Welcoming and settling little party guests

[TaytoCrisp]

Planning dds 5th bday party at home. May have visit from queen Elsa for an hour depending on cost. Any tips on what to do as the guests arrive? Afraid they might be looking at each with nothing to do. Could do games I guess but there is still the hanging around while they all arrive!.. Novices in this area... THanks in advance!

Hi Tayto
My warm up activity is make your own party bags. Give them each a plain paper bag and lots of felt tips, stickers, stamps etc to decorate with. At that age you could write names on yourself in big letters so they can colour them in /decorate. The Works sells craft stuff like feathers, pompoms, sequins.

That sounds like a nice idea cheminotte - thank you!

My suggestion was going to be similar to chem's in that I was going to suggest you make some crowns and get them to decorate & colour them. A mum of one of the guests did point out it was like a corporate ice breaker activity but then did the same thing at her DD's birthday party a few weeks later so it can't have been too bad!

I always eg them to find their name sticker and I've been to parties where they decorate their sticker too.

I always have some books out (mostly ignored, but there's always one or two kids who just want to sit at the side to begin with) and some colouring to do - usually I print off something loosely related to the theme from the internet - leading into a little craft activity.

In my experience, it takes about 10-15 minutes for them all to arrive. Sometimes even longer, but I think any later and they sort of expect you to start without them.