birthday party idea for 10 year boy

[TTwidow]

Hi,

DS is turning 10 soon and I am wondering what sort of party to do. He only wants a group of 5 of his best friends there - thankfully. He doesn't have any preferences. We have done bowling and lazer quest before. Hubby is reluctant to take them swimming.
I'm wondering if mumsnet can throw up some gems. Any ideas?

Very successful party for our dc at that age was camping in the back garden. We have done it several times.

Family tent in the back garden. Party starts around 7pm, so guests have had supper before they arrive and we can feed them party food (usually hotdogs, and marshmallows toasted over the bbq). Silly games in the tent (pass the parcel with forfeits, the chocolate game, who am I? always go down well). At some point change into pjs and brush teeth. Adults and younger siblings abandon them at about 9pm. Go back out and confiiscate torches and tech an hour or so later. When we go to bed, one of us returns to the tent to sleep in one of the pods so that there is an adult present overnight.
Sometimes birthday cake has been in the evening, sometimes for breakfast.

Sounds hideous but actually one of the least stressful parties IME.

Go Ape is good for that age.

Do you have such a thing as a trampoline park in your area?

How big is your garden?

Last year we had a nerf party, kids brought their guns I bought 400 nerf bullets, fed them pizza half way through, kids took nerf bullets away in their party bags. Surprisingly easy and cheap!

Take a group of them to the cinema and then a pizza? Or over to yours for a BBQ?

If your garden is big enough you can hire out an inflatable go cart track with go carts ( think ours came with about 4 cars). My DD did this when she was 9 or so. Great fun!

CactusTeeth got in ahead of me. A Nerf party is the way to go!

Where do you live? We did surfing this year at an indoor place with a flo rider, you don't have to be able to swim and no adults were required to go in.

These are great suggestions - thanks! I'm in Surrey.

I did look at go ape but we seem to need 1 adult per 2 children and we don't have enough adults. And I know he would love camping in the back garden but I hate sleepovers.

A nerf party looks good and a fairly cheap option too. We have a whole nerf armoury in his room.

You could get the children to bring their own nerf guns and put their initials on their bullets. That way everyone gets to use their own favourite gun with sufficient ammo. Divide into two teams, and let battle commence! (Ban head shots and maybe have a sin bin for offenders.)