What games to play at a 3rd birthday party?

[TuttiFrutti]

My ds has got 8 friends coming to our house for his 3rd birthday party next weekend. It's only for an hour and a half, but I know any games will go really quickly.

All I can think of is pass the parcel and musical bumps. What else can we do?

Personally, I'd avoid structured games for 3 yo's. For DS2's 3rd birthday, I put out all DS's larger toys (ie no small bits to get lost). Ride ons, balls, play house, large building bricks etc. If the weather's good have lots of small bottles of bubbles or a bubble machine. They will chase the bubbles for ever! If not so good, balloons indoors will work well.

At my DS's we had a treasure hunt. I had some paper carrier bags, which they decorated with stickers, crayons etc and then they went off to find sweets. The decorating wasn't a huge hit though, as they were more interested in the toys.

I had done a pass the parcel, but in the event the children didn't want to stop "playing" to play.

My friend told me it was the best 3yo party she'd ever been to, as she wasn't stressed like she usually is and the children had a great time doing what they like best.

for my 3yo i was going to do

pass the parcel
musical bumps
and I was going to do something like egg and spoon but with mini eggs or similar. Thought I would give them each a pile of them and get them to transport them via spoon across the room to a bowl. Whoever got most in their bowl at end of game is winner.
perhaps pin the tail on donkey- have seen velcro ones recently or you could make your own and use blutac.

We didn't play games in the end cos not enough children came (invited 15 and 5 came) and we had bouncy castle.

Is your ds used to going to parties and will he know what to expect?

When dd was 3, I did a pass the parcel, which she refused to participate in - she just sat on my lap and refused to touch the parcel. It is her favourite game now (she's 5), so she was just too young.

I also planned to do a flip the fish race across the room. I had large fish shapes cut from newspaper and rolled up magazines for them to swish the fish with. It was way too complicated and they didn't want to do it.

She had three guests and they just played in her room for most of it. That's what they were happiest with.

Keep it simple, he will be excited enough just having a party.

I would do several pass the parcels as it always goes down well. Chasing games where an adult races around chasing children also works well. Icing biscuits (we just did this at a 4yo party and it was popular even with the 2 and 3 year olds).

Chocolate button hunts are good too.