Birthday tea for 5 year old boy

[SomekindofSpanish]

Hi all

I usually hold birthday parties at home for DSs 1 & 2 and they have been themed. However, it is DS3's birthday very soon and for a number of reasons, I have not had any time to give his first non-family birthday party any real thought. So I though I would invite a number of his friends over (about 8) for a tea party one day after school.

Does anyone have any ideas for activities for 5 year olds? Or should I just let them run riot round the house, have a few toys out and sit back and attend to any incidents ?

Thanks

Traditional party games go down well at that age.
Musical chairs, musical bumps, musical statues.
Pass the parcel.
A treasure hunt
Pin the tail on the donkey (or alternate version of)
Some sort of craft activity to calm them down towards the end of the party

I think having some planned activities is a good idea rather than just letting them play by themselves for the entire time.

Don't bother with pass the parcel - it's always a flop.

I disagree. Pass the parcel has always gone well for us

Also treasure hunts looking for chocolate eggs or similar and lucky dip

Throw in jelly and ice cream and other games mentioned above and you are away.

Pass the parcel a hit here too. Especially with forfeits in them. Simple craft would be to make a party hat / crown or decorate a biscuit with icing and sprinkles.

Another 'Pass the Parcel' fan here too.
Have LOTS of games planned - DON'T leave them to "entertain themselves" .
Oh, and, at 5, I'd limit them to 4 or 5 friends - you've already got your 3 there, it will become too much.

BFG - lol... i'm having dd's 5th birthday 'tea party' here next week. 18 girls in the house! More fool me

I think for an afterschool tea they should be a bit less hyped than on a weekend. I think the treasure hunt sounds a good plan (if you start with that you can hide everything when they are at school). Is he into any tv programmes, we were going to do a horrible histories (wrapping mummy in loo roll; hand in squidgy 'brains', 'poo', etc) until dd2 changed her mind to fairies. Hopefully you can get the big brothers in on helping with the games a bit. You might want a slightly earlier tea (4ish) than on a weekend, mine are always starving after school, they can always have another snack at home later.

You might want to check that best friends etc can come on a school night before sending out invites.

Thanks for the ideas everyone and sorry for the late reply.

He wants a Superman theme , so I will try to incorporate your ideas within the Superhero theme.

I have had 16 kids under this roof for parties before, so think 8 should not faze me too much .

Re after school, I have now decided to do the party on a Saturday between 11 and 1, so that at least families have a bit of the day left to do something else. Not great when one's weekend seems to be dominated by kids parties.