Party for 9-yr-old boy at home... am I mad?

[TheDullWitch]

He doesn't want to go bowling now or a movie. He wants about a dozen friends at our house to play games. But so much has been ruled from his lofty heights of coolness as "lame" ie any theme, pass the parcel etc etc. And he s invited girls for the first time but won't have a disco party.

We have a relatively roomy house (with a playroom and biggish kitchen)and a garden (so why did I have winter children!) I thought about a pub quiz style thing and maybe a treasure hunt.

Any thoughts or advice or dark warnings. Because we haven't had a house party for about 4 years and I have no idea how to entertain 8-9yr-olds.

I think you are very brave

My children aren't that age but friends of ours with older children did a fairly successful sort of murder mystery party for their dd of the same age at home. I don't know if that might be a bit complicated (sounded it to me!) but apparently, they had great fun.

I shall watch this with interest as my ds2 is 9 next month and will probably want the same thing.

God, a murder mystery party... did they dress up and adopt characters and all? Sigh. I just want something where I can light blue touch paper and retire to the kitchen for a drink.

So far these games have been deemed not lame...

• treasure hunt - which means hours of planning.
• that game where you shake a six then have to race across the room and put on clothes then eat chocolate with a knife and fork. *pub quiz - more endless planning sigh.

That should use up about 35 minutes of the 3 hours.

I had the idea of buying every child a cheap torch then casting them out into the garden to find sweets hidden in the dark.

lol

I think the way they did the murder mystery is they had clues in different places and were split into teams and had to solve clues. Honestly, it sounded fiendishly complicated (i.e. lots of planning!) but ran quite smoothly on the day. It sounded like too much work for me!

Perhaps you could do a lesser version in a treasure hunt with a series of clues to where the next stuff is hidden (like riddles written on pieces of paper)?

Sardines might work - my children play that a lot and it does seem to go on forever.

Also, if you have a large room, how about turning out all the lights and have one person at one end with a torch. The others start at the other end of the room and have to creep up to the person with the torch without making a noise or being spotted moving, ie if the torchbearer turns the torch on and sees any movement, that person has to go back to the beginning. A sort of grandmother's footsteps in the dark except better because if you arrange the furniture as obstacles, the creepers have to go round it or can hide behind it and be unobserved by the torchbearer.

Does that made sense? We used to play that when I was a child, but then my parents had a very large sitting room.

Or, just thought of another one. Hide and seek in the dark. Same as normal hide and seek but no lights on so you can hide in more obvious places and still not be found.

Yes, I think torches, dark and creepiness will be the governing principles here. That and me yelling "no take your muddy shoes off!" to a dozen children heading up my staircarpet.

I had a very successful party for ten 9 year old boys last year. We split them into 2 teams, and played charades and cluedo. We borrowed a singstar karaoke machine for the PS2, and, still in teams, added the karaoke scores. We had a penalty shoot out and a basket ball shots-through-the-hoop competition in the garden, then we had take-away pizza and a prize giving ceremony for the winning team. To finish off, when it was dark, we sent them out to the garden to play "dish-towel tig" (copyright MrsMuddle ) where two tiggers have a dish towel, and everyone has to run from one side of the garden to the other without getting hit with a dish towel. Once you're tigged, (tug?) you take the dish towel and become the tigger. When they were all exhausted, they had hot chocolate and birthday cake outside, then they went home. It was cheap, easy, and they all loved it.

I did a birthday party today ( and I'm still alive) for my 8 year old boy. We had t-shirt printing with star wars stencils (£2.50 for 2 t-shirts in Tescos), a Death Star pinnata and 2 player mode on Lego Star Wars for the Xbox. Everyone had fun and they were all happy to be taking something as large as a t-shirt home.

hi,
my son is having his 8th bd party at home next week. he is having 3 friends round and we have got the dr who board game for them to play, then we are planning either a) i will cook chicken nuggs/fish fingers etc or b) takeout pizza hut and then maybe either they can play/compete on lego starwars on ps2 or just play in his room for a while. Im now thinking though after reading on here to get some of those glow sticks and they can have a game of chase in the dark in the garden ( or are there health and safety issues there?)
i now realise why hes never had a party at home as it really is so much easyer to let the local play park organise everything!!

Buy cheap loo rolls, divide into pairs and play first to make a mummy

I did it this year, it was ok

Break out the Twister, they'll love it