Advice on Craft Party for 5th Birthday Party

[sadpigeon]

I'm organising 5th birthday party for my DD, have hired a hall and invited the class (expecting 20-25 children to be able to come). The children will all be 4 or 5 years old.
DD loves arts and crafts and does not like entertainers, also said she didn't want a bouncy castle.
Hoping to do a few craft activities and party games.

For the crafts I'm looking at 3 options:
Wooden keyrings they colour in
House boxes
Decopatch animals a choice of different animals/dinosaurs

Do you think 3 options is too much? If I cut down to 2 which 2 are the best?
For the decopatch I'm not sure if the children will struggle to stick the paper on, I could rip it up in advance or could provide paint instead as that would be easier (but maybe messier)?

Hoping to do roughly 1 hour of craft, then 30 mins lunch and finally 30 mins party games.

Any ideas/advice welcome!

Well I have a very good friend who runs painting craft parties for kids and she won't do it for under 7's, they can't concentrate long enough.

25 kids and craft sounds like an absolute nightmare.

I'm assuming they're reception age? Yes i would say a lot of kids won't be interested in craft so much at that age, especially if it's fiddly or time consuming. There's a very strong chance there'll be messing around amd silliness, especially if they're in high spirits because it's a party.

If you really want craft activities I would say they should either be optional, with alternative activities available or 20-30 minutes maximum.

We did this for my son's 6th birthday. But for less children (your plans are ambitious!). We had about 10-12 I think. We split them up into groups of 4 and had tables set up with each craft (3 crafts in total) and rotated them round to the next table in their small groups every 10-15 minutes. We needed a parent/adult helper at each table. Their favourite activity was making coloured sand jars. We got everything from Baker Ross.

5 sounds really young for this, especially as some kids will only be 4? Also you have invited too many kids. It sounds unmanageable. If you are going to have that many kids for craft activities they'll need help with, then I suggested loads and loads of parent/adult helpers.

Thanks for the advice so far, sounds like I should cut the craft down a lot as an optional thing and focus more on party games instead?
Yes some children will be only 4 so some won't have a long attention span for crafts.
For helpers there will be me and 2 other adults (though nearly all parents will stay).
Which craft activities should I keep? I think the keyrings would be easy as they are colouring in. I could have a table with those and 1 other option as well as balloons and music for the first 30-40 mins before the party games?

We went to a 5yr olds party recently that had an optional craft table (painting ceramic money boxes).

That seemed to work well - the kids who wanted to do the craft went and did it at the craft table, while the other kids played.
The craft table was there for the whole party, and I think over the course of the party, most of the kids participated in the craft.

I wouldn't do anything requiring glue - like the decopatch animals - with such young children. (Retired reception teacher....) An hour is too long; I'd concentrate on party games.

My DS attended a girl's 5th birthday party where a craft company came in and ran the party. There were 20 kids. None of the boys were interested in doing the crafts at all and in the absence of any other entertainment just ran around excitedly. There were up to 10 girls doing the crafts but none of them stayed at the table for longer than 20 minutes.

I think in theory it's a great idea but you really need to know what the kids are like and they need to be older than 4/5.

If your DD loves craft can you have a small party with just her closest friends who presumably also like craft.

Painting is easier than sticking (but messier - let parents know on the invitation that they should wear older clothes) and have lots of wipes available. I agree parents will help, but you’ll need some active games to burn off energy as well. You might want to think about drying time and how they will take the crafts home.
Lots of fancy stickers and glitter (not glitter glue it takes ages to dry) to make pictures on coloured paper might be easier for them (or for decorating the houses).
One hour of craft is a lot, but at that age they do just love racing about and playing
Good luck

my DD is about to turn 6, I’ve been to a fair few of these in the past year. Personally I’d get a bouncy castle. Your DD doesn’t have to go on it, but it provides an additional energy-burning focus for those who won’t want to do crafts for the whole party.

Set up a few big tables as far away from the castle as possible and have activities where they can dip in and out.

Yy to Baker Ross!

Thank you very helpful ideas.
I had a feeling the decopatch would be too difficult so will scrap that idea.
Will change to optional craft table throughout the party with the keyrings (and houses for any that are particularly keen). Luckily one of the other helpers is great at party games and the children loved the games when she did them at my older DD's party.

Hmm maybe you are right about the bouncy castle. I have always booked them in the past as that way there is something they can do straight away. I think I will ignore DD on this and go for bouncy castle too.