Running out of ideas for dd's 4th birthday party

[theITgirl]

I have 23 children coming to dd's party. Mostly 3 & 4 year olds but 2 2.5 year old girls and 2 6 year old boys.
Held at the local cricket club so plenty of room in the clubhouse, but the forecast is rain so we can't go outside.
This is the plan so far, but I need some more ideas for games - I have 8 prizes for the competitive games, which will be fixed so that the 6 year old boys don't win (one is my ds & the other is the big brother of one of the guests) but they will be useful for things like starting off bulldog.

2:00 Guests arrive
Start decorating name plates
2:20 Disco with bubbles
2:30 Musical bumps
2:35 Pass the Parcel
2:45 Musical Statues
2:50 Corners - need to get 4 large pictures
2:55 Bulldog - selotape crepe/tissue paper to children
Extra game if needed
3:00 Puppet show ? Three Billy Goats Gruff
3:15 Tea
3:30 Disco with bubbles
3:40 Another game
3:45 Another game
3:55 Pinata ? with pull strings
4:00 Send home with Party bags & balloons

So two main questions
Does this sound OK so far?
What other games can we use?

Little question - other 6 year old is not expecting to join in, can I be mean and not have a pass the parcel layer for him unless there is a no show and there is then a "spare layer"?. I think I am OK for party bags and am fine for food.

Sorry this is a bit of an essay, but am panicing about such a large party.

I think that that is LOADs. It makes me tired just reading the list! Are you having help organising all of that? My guess is that you'll find that planning it like this will put your mind at rest, but because you have such a big group to manage you won't get the 5 minute turnaround time on the games that you have planned, so some of the games from the first half could be knocked over to the second half, or potentially won't be played at all.

Tbh, I have not done one myself yet, but my sister gave me the advice that in a 2 hour party she planned this year, she aimed for 3 games pre-teatime and then 3 games after teatime. In the end they only managed to do 2 games TOTAL. That was for a 3 year old's party with around 10 children.

Good luck

Thanks for answering rubles. It is the largest party I have done yet, usuallly only 8-12 children so have got through the games quite quickly.

Yes, I am having help, there will be me, dh, MIL, cousin & partner, possibly SIL & BIL as well.

I have thought of another game, which I am sharing as it is good fun - Balloon Stomp. Tie a balloon to each child's ankles the winner is the person with the last balloon left unburst.

Ooh that's a good one.
Good luck.

IT girl I promise you that will be enough games.

For eg, musical statues will take longer than 5 mins, even if you speed it up by getting 2-3 kids out at once. Pass the parcel longer than 10 mins IME, esp if you have 20+ layers (I do forfeits for this number and thus can get away with 10 layers and a sweetie for everyone at the end).

Also 15mins is not long for tea really.

we had party for DS2 t'other week, 24 children IIRC and we got through about six games plus some craft at the start, no other entertainment (eg yr disco and puppets).

Yes there was a bit of running about by some of the children whenthey had finished craft and others hadn't, but it was not a problem.

Blimey charlie - that's plenty! Just don't get stressed when it doesn't all go to time - I'm sure you won't need all those games and everything will take longer than you think.

I'd probably have tea earlier - every party I've been to with ds's seems to have the food between 45mins - 1 hour after it's started - and it doesn't matter what time of day it is they'll still rush to eat!

I've been to a couple of parties that have had a face painter, which has been very popular. A party ds1 went to recently was in a scout hut and they'd set up little tables with different things on them - like lego, sticklebricks, playmobil people - I think they'd raided their toys and brought them along - it worked really well and the children just milled around the different tables for ages, playing.

Just to say I'd have tea earlier because it's bound to take longer than you think, it settles them all down for a bit so you can have a breather (kind of) and gives you more time to put the cake in the party bags!

Just to say I'd have tea earlier because it's bound to take longer than you think, it settles them all down for a bit so you can have a breather (kind of) and gives you more time to put the cake in the party bags!