Games for 5 y/o boys - advice needed

[martini]

DS party looming. There will be 8 boys & 2 girls at home - all age 5. Thinking of doing musical cushions in garden - what do you do with the ones that are out? At this age they happy to stand around watching or do they need something else to occupy them?

sleeping lions for 2 hours?

They'll be fine watching when they are out, as the game won't take too long with 10 of them.

You could have some pencils and paper handy in case anyone wants to occupy themselves though - maybe make birthday banners?

Just to clarify - musical cushions is not the only game planned but is the only one where people will be "out".

Am a bit wary of competitive stuff as DS party last year was a bit stressful with a lot of shouty 4 year olds

The sleeping lions comment was a joke.

How much space do you have outside?

I'd give a small pack of sweets/buttons so they can sit, eat and watch

You could make a sort of disco outside with one of those bubble makers for the kids to run through.

Actually, my experience is that 5 year olds are much better able to understand "rules" than 4 year olds so I suspect it shouldn't be too bad.

I would let the ones who are out do something "free form" in the garden - I think ours played on the climbing frame or with a ball until the game had finished.

HUmphrey Cushion .

Keep the ideas coming ladies - just trying to get as borad a range of views as poss.

Do you have room for a bouncy castle?

At dd2's party when she was 5 we had a sticker for the one that was out but they kept playing. Then the winner was the child without a sticker at the end of the game.

we had our ds's party on saturday, had a fete in MIL garden. We did hook a duck, throw balls thru clowns mouth, lollipop game, treasure map, ping pong ball game etc etc. We made "win" tickets that we gave to everyone that won on that game. We then had a table of prizes that had different values ranging from 1 win to 5 wins, the kids thought it was fab.

Wow wurly wurly - that's a great idea. Did you have lots of grown ups or did you just do 1 game after another?

Have had my own idea re the musical cushions - have got some bottles of bubble mix left over from another party so thought could give the people who are out some bubbles to blow.

there was a 4 adults but we split the kids into 2 groups and took them round the games, you could put one adult on each game if you had enough people but TBH the kids where quite happy to watch will others took turn which I really didnt think they would.

How many kids wurly wurly? I do think my approach to parties has been severely tainted by last year's nightmare & I have noticed that some boys do seem to be a bit more engaged and under control than last year.

But some are still completely nuts (I come from family of girls). I'm hoping that if parents are absent they will be more responsive to me as pack leader.

we invited 26 but had about 20 turn up.