What kind of party for 7 year old boy?

[wellthatsdoneit]

Would love to hear your suggestions as am in need of inspiration. Budget is about £150.

Do they still do soft play parties at this age or is that considered a bit babyish for the average 7 year old?

might be a bit old for softplay. For ds's 7th birthday we hired a hall at the sports centre and had a bouncy castle and big inflatable slide. There were bats, balls, space hoppers, etc provided by the sports centre and they just all ran about and played with a short break to sing happy birthday and blow out candles on the cake. We weren't supposed to take food into the hall but we had some sweets, crisps and drinks on offer rather than proper party food.

DD had a lazer tag party for her 10th birthday and a bowling party for her 9th birthday. What about taking a couple of friends to the cinema and for food afterwards?

Think DD had ten pin bowling when she was 7.

Most sports centres will offer party packages, such as a football party or a multi sports party. Remember DD enjoying a trampolining one at about that age.

Soft play may be too young.
Do what he LIKES:
Swimming, bowling, disco if he likes dancing, cinema (if they have one if those £1.75 Saturdays)

We did a Pizza Express party for DD's 7th, that seemed to go down quite well.

where we live there's a company that will come to your house with a selection of exotic animals for the children to see/pet. Something like that could be fun for 7 year olds?

We are taking a group ice skating and pizza afterwards ....

Depends on time of year. We had a treasure hunt and bonfire to cook sausages on and toast marshmallows over for ds' 7th

DS (7 years old this year) has been invited to all sorts, the once he has enjoyed the most are:

• football (they love this)
• nerf gun party
• go karting party (in a big gym hall, the kids take turns on 3 go karts at a time and the rest are on a bouncy castle)
• disco party (they loved this one)

we had a pizza party for DS2,
they came here, decorated aprons with fabric pens
designed their pizza on paper
DH made pizza dough and the boys did the thowing in the air thing and then decorated them cooked them ate them and we had rocky road and icecream for pudding.
3 hours flew by and they all went home.

in recent months we have been to a bowling party a swimming party a movie night& sleep over, a party with a magician.

loving the idea of the exotic animals (sticks in back pocket for next year)

Anks for all the suggestions - there are some great ones there. Yes, I think soft play is probably too young now. Will give the other ideas some thought.

we ran a go kart party in a local hall for my sons birthday, we used Barracudas Events (www.barracudasevents.co.uk) and couldn't recommend them any higher!

Softplay too young - at 7 they magically go from bouncing harmlessly to severe injuries resulting from bouncy castles. Don't do it.

Google go kart parties near you. Or football/other sports. Or Laser Quest (definitely the cool party for 7yos this year round here)

laser quest
ice skating
bowling
swimming
go kart
pizza dvd sleepover
football

One that hasn't been mentioned so far - do you have any climbing walls near you? 7 is a good age to have a try at this and it's a fun group activity.

Oh yes, climbing also officially cool. I second that one.

We've done all sorts of parties for ds1 (9yo). For his latest party, he had a cinema party - party room for food/games before the film, then popcorn and ice cream to take into the film with them. Fifteen children plus two adults were included in the price.

Last year he had Laser Quest.

The year before he had Mad Science.

The year before that we hired a carriage of a steam train (£60 for 2 hours) and he had a magician entertain the children/adults on the train plus food.

Prior to that, he usually had soft play parties (up to and including age 5).

Other ideas (taken from parties we've been to recently) -
Multi-sports
Zorbing
Scalextric
Movie-night
Wilderness party

We're thinking of trying Mad Science or a wilderness party for DD's 7th this year. She's been to a few climbing parties which she loved. She wanted a swimming party but I think I'd be too terrified to take a bunch of 6/7 year olds to a swimming party and would be mortified if parents stayed and I had to parade around in my sagging swimming costume :-)

We had a Mad Science party for DS's 7th birthday recently and it was brilliant - the kids all absolutely loved it. It wasn't cheap but it was well worth it - apart from sorting the food, I didn't have to lift a finger

Our soft play place does an early evening slot which is for parties only and they play disco music and have bubble machines. The 7 year olds round here do not consider themselves too old for that.