3 year olds birthday party any ideas somthing different perhaps?

[mummyloveslucy]

Hi, I am looking for ideas for my daughters birthday party, she will be three. I would like it to be somthing different but not too expensive as she will be enviting her nursery class. I was thinking of hirering a church hall and having an entertainer. I went to a party a few years ago and they had a fairy entertainer and it was so lovely, she realy controlled the children well (without them knowing it!) and they seemed to really enjoy it.
Another idea would be to have it at a paint your own pottery centre, would that be expencive? Does anyone have any ideas?
Her birthday isn't untill March but it always seems to creep up on you after Christmas.

At 3 children don't really need much more than some food, a bit of music to dance to and the freedom to run around like sugared up lunatics. The church hall seems like a great idea.

Could you maybe do a Teddy Bear's picnic? he guests could bring their favourite teddy, you could serve little sandwiches and teddy shaped crisps and play "Hunt the teddy" or "Teddy music bumps".

I would have thought they're a bit young for painting pottery. The local one here costs c.£12 a head.

If you've seen the fairy, your daughter enjoyed it and she controlled a large group well, I'd book her ASAP. Their ability to deal with children varies greatly and the good ones get booked up early.

If you have a large group, an entertainer is the only option IMO, as almost everything else is pay per head, although the most successful parties for this age group I have been to have been soft pay centres, where nothing is too structured.

Hi Thanks for your ideas. Does anyone know how much an entertainer would charge?
I've been to a party at a soft play center and my daughter seemed a bit overwelmed. She is a bit timid and would much prefere a quiet birthday tea or somthing where the children are more relaxed. I can't realy have them at our house as it's too small and I'd have to envite the whole nursey and their parents. She is very easily pleased and probubly a fairy cake with a candle would do the trick.

The last entertainer I booked was £150 including the prizes he gave out.

Do you really need to invite the whole nursery? esp if that's not the sort of thing your daughter would go for.

For My DS2 3rd birthday I did a treasure hunt at home, followed by music with balloons and bubbles to chase and party tea. I invited only c. 6 friends, who were the children of my friends, more than DS's friends.

Also beware of inviting whole class and expecting parents to stay to supervise. A lot of the nursery parties my DS's went to ,parents expected to be able to leave them . (although these would have been 4th). Need to make it clear on invites if you want parents to stay.

My personal view is that the simpler the better at this age. If they've got music, balloons and cake, they'll be happy.

I feel that I do have to envite all the girls from nursery because they all envite her to their parties and they are usually at church halls. If I envited some and not others I think the parents would have somthing to say. A mum tried to do that last year and overheared mothers talking saying My DD has an invitation I wonder why you don't have one. She confessed to me that she had to send late invites to everyone else and say that she'd run out of invites, dog had eaten them or some other excuse. I'd still like somthing fairly low key but somthing people will remember maybe somthing charitable as children are far too spoiled these days.

We hired out a room at our local community centre for my dd's 4th birthday.
It cost £75 and for that we had the room for 2 hours with full access to a kitchen, a bouncy castle, table and chairs and a member on staff on hand to help out.

The kids loved it, got to run round alot, played pass the parcel and ate rubbish

I did look at a make your own bear party.
I think for 10 kids it costs £100 but the person who comes out entertains the children for the full 2 hours by making the bear, selecting clothes for it, birth certificate and then they do a story at the end featuring the bear.
The good thing with it is that you dont then have to do party bags because they get to take the bear home. All you have to provide is your house and some food.

The website is www.makeabearparty.co.uk

That sounds brilliant Nbg Lucy would love the make your own bear but I'd have to have it at a venue as our house is too small. The bouncy castle at the community centre sounds good too and great value for money.

Have you got a family member that would oblige to you usuing their house for a couple of hours?

I think I'll do something like that with dd next year when she has "proper" friends.
This time we just got the preschool staff to help us pick the children that she played with the most and invited them.

I've just done a party (last week) for my 3 year old ds. (10 children in total)

We hired a hall. This hall is also used by a toddler group I go to so I asked if we could borrow some of the toys.

I decorated the hall with a few balloons and a banner. I put out the following toys from the toddler group:

A toy kitchen with play food/pans etc
A few ride on toys (2-3)
A couple of buggies
A box of train track and trains

I also had two tables set out, one with playdoh - I took some of ds's and bought cheap playdoh and a couple of cheap cutter sets from woolworths. On the other table I put out some paper cut into crowns which I had cut in advance with loads of sparky stuff (tin foil, stickers, glitter glue pens etc) with colouring pens and tape so they could make their own hats (with help) if they wanted to.

These toys and the tables (the playdoh was very popular)kept them entertained for about 50 mins. We then played pass the parcel and pin the tail on the donkey. After that we had the tea (I made the food and brought it) and the cake. The whole thing was 1.5 hrs which was plenty and everyone had a really good time.

I agree that softplay can be a bit overwhelming but a very structured party ay this age can be a bit much for some children. I aimed for something in between and it seemed to work quite well.
I had a bag of small prizes for the games and the best/most sparly/most pointy crown (everyone who made one got a prize) etc.

The main thing with this age is not to expect them all to play the games and if they do play they need adult help. The toys and the craft stuff was enough really but a couple of games make it nice.