). So most of them have accepted (whether or not they turn up, on the other hand...)

The upshot is, though, that there are potentially 9 (probably 6 or 7) circa 3 year olds, plus a couple of younger siblings and one older sibling, plus their parents, plus our nanny and another, oh, six or so of our adult friends (who DS knows) descending on our house. I can doubtless keep the adults happy with cheap champagne, and will doubtless be able to sort out some smarties / sugary drinks / raisins/ fairy bread for the smalls (think afternoon snack rather than sit down meal), but what (if anything) do I do to entertain them? My imagination has so far stretched to a treasure hunt in our garden. I think they're too young for pass the parcel. Do you think there needs to be any activity, or can I just go for unstructured chaos / random toy activity like I did last year?

HELP!

God there are loads of games. Why too young for parce the parcel ?
Musical bumps; statues; pin tail on donkey, loads of hats, pass them around, taking away one hat at a time - god I could go on and on - a few games, and a bit of unstructured play, should be perfect.

DS is building mad so for his 3rd party recently, I had building toys out, some playdough and colouring in the kitchen they played for an hour, then had picnic lunch on dining room floor, followed by treasure hunt and pass the parcel then home. I think at this age the ability to play traditional games rather depends on wether they have older siblings, I would have at least a vague plan to avoid 'toy soup' where they get out every toy and mix up all the stuff and you have a hell of a mess to clear up.

I've found the best parties for little ones are unstructured. Get out the bigger toys without small pieces to get lost eg , large building blocks, push alongs, trucks etc. If you have a playhouse all the better.

Have balloons and bubbles for them to chase and music for them to dance to.

I did a treasure hunt for my DS2 3rd b'day and that did go down well. I bought some paper lunch type bags off ebay and some birthday stickers, put out crayons etc and they decorated their own treasure bags, which then doubled as party bags, with the addition of a piece of cake.

I agree that they are too young for pass the parcel, although I've seen it done at lots of 3rd parties, the children can get upset when they don't win and you always get some that don't want to play and then their mums get stressed because they think you mind that the child isn't joining in.

At dd's 2nd birthday we filled the paddling pool with play-balls and let them get on with it - apart from a fight between 2 boys over her ELC hoover, they all had a blast...

At the moment (she's 2.8) she's well into tents, I just throw a sheet over 4 chairs and she plays in there for hours with her little mates.

Aha - good idea, I will get the tents out of the garden shed.

Deep breath and waiting for screams.... are lolly scrambles allowed?

Big toys only (i.e. not too many ingredients for toy soup)

Colouring - print out loads from crayola.com or similar and put out all crayons/non-staining felt tips

Borrow a small bouncy castle from someone if you can.

Pass the parcel is the easiest game by far - those that don't quite get it can sit on an adult's lap and still join in

Balloons

Lolly scramble (or equivalent) towards the end if you are going to do it - that way the parents can police whether or not they actually get to eat them