All class party???

[Gilmartin89]

So DS is turning 4 at start of April. In august last year we moved to new town and don’t know anyone or have any friends here. DS would love a party; would it be strange to invite his preschool class. He lives school but we don’t know anyone and he didn’t know names yet. He’s in 2 days a week at monent but from next week he’s 5 days 8-5 as I go back to work. I really want him to have an amazing birthday but will we look weird inviting people when we don’t know anyone? Are preschool class parties even a thing?

Not weird at all- it's a great chance for him to make friends with kids in the class and for you to get to know the parents

It’s fairly normal at that age to invite DC you won’t know. However, how big is the class? Does he play with all DC? Can you manage all of them with parents too? They will expect to stay I think. I asked nursery staff who DDs played with. I couldn’t have all of them! We usually settled on 10. Some won’t come. Ask staff to help you distribute invitations. Over and above their jobs, but ask!

I think so; he hasn’t really made a specific group of friends yet; that may come when he starts full time but according to school he gets on with everyone. We’d be doing it at a soft play that caters to 30 and there’s 28 in class it’s same cost if ten go or 28 go. My only worry is a lot of parents seem to know each other and it makes me nervous as I don’t know anyone

Great opportunity to get to know everyone! My DS is also about to turn 4 and we’re just doing his nursery class for his party. Yes some of the other parents know each other better than I know them because they have older kids together at school or live near each other but that’s not a reason not to have party.

@Gilmartin89 Just meet and greet in the venue and encourage parents to join you for a coffee. You won’t really get to know 28, and some won’t come, but you will get some idea of who’s up for a chat! If parents arrive in established groups - they do. I totally recognise this but it won’t be everyone. School is a better environment for dc to make friends so in a few years he will have made some.

It's entirely normal - and much easier to organise! It's also a great opportunity to meet other parents as well.

Go for it! It wouldn’t be weird

although 28 kids is A LOT. Maybe you’re better off with inviting say 18 (allowing for some to not accept the invite).

Another alternative is to have the party after the Easter hols and save the invites until later in March by which time you can chat to the preschool and ask if there’s a cluster of kids that dc is getting more friendly with - they will be happy to advise if you ask them! And then ask them to recommend enough kids to make up numbers (mix of girls and boys).

I’d do it. It’s a great way to meet the parents. Not everyone will come but it sounds like you’ve got nothing to lose financially by inviting the whole class.

In the holidays, people will be away. That’s inevitable. However they won’t all be.

I'm doing it for my 4YO in Feb , just after half term. But the class size is only 12 kids in the private nursery pre school. I invite all. I also invite some neighbors whose kids are similar ages and we do play dates with. Last year we also invited some friends from about an hour away and there were 17 kids! I love throwing parties. Every year. 😊

I'm not very social and never had many parties for myself when younger but I would like to do them for my DC.

I think this is a great idea. I would do a printed invite (perhaps with a photo of your DS on it - Greeting Island is good and easy) to send out with an accompanying note saying you’ve moved to the area, your DS has loved getting to know all the children at pre school so you hope they can celebrate his birthday with him.

Give your phone number and an RSVP date. I usually go with ‘Please let us know by X date if you can join us. If we don’t hear from you we’ll assume you can’t make it this time.’

As you have a hard limit on numbers at the venue, consider siblings of guests. Some people just assume that siblings can come along with no thought to the implications and putting one child’s name doesn’t help. I would say something like ‘Due to the capacity of the venue we’ve not been able to invite siblings this time. If this is a problem for you please get in touch and I can let you know if spaces become available’.

I did this for DD's 4th birthday. The only issue was she went to private nursery 2 days, and school preschool 2 days at the time in preparation for starting proper school. Then, she made friends with a group of about 10 kids that live on our street. To cut a long story short, we had 50 kids in the village hall, most of whose parents I met for the first time that day.

It actually worked really well. We got out the china we used for our wedding tea party and brought all of it home undamaged, no-one got hurt on the bouncy castle and DD thought it was wonderful.

Totally normal to have whole class parties up until y2/3 ime. Just make sure you pick a suitable venue with a party host rather than attempting anything too full on yourself with 30 kids.

I don’t think inviting 30 to a party is normal at all in y2/3. My dc never went to any this big. I guess the well off like to spend vast amounts but no one we knew did this, except at a prep with 18 in the class. We didn’t want parties all the time either! 30 in a year would be ludicrous. Even 15 would be too many. Most dc end up knowing who their friends are by y1 and even knew they don’t like. So why invite dc yours isn’t keen on? Just sounds ostentatious.