Am I completely insane if I let ds invite his whole class to his 6th birthday party?

[aloha]

There are 26 of the little blighters, and ds wants to ask them all. I also want to invite maybe three other children, plus of course dd will be there.
The party is at our house - we have a reasonably big sitting room and a smallish London garden (not that wide, about 40ft long). I am having a magician to perform for an hour and don't plan on the party being longer than about two hours. So it would be

Play in garden with buffet (do you play games at a 6th b/day party? If so, which?)
In for show
Back out into garden for possible Pinata bashing and chocolate rice crispy cakes etc while dh sweeps up remains of entertainer.
Cutting of cake, merry chorus of Happy Birthday
Push party bag into sticky ungrateful hands
Slam door
Drink wine

Is this doable or will I end up having a nice long rest while wearing a tight fitting white jacket?

Bit of background, ds has Aspergers, so it's nice if he invites people so he gets a better chance of being invited back through the year. He also says he doesn't know who his best friends are, and just wants everyone there. I don't suppose everyone will come..

I sort of envisaged 10-15 children.

im doing it (32 kids) yeeeha

I say go for it - if you don't you will regret it, and it sounds like your ds is about as helpful as mine in trying to identify who he would like to invite!

Please give feedback - I am contemplating a home party for the first time (will start own thread) for ds1 and ds2 jointly and wondering if this is a mad idea...

LIZS please tell me that your dd goes to an all girls school!!!!!something happens to boys when they get near a bouncy castle! they go wild!

LOL - I think this is the 3rd year running I have been looking at your birthday party ideas and thinking "oh bugger, what am I going to do?" (DS will be 6 in early October).

There are about 22 in DS's class and it is largely the "system" to invite the whole class. We got about 4/5s of them last year last time. With additional friends and assorted siblings we had 28 last year for a party at home and I have to say it was a tight fit (and, objectively, we have got a large house). Its do-able I would say, but I do think you need an entertainer to keep them all in the same place. (We are looking for a church hall for this year).

I suspect less parents will stay with 6 year olds - we are very much into the "dump and run" years for parties (helps if all of the rest of the class is there, and DS's class is quite sociable/non-factional).

Quite a nice habit that has evolved in Ds's class is that the parents have added to the invite a suggestion that the collecting parents come and have a glass of wine and snacks (only crisps or whatever) at pick up time. Its actually really nice to have an extra 30 mins having a glass of wine and a chat - good to put it on the invite so you can factor into timings etc because if you are impromptu people are often tearing off.

I think inviting the whole class plus inviting parents for a glass of wine afterwards will definitely lead to lots of reciprocal invites.

Anchovy that's helpful - one of the reasons I want to do a home party is that I hope some of the parents will stay and socialise! Mine will be a joint party for 6 and 4 yr old so hoping most of the 4 parents will stay (and a lot of the invitees will be sibling pairs anyway).

Elliott - don't want to put you off mate, but we have a nearly 4 year old and a nearly 6 year old and we have decided to do separate parties for the first time this year. But that is probably more because we have a Ds and a DD and they are starting to want quite different things.

Saw your other thread - you deffo need an entertainer. We had one for the first time last year and it worked really well. (Very expensive round my way, but I think worth it!)

Aloha a big party is great Imo tho better if you can avoid any trouble makers
But a magician will keep em busy. DD had 20 guests this year and 30 (!) last year. Year before that we had 33 or something for DS1 and DD joint party.
But BUT BUT

would never have that many at home. It really is a lot for example to get them all sitting and eating is a nightmare. we have a reasonable garden but no way room for 30 in it. Is there any way you can hire a church hall or similar? It also locates the mess away from your house which is much less stressful.

Anchovy, I just can't face doing two parties...the birthdays are just 4 days apart, so it would be consecutive weekends, I like to do the cooking so that would all be duplicated, plus a fair number of their friends come in sibling pairs so the guest lists might become a bit of a nightmare...will give it some thought though. IT depends on how many big 7 year old boys we have - probably only one. I've probably left it too late for the entertainers too - and have no idea where to start...

Ooh this is good and v encouraging - thank you. Will read more carefully when dd is asleep.

But quickly, what do you think is the best start time? magician (and we've had entertainers two years running with great success - hope this one lives up to expectation - he's a socialist magician ) does an hour and can start from 2.30pm. I thought maybe invite for 2.30 and have him at 3pm to allow for latish comers and to let them rampage for a bit. What do you think? Then have an hour's play and games. Or should it be the other way around?

Last year did:

Play in garden for a bit and pass the parcel
Tea
Entertainer (punch & judy and magic etc)
cake and happy birthday
Home

Should I allow 2.5 hours or three?

I think hall is fantastic but ds is much, much more at ease at home. We have a reasonable size sitting room - not enormous, just a London knocked through sitting room and I have rearrange furniture.
Garden about 40ft long. It will be a bit snug, I know.
No carpets downstairs so that's Ok, but no loo downstairs either, which isn't so great. Three loos but none downstairs.

aloha, we survived (with the help of fennel) a party with 20 children and with no magician. but the pinata kept them going for nearly 45 minutes.
go for no more than 2 hrs.

So if I get a pinata and I have a magician, what timings do folk suggest?

2 and a half maybe?
It depends on how resistant you are... we had quite a few troublemakers though...

I seem to remember our entertainer did about 1.54 hours broken - at his suggestion - into 2 chunks. We had - bit of general running around/waiting for latecomers; I hour entertainer; tea; 30 mins entertainer; cake.

Worked really well, that we cleared away the food carnage while the entertainer did the second stint then when the parents came back the children were actually sitting down eating cake in a relatively organised way and the house did not look like a total bombsite.

You would be bonkers to do any more than 2.5 hours and 2 hours is perfectly acceptable.

I've been to a couple of parties held at home that started at 4. I thought it worked out really well. The children were really hungry after the entertainment and ate very well. Also didn't have to feed dd any dinner as she had eaten already.
I also think it is good to start the entertained half an hour after the stated invitation time. This allows them to warm up and not also not have to constantly go and open the door to latecomers when the entertainer has started his act.

Ok, party gurus! So should I do 3pm start and 3.30pm entertainer (if he is OK with this) or 2.30pm start and 3pm entertainer.

I actually don't think kids will be hungry at 2.30pm so I think I should do tea at 4ish if entertainer does 3-4pm. Then then could do Pinata for 'pudding' followed by cake at 4.30ish to end at 5pm? So 2.30 to 5pm?

Would that be Ok, do you think? I need to write the invitations tonight!

The party is on Sat 22nd so I am assuming some families will be busy so not all kids will come.

I think 4pm is a good time btw, but the entertainer is coming earlier.

Also good because it cuts less into people's Saturdays. I didn't really think of that.

I would deffo do 3pm start with a 5.30pm finish. children arrive 3-3.15pm. Bit of general milling. Entertainer 3.30-4.30pm. Whisk them straight to tea at 4.30pm. Get someone to organise a couple of games 5-5.20pm while you do a bit of a clean up (disposable plates and large bin bags are my secrets). 5.20pm - bring back for cake then open champagne and start handing that round to any parents who are there or turning up at 5.30pm to collect. Everyone will be gone by 6.15pm.

I would deffo also give them labels with their names on. The entertainers tend to quite like that. It is also very good to be able to shout "Stop that JACK and ELLA" when things are getting a bit lively.

Agree with Anchovy

anchovy - quick hijack (sorry but there seems to be much more interest in this thread than in mine!!) - why are you having separate parties this year - in what way will they be different? I know I'll have to face it at some point (next year, next year)...

My tip for big parties of small children is to provide food earlier rather than later. It really settles them down. Like puppies, they're calmer after food.

You can choose a time when people are more likely to be busy, if you want to invite lots but not have them all come. (mine have tended to be born on bank holiday weekends, though it's a bit late for you to plan that now).

We're doing 3 til 5 and chipkid it is mixed !!!

Good luck!

We have had approx 25 three times now, but always in a hall away from my house.

Elliott - the "thing" at my dcs school seems to be to invite the whole class. DD has just started there and is in a class of 12. DS - Year 1 - is in a class of 22. A joint party would be v large.

I think also 6 year olds and 4 year olds want and need quite different things. Some of the children in DD's class are only just 3. DS's best mates in his class are, like him, the boys just turning 6. If we do a bouncy castle, I will have to police it quite carefully. If I do an entertainer, I am going to have to try and find one to cover all age ranges.

Something specific to us - I posted on this a couple of weeks ago - is that my DS is really growing up. I tend to lump the DCs together a bit, but I really need to "let" him be a bigger boy. So I would quite like to do a party for him really aimed at what he wants (sadly, Thunderbirds: I am going to dress up as Lady Penelope and DH is going to be The Claw LOLOL).