Party for a 3 year old please help me!

[Poppychick]

My DD will be 3 in a couple of weeks and we're having a small party. We have only invited about 8 children - is this too few? What if they don't turn up? Don't want her to be disappointed...

And if they do what on earth will I do with them for 1.5hrs?

Already thought of pass the parcel and some sort of treasure hunt plus doing nibbles and lighting candles on cake etc. Thought could let them 'play' for a while with balloons and DD's toys maybe.

Please inspire me!!!

Thanks so much in advance.

sounds just right to me - pass the parcel, treasure hunt and free play fine - have some music, you can do musical bumps if you like, and dancing, and if you feel up to it, a bout of singing can go down well at that age - heads and shoulders, sleeping bunnies, tractor song type thing

Balloons. you will be amazed at how long they play with them. move everything breakable....

we went to a party for a 3 year old today which seemed to work really well it started off with craft things (which you could print off the internet really easily .. colouring and sticking/glitter on masks/hats ... then when everyone had arrived they did games around a rainbow theme ... a treasure hunt (really really simple) around the room for different colour semi circles that they had to make up in the correct order to make a rainbow which they then glued together to win a chocolate coin, stick the pot of gold on the rainbow picture (like pin the tail on a donkey), dancing in the middle of the room and running to the coloured picture in each corner of the room when called out (the last one there is out), pass the crock of gold!, parachute games, singing and musical instruments, lunch, birthday cake, craft things ... aquadraw, playdoh etc etc and decorating their own fairy cakes with icing and sweets? Lots of things but all fairly simple but the children all seemed to love it.

I used to have them into the dining room decorating biscuits when they first arrived, to give the first comers something to do while waiting for the rest. I'd set out digestive biscuits, icing, hundreds and thousands, tubes of green and red decorative writing stuff- and a responsible adult (dh!). Then once they're all there, I'd do max 2 or 3 games- pass the parcel, muscical bumps, sleeping lions- again supervised by other responsible adult. I found 3 yo were a bit young for treasure hunts, they really come into their own when you get to the 6-7 yr age group. Then a bit of own play, then party food, then cake, then party bags.
I think 8 invitees is quite enough- if even 3 or 4 turn up, that will be enough to keep your lo happy. I've never allowed more than 10 children at parties, after dd's first birthday party when we had 24 people crammed into our tiny kitchen- took me days to recover!

we've done the 'decorate your own fairy-cake' too. they loved it. We also did balloon on parachute too, calling a name out and trying to send it to that person.
the other thing that we did for one of our jan birthdays is go to the soft-play centre, save that for when they are a bit older as we did it when ds1 was 6. just took snacky food and drinks, no sitting down with plates of sandwiches and jellies because they tend not to eat it anyway.

Thanks so much - feeling much better about it now!!!

Going to borrow parachute from work definately and love the idea of sticking/glittering so will DD!

Thanks a million xxxxxxxxxx

pass the parcel, musical statues/bumps or chairs (you could use cusions/pillows instead of chairs).etc. Byt the time they have arrived, played a couple of games, eaten it will be time for them to go! 90mins is nothing. It will whizz by. Keep the music playing and they will leap about inbetween games etc anyway. Good luck. tbh I found no need for gimmicks, organised parties etc at this age with dd (she is 10 now!) they just loved being together in party clothes! enjoy it.

Idid a party for my three year old in a pottery painting studio yesterday, worried a lot about it (mainly possiblility of breakages and huge bill!) it was fine, make sure you have as many adults confirm they will stay with thier own child beforehand whatever you do or however many you invite, and enjoy it, its for your enjoyment too !!