Ideas for ice-breaking party games please?

[crimplene]

We're holding a 1st birthday party for DS soon. We've managed to borrow a gorgeous garden for free and the idea is that it's a sort of DS welcome party, bit like a christening, but less formal and without the religious bit. So far we're planning cake, baloons, a cold veggie buffet we'll do ourselves and no booze.

The guests range from my family (white, rural, posh) to DP's family (Asian, urban, not posh) and our friends who are about as diverse a bunch as you could imagine, but including largish Muslim, Rastafarian and Pagan contingents. About 70-100 people including about a 10-20 children.

Few of the guests will have met one another before, and I can see it being a bit of a challenge breaking the ice. I didn't want to just have games for kids (although I'll do a couple) as most of the guests are adults, but rather games that everyone could join in to help break down some of the awkwardness and put everyone at ease.

There's quite a bit of square, flat lawn and smaller paved areas with the rest of it being paths through trees and flower beds. We don't have much money, so we won't be able to hire bouncy castles. I'd love some suggestions for games/activities that aren't too difficult to draw people into.

I did a really good one at a friends engagement party once. She took enlarged photos of her and her blokey and cut them up and hid them around the house, the idea was you had to find a complete photo and put it together on a table.

It was good as the kids/younger/more energetic people could run around looking and the older people could do the jigsaws. Could be very cute with large pics of your DS and people don't have to join in if they don't want to (her family was a bit posh and didn't want to do silly games, but this they loved.)

I think that is deffo brill idea

Fart. Always works.

I was going to suggest passing oranges under chins

A giant parachute is great fun and easy for everyone to join in with

children especially get very excited about it

ask me if you want ideas for games to play with one

sorry I have just seen the bit about not much money

apologies, I presumed big party = big budget

you could maybe hire or borrow one?

Chirpy, I love the pictures idea - will do that one, thanks! Franny, could you tell me more about games using the parachute? I'm sure we could borrow one/ make one/ find the money if it would be fun

Glad you like it! It was really good fun and kept us going all afternoon as she cut them up really small and they were fecking huge pictures!

percussion band or dancing from all those is there a nucleus of musical talent?

another one is to get sheets of bubble wrap and get people to jump on it to pop the bubbles

Ooh, and tesco have parachutes for a tenner, not giant ones but fairly big.

zippi - I think the ice would have to be very well broken before my granny and some of our more reserved friends would go for the oranges game. Non-contact sports would work better, thanks anyway!

food, and lots of it.

Oh yes, we've got loads of drums and things - that might work. Ta!

make sure the seats are close together so people can't separte them

ie they have to sit together

I hadn't thought about the seating. The seating's in a circle round the edge of a summerhouse, so they can't get too far apart, but it doesn't really make them mingle. I could bring some chairs too so they're not all sitting (in silence?) looking at one another in the circle.

Well I would on this occasion recommend getting one rather than making your own, because they work so well when it is a good quality one such as the one I have linked to

Basically you get as many people as possible around the edge, holding on (I would get the very largest size for your party). Get people moving together and comfortable with the parachute, moving it up and down rhythmically. Suggest that all the children might like to go underneath while the adults move it up and down for starters. You can then play some games such as shouting out a colour, and everyone wearing something in that colour has to try to run underneath the chute and out the other side before the chute comes down on them again. Or shout out a month of the year and everyone born in that month must run under. You can get some light / soft balls and bounce them on the parachute in different ways, or get one large ball and work as a team to roll it towards a named person.

You can gently drag people around on it and give them a ride (lighter children rather than adults I would suggest). You can create a 'mushroom' by all stepping together as the parachute goes up, and letting it fill with air, and then a 'flying mushroom' by all letting go at the top - it whooshes up quite alarmingly and flies off somewhere which is entertaining. Finally you can all step inside and sit down with the edges of the parachute tucked underneath your bottoms, so it makes a kind of multi-coloured tent to sit in. People respond really well to parachute games IME and it is something rather unusual and exciting for everyone attending. It is fun to watch, as well, for older / less able bodied people who might be sitting out of the games.

I can give you more detailed instructions on any of these if you would like, or suggest other activities to try with it. Sorry I can't lend you mine but it is nowhere near large enough for this sort of event.

ask if any of your guests have one

or if they can borrow from a school or youth club or nursery

I used to be a language teacher so have a stock of mingling games!

If you want people to talk you could try a game we call rizla-head - you may have played it...? If not, basically you stick a sign on everyone (at parties it's usually a rizla - hence the name - but a post-it works just as well!) with a name written on it, somewhere where they themselves can't read it. They have to work out who they are by asking questions, like "am I a woman?", "am I alive?"

To make people mingle you can do a version where everyone is half of a well-known pair, ie Romeo and Juliet, Harry Potter and Hedwig, The Queen and Prince Philip, Posh and Becks, Winnie the Poo and Christopher Robin and they have to 1) find out who they are and 2) find the other half of their pair. Sometimes you get funny mistakes over the pairing but sorting it out is all part of the game.

Kids can join in as long as you make sure they get characters they will have heard of. It doesn't matter if they can't read, they can concentrate on asking questions about themselves instead of answering other peoples.

Franny, if you're that posh you should have learned how to spell recommend.

mingle.
have five people whose job it is to make sure that everyone interacts with each other. indtroduces etc
lots and lots of food. catering to every palate.
you cant have abig party and not have lots of food

Garden games
Giant Jenga
Boules
Croquet
Delegate someone to organize them or put random people into teams

Thanks everyone, that's given me a few ideas!

"Franny, if you're that posh you should have learned how to spell recommend"

I know you are joking, but

a) when did I ever claim to be "that posh" and

b) I spelt it right

oh i saw a really good trick on tv the other day. how to get a cork out of a bottle.

basically put a cork into a bottle and provide various tools to try and get it out.

unless they've seen the show and would get it straight away!

i'll let you know the answer if you're interested in that one. it looked fun.