Daughters 4th disco party- advice please!

[chocolatescones]

Hi, our little girl’s party is next weekend, 2:30-4:30 at the village hall with about 15-20 kids coming, mostly girls. My rough plan is:

2:30: Arrival, play with toys we’ll take (tent, tunnel, pushchairs, trikes :etc). Hopefully also decorate card sunglasses with day glo stickers as disco accessory
2:45 Pass the parcel with disco accessory prizes eg light sticks
3:00 Disco with some musical games maybe musical statues and bumps. Music= Hokey Cokey etc and Disney favourites.
3:45: Party food, generally overload kids with sugar before bedtime plus token cucumber sticks.

Does this look vaguely ok or is it too structured/ optimistic? Would it be better to just let them loose with music and toys for an hour? Worst thing is if no one dances though tbh my party entertainer skills are probably hopeless anyway so not sure I’ll help!

Any advice appreciated, would prefer to be told it’s crap now than for it to actually be crap! Thanks!

Sounds perfect. Very similar to what I did for our DD last year and it worked.

I think it sounds great but kids that age probably will need some steering to encourage them to dance so I’d have a microphone and say you’ll be giving a prize (pound shop toy/bag of Haribo) for the best dancer. Then musical bumps/statues like you suggested, more dancing competitions.

Also I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them go off and play with your toys during the dancing part, but they’ll still be happy and entertained so that’s no problem.

Have fun, it sounds great!

That’s a great idea, I’m havering between having kids being ‘out’ and getting stickers and just having a winner so think based on gpur advice I’ll have winners only and prizes, thanks! No microphone so will have to use my shouty voice haha.

It doesn’t help that at her last party from nursery the Mum is a primary school teacher and could get their attention with a song in seconds and load of amazing games, talk about a high bar being set!

45 minutes is a long disco.
You will need more games & activities than you think.
Talk to the teacher-Mum (or a PTA parent) for advice.

Sing a long / karaoke to Frozen songs
Musical bumps / statues as you said
Corners game
Pirates game

Suggest you try to make the play with toys bit as long as you can, only switch to another activity when you have to.

So maybe:
30 mins free play
15 mins pass the parcel (whilst an adult tidies free play area)
30 mins disco (whilst an adult sorts out food)
30 mins food & singing happy birthday
15 mins free dancing (whilst an adult puts cakes into party bags)

How many adults have you got? I would think you need at least 3 if not 4. (2 adults are needed for pass the parcel, one to supervise the parcel and the other to stop the music and keep track of who has opened a layer yet.)

(In your place I'd have made the party 90mins.)

Whilst dancing look for things to reward like:

• bounciest
• coolest moves
• twirliest

Will give you an excuse to reward everyone

Also "best dancing together" to encourage children who are a bit shy about dancing alone.

To get their attention, turn off the music, say ”Do this.." and start an action, like clapping your hands. Beckon them over. Say ”Do this.. " again and change action or create a pose. Repeat until everyone is with you, make the last "Do this..." a pose standing or sitting still, with arms folded or by sides.
Then give the instructions straight away.

Get some bamboo canes/ sticks, cut in half and gaffer tape a loop of pipe cleaner at the top. Provide some different ribbons/ strips of material. The kids can now tie ribbons at the top to make a ribbon twirler thing to twirl as they dance!

A conga will kill a few minutes and you can nicely turn it into the queue or seating for food.

A bit of aga do or Macarena always gets the parents up to show the kids a few move

Bubbles are great with the music. Even better if they have some each.

Wow brilliant thanks for all these suggestions everyone, I was up half last night with our baby be the other half worrying about the party so feel much better now!