Ideas for birthday party for 3yo DD

[Snowbell]

Does anyone know some good games for my DD's 3rd birthday party? We will be having the party at home with up to 6 kids, plus mums of course. I don't want to do pass the parcel as I think they're still not old enough to "get it". Any ideas please?

If you have a largish clear area you can use, Bean Chase works for 3yos. They all line up at one end of the room, an adult with a big pot of dried butter beans scatters the beans across the floor, and the kids have to retrieve the beans. Sounds naff but the kids at a recent 3rd birthday party adored it.

If you trace the outline of your dd onto wallpaper, you can get them to decorate the "person" - at the same party, the girls did one and the boys did another, and again it worked well (and kept the kids amused and quiet for ages).

My dd also likes musical bumps.

Sleeping lions/bunnies
Ring a ring o' roses
Musical Statues
Pass the parcel (my 2.5yo "gets it")
Farmers in his Den
In and out the dusty blue bells
Best dancer/silliest dance, etc. - basically silly competitions
Musical chairs

Other activites rather than games could be:

Making themselves a paper/card hat, to wear at tea
T-shirt painting

my nearly 3 year old loves musical bumps and pass the parcel. Could also try stick the tail on the donkey type thing.

at dd's 3rd party we played 'pin the smile on dd' but it was bluetacked on and they really didn't quite get it (we had blindfolds etc)

-they liked pass the parcel
-we decorated plain cookies with icing, sprinkles etc and put them into little bags with a sticky label for each child
-they loved a treasure hunt in the back yard - I wrapped up stickers in bright sparky paper - they all found them, then were divied out equally.

I do think most 3 year olds are still a bit young for the trad party games. I hope the weather is nice so you can go outside for a bit!

thanks everyone, for some great ideas. I'm going to be busy!

My twin DDs (3) love musical statues - played it with friends for about an hour recently!

So glad you are in the same boat as me Snowbell - my dd will also be 3 next week - so thanks for your questions and I - like you - will be trying some of the games out !! Can you believe that 3 years have gone by, I certainly can't. Good Luck

art and craft stuff always goes down well ,get in lots of glitter, tissue paper, scraps and glue and as someone else said they can make hats or even masks by decorating paper plates.

At dd halloween party, most of the kids were 3, the favourite activities were art and craft and pass the parcel.

another good ideas we do at parties is to decorate fairy cakes, saves you a job and they love it, buy ready made icing and little sweets.

For DD 3rd birthday we did a decorate a crown thing, where everyone had to decorate their own 'golden' crown. Kept them quiet for ages.

Just need pritt sticks, gold card in crown shapes, bits to stick on especially glittery. Go to Wilkinsons for materials - dead cheap!

Last year we had a great party for Patty and 7 of her friends. I got them all to paint their own masks, (I think they came from a website called makendooshop.com) and then we went trick or treating but only to each others houses. It was much nicer than just getting shop bought mask.
We always make green and purple meringues too, though most of my attempts at baking are scary enough.

We did pass the parcel at DS's 3rd birthday recently. Most of the kids "got it" though they did need a bit of guidance, and it was carefully managed to ensure each child got a turn to take paper off and get a prize.

That was the only organised game we played and it was enough. The kids enjoyed running round the garden the most and there was also tea, and singing Happy Birthday and eating cake.