20 5 year olds, and so far my only idea is pass the parcel. Help!

[Crumblemum]

They're all lovely kids, mix of boys and girls. Not too boisterous. But how can I keep them entertained for 2 hours! I'll do pass the parcel, we've having little lunch boxes and sparklers at the end. What else is good? There's a space theme, but will pin the helmet on buzz capture their imagination?

Balloons!!!

Honestly they entertain for hours. I take it this is in a hall or something?

Musical statues/musical bumps is always good. Disco dancing competitions? Half an hour or so devoted to tea/blowing out candles. Pin the tail on the donkey? Treasure hunt?

Musical statues,
musical bumps,
musical chairs,
chocolate game, ( throw a 6 on a dice have to put hat/scarf/gloves on and open pack of choc with knife and fork - until next 6 is thrown)
Big parachute thing...

Pin the buzz thing may be a bit slow for 5 year olds generally not good at queuing
keep balloon in the air
Mummy game with toitlet rolls in teams dressing up one member - then competition to see who can pick up and put in rubbish bags the most toilet paper.
Limbo game

any of these any good?

xpost!

marking my place to reply properly when not on stupid 'phone - I did space party for 5yos - loads of ideas...

Watching as I am in similar situation with 20 x 4 year olds next weekend!!

Oooh thanks - some great ideas, and really looking forward to hearing yours stealthsquiggle. Love the Mummy idea, and think getting them in teams is really good idea. Good bit of competition!

Chocolate game good too. Will take lots of time

Duck duck goose

using kitchen roll, get teams to wrap someone up - call it making a costume though Then get them to rip it all off so the hall is littered with paper. Then get an adult to run around with a black bin liner so the kids have to chase to get the rubbish in. The adult can always chuck some rubbish back out if the kids are clearing up too quickly.

still on 'phone . Damn this work nonsense.

I've got 20 5/6 year olds on Sunday. Also doing pass the parcel etc, but have previously done piñata which goes down well, and what time is it mr wolf. For older daughter once bought each child a big chocolate bar then provided them with icing pens, cake decorations etc, they spent ages decorating each bar, and this was then their going home present.

Pin the tail on the donkey or variant
Corners (4 places are named according your theme of choice - corners of the room or equivalent - one person, back turned or blindfolded - the company, at a signal, run to a corner after which the blindfolded one calls out, at random, the name of one corner. Everyone at that place is out of the game. Game continues until only one person is left).

Maybe sleeping lions? Good for when things need calming down.

I did a party for about 22 5 year olds in the summer never again.

The hardest thing was keeping everyone's interest going, for example- pass the parcel took a very long time with 22 kids and the ones that had already got their prizes starting mucking about with the used wrapping paper.

One thing that worked quite well was a little introductory game. The children made a big circle and I stood in the middle with a ball. I threw the ball to them and as they caught it, they had to say their name and then throw it back and so on.

We also underestimated how thirsty they would get (we did have a bouncy castle tho') so have plenty of water/squash easily available.

Right. Space party. Here we go:

We made aliens - based on polystyrene balls. If you are interested I will find you the link with instructions.

General space colouring pages help to occupy those not otherwise engaged

Moon rock relay race - they had to put on plastic space helmet and gloves, run over, pick up moon rock (scrunched up foil) with tongs, transfer it to bucket, race back and hand over helmet and gloves to next team member.

Pass the parcel with foil = pass the asteroid

musical planets - planets painted, laminated, blue-tacked to floor - then it's the same as musical chairs

balloon drop with cardboard stars and moons in it which they had to collect

Space themed food - star/moon cutters for sandwiches, etc

There was more, but is that enough to be going on with?

Oh - 2 more things - they did pass the parcel in their relay race teams (so 2 groups, 3 parcels) to keep it short, and we labelled them as Astronaut trainees so that we knew their names.

3 groups, 3 parcels (otherwise war would have broken out )

Bubbles they sell packs in tesco really cheap or if homebargaind are near they do big bottles for £2

three teams in a line, about 10 foot away (depends how big your room/garden is and how much you want to wear them out!), three sheets of bubble wrap - each child gets 5 seconds to burst as many bubbles as they can, whistle goes, next child's turn.

The team who bursts all the bubbles first wins. Always goes down very well, very noisy but great fun! Best with an adult for each sheet to keep checking if there are any bubbles left.

Just dipping in quickly,as working, but you are all my heros! Pass the parcel with an asteroid! OMG and It saves on the wrapping. Thanks so much

Blow up some balloons halfway and shove a couple of wrapped chews / chocolates inside. In one balloon add a smallish star (cardboard or plastic).

Each child has a balloon. On go, they each have to pop their balloon, the winner is the one with the star (plus they all get a sweet).

Blimey stealth- that is amazingly well organised.

You should consider a career in children's party planning.

we did "pin the astronaut on the moon" - the idea being to get him as near to his flag as possible - DB painted a beautiful moon on a piece of polystyrene and I covered it with cellophane, then printed lots of astronauts which they put on with glue dots (we wrote DC's names on the astronauts) so they could all see where they all were at the end.

Annoyingly I cannot now find the instructions for the aliens (it was from some American super-mom-competitive-party-planning site ) but the basis is:

1 polystyrene ball (like these, although I think ours were a bit bigger)

Cut out feet from craft foam to keep the ball from rolling (attach with glue dots to save mess)

Pipe cleaner antennae

wiggly eyes

large box of space-themed craft foam stickers (from Hobbycraft) to decorate.

Wow stealth, I really want to come to your party!

Getting the tongs and moon rocks ready now. Musical planets also ace! I think they'd all love little astronauts with their names on too. Wow, really cool. Thanks so much.

We've also got a massive box (previously used as very shabby puppet theatre) that the boys want to turn into a space rocket. Think I can do it, but not quite sure what role it will play at the party!

Apart from pass the parcel, do you normally give prizes for winning the little things or is the joy of winning enough?

Would so do the balloon thing - but scared of popping balloons

IME there is always at least one child (normally mine) who bursts into tears when balloons pop, so I have always steered clear of popping them.

I used to give prizes for other games, but it doesn't really work very well, so I stick to rounds of applause (or you could do stickers if you can find some appropriate ones?) and just things in layers of pass the parcel and in the middle.

You could get freeze-dried ice cream as the PtP prize(s) (not the ones in the layers, the one(s) in the middle)?

Space rocket box would be great - they could all decorate it when they arrive - that would keep them amused for a while until you have critical mass?

Just noticed (one of many) typos - planets were printed, not painted - I don't have that much time