Need Ideas for Party Games for 25 three year olds.....pronto!

[Puff]

It's my niece's birthday party (at home) on Sunday.

SIL is panicking about how to keep them all entertained for 2 hours.

She's got a bouncy castle and I've offered to do face painting.

Would appreciate some ideas beyond the obligatory pass the parcel and sleeping lions.

Thanks!

anyone?

RUN RUN RUN RUN In circles until they collapse on the floor and fall asleep!!!! Perfect.

hehehe

The also obligatory musical bumps and musical statues?

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musical bumps, musical statues, hat making - think 20's style - a band of cardboard paper decorated to childs own taste - add feathers glitter, paint, other cut out drawings when cry fit round the kids head and staple one side to the other( as opposed to the kids head) you can glue stips of paper coming from the top or bottom - bottombeing like fake straw hair?!

a massive birthday painting. get an old roll of wallpaper and roll out accross a concrete bit of garden ( wont work on grass painbrushes poke through) best to have a theme like - birthday! or flowers or dragons or whatever and let them paint.

or
using same technique as above - yu can do a footprints collage, the kids get the soles of their feet paintedand walk accross the long strip of wallpaper.

sand and water - i know sound simple but really at 3 yers old nothing better than creating soggy sand pies - if you give them some of your kitchen utensils - such as baking trays and biscuit cutters and wooden spoons and masher etc.

I think it's rather er....ambitious. We must pray for good weather.

More inspiration required - I'm ok on games for 5 year olds, but 3 year olds are a different kettle of fish.......

sleeping bunnies/ hide the <strong>*</strong>* where you hide an item/ pin the tail on the donkey or any other versions/ musical bumps/ musical island( pieces of paper on floor cut into island /circle shapes ) and then you do usual music and stop music then they have to jump onto an island/

As the children are only 3 and it is supposed to be lovely weather on Sunday (fingers crossed) I would set up some little areas where they can do certain activities (supervised by an adult) as they please and mill from one to the other. For example, what about a simple craft table (decorating papers hats for eg), fishing game (cut out some foam fish, stick washers on for eyes and place in a small paddling pool or bowl. Fish for them with magnets atttached to a pole on a short piece of string), Knock down can shoot or throw balls into flower pot targets, and other easy things like that - a bit like the stalls you might find at a school summer fete. If your sil has a sand pit, get that out and stick some dinosaurs in it for the boys to dig up and find, get an old roll of wallpaper and stick it at child height on a long wall or fence and put lots of crayons and pens by it so they can come and go and create a mural of the day. This, with the bouncy castle and face painting should keep them occupied for over and hour so, by the time you've had tea, you will probably only have 20 mins or so left for games which is more than enough for little ones to keep their attention. Good luck, I hope it goes well!!

Issymum, that's my feeling - activities with 1 or 2 very simple games is the way to go, with bouncy castle for burning off energy!

I had a party for 15 three year olds last weekend. Bouncy castle, making hats and face painting took up first 50 minutes. Tea took up about 20 minutes. Then only time for a quick game of pass the parcel and find the sweets in the garden (had loads of games planned but no time) and then a final play on the bouncy castle and home. Really enjoyed it and kids this age are really easy to please. They just love the excitement of being with their mates.

going to the loo takes up lots of time otherwise sleeping lions is a breather and painting on the fence/wall/backof house with water only (sponges brushes scrap rag etc) they like oddly enough and is very clean

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