Must I invite all the kids in my LO's preschool class?

[NumberFour]

I am not sure what to do about my son's birthday party. He has received a few invites from school from a variety of children.

I wanted to arranged a soft play party for him (def not my choice! but then it is not my party!) and because I childmind, we have a list of about 10 children already.

I do not know much about preschool party etiquette! Must I invite his class of about 15 kids???? I have just asked him who he wanted to invite and he only mentioned two children in his class who I used to childmind and who he is very good friends with.

Am I wrong to invite only a few?? I would hate to think I was not "doing the right thing!"

how old?
you do know you don't have to have a party dont you?! sounds like he would be happy with just a few friends round

Just invite the 2 he has mentioned.

I've got this happening on Friday (also at soft play) etiquetteat my dd's pres-school seems to be that all the kids are invited- I noticed last year that they all were, but only about half to three quarters of them turn up. The same group of children didn't go to any of the class parties- no idea why...so although I've sent out 20-odd invites, I'm only expecting half that number!

nono no defo no!
I invited one boy from ds's class and the rest were family. about 5 kids in all, i just dont have the money for that.
ds was happy, great tiem had by all.

No - only the ones he says are friends.

Thanks so much, everyone! My son will be 4 and he is keen to have a party. Our house is VERY small and last year we had cake and balloons at our house for 3 friends so this year we would like to do a little more.

Glad to hear that I do not have to invite all and sundry! I don't think that everyone at his school is invited to all parties but if that is the case, then maybe I can start a new trend of inviting only those he actually plays with.

Bucharest, i have heard from others that people sometimes just don't RSVP. Really not on for the party organizers. Hopefully you will not have the entire school pitching up without having confirmed that they are coming! Hope you have a great party.

Not sure about the advice that only half of the kids will come if you invite the whole class. Last year DD (3) went to pre-school, nursery and had quite a few other friends and we ended up inviting 35 (this was a selection as if we had invited everyone it would have been closer to 50!)and I was pretty sure that we'd end up with about 20 (we had party in a hall). We ended up with about 35 (a few siblings came along)! It was chaos.

aaargh!

At £9.50 per child I cannot invite all the class! DS has mentioned a few more names since last I posted. But the invitations are written out and I have 2 blank ones left in case someone else's name pops up over the next few days.

And another question: must you reciprocate invitations? Even if my son does not play with the boy that invited him? Are we being mean not to invite him?? This gets so complicated!!! just been reading another thread about handing out sweets on the day of the birthday!

When my dd was at preschool, I asked the assistants if they could write me a list of the children she played with and then I went through it with her.

That moght be an easier way to do it.

great idea, thanks, nbg

I think anyone is mad to have the whole class! I only had a few friends at that age and I stuck to the ones they played with.