5th birthday party - whole class or select few?

[beela]

I'm sorry, I know this has been done before, but - whole class party or 10-ish friends?

We are hiring the local hall so no space restrictions particularly. DS is going to a full class party tomorrow which has made me suddenly wonder whether we should do the same, I don't want DS to be a social outcast because he is the only one in the class not to invite everyone! Plus I don't want the hall to look empty if, say, 4 of his 10 friends can't make it (it is quite large).

I think I've talked myself into it, but is a party for 30 (plus a few out of school friends, plus possibly siblings too) just ridiculous?

Am I over-thinking this?

PS he's only just started in reception this week, hence I don't really know what the etiquette is

My DD is 5 in Nov and we have just booked a hall and entertainer so she can invite the whole class. She doesn't know her classmates well enough yet to be able to pick say 10 of them and we need to get the invitations out beginning of Oct!

When we did this, DD chose 14 out 30 to invite - we couldn't afford to invite the whole class.

Depends on the party. As it's a big hall I would just invite the class.
My DS was 5 the January after starting reception and he wanted to go to Legoland but at £20 a head i had to limit it to 10 kids he had to choose.

He knows most of the class as he was at preschool there, so it would be easy enough to just narrow it down - but I think I might as well just invite everyone. The only extra cost will be a bit of party food and some cheap tat stuff for party bags, and it means he gets to have a big party.

His birthday is early October (and I really need to send out invitations next week) so we've got no chance to see what everyone else is doing!

mamalovebird a Legoland party sounds AMAZING, wish we lived close enough.

At this age they may be completely overwhelmed with whole class parties.

I personally invited just girls (or just boys) at this age for my dc and no one felt left out, everyone was included and you can theme it to really suit the child.
We went to big parties and lots of children either cried, sat out or got to boisterous and overwhelmed. Smaller parties but single sex when they are young, that way you won't fall out with any of your lovely school mums and won't offend anyone which would be a real advantage having only just started school. Rule number one, always avoid picking just a handful, there will always be a few mums that will take it personally and feel upset. Rule number two follow your child's lead if they love big parties then go for it, if they hate them or your unsure then keep it small and increase as they get older.

Ask him what he wants? DS2 was offered a full class, soft play party for his 5th, but he was adamant he wanted a small party at home, so that's what we had.

We're doing a whole-class party for DS1 who will be 5 in November. I can't get him to name a single child in his class voluntarily, so I don't think I'd have a chance at asking him to choose 5-10 he wants to invite. He didn't go to preschool there, so we don't know anyone. So we're hoping to meet all the parents too .

We've had one invite so far this year, for a whole-class hall party.

I don't want to do just boys because I don't particularly want to encourage the gender divide earlier than it has to happen! At the moment he is happy to play with boys and girls, and has some really good friends who are girls.

It was good to have a trial run at someone elses whole class party at the weekend... it was a bit full-on! So we've decided in the end to go with inviting just his friends, he easily came up with a list of about 15 people he wanted to invite so I decided that probably wouldn't offend since at least half the class won't be invited.