I have 45mins to fill for a party of 30 5/6yr olds...

[notnowbernard]

It's in a community centre

Do I need to try games or will they just run around being mental?

I can't get 2 dc to listen to me let alone 30 of them

Any ideas/experience v welcome!

get lots of scrap boxes, bottles etc then get children into small group.

each group has to make something out of the boxes. you could have a theme

I got some games for DS birthday but they all just played with balloons! If you learn how to do balloon animals you'll be a massive hit! tis actually really easy

You definitely need some activities planned.
You could do:
simple craft - Baker Ross has loads of ideas
wacky races - children in teams doing egg and spoon, sack race et - can present medals at the end
party games - have some music and a few games up your sleeve. Bubble machines popular if the hall will allow it.

rope in a couple of friends to do face painting

a good game is one like musical bumps or whatever, the kids that are out get to dress up (get a selection of hats, feather boas, etc etc) and join back in. No bored/upset kids hanging about on the sidelines.

Limbo dancing in a long line like a conga.

If you get them doing something that they really love they will behave like little angels, believe me it is possible. I found some of my son's friends reluctant to join in with some of the traditional party games like musical bumps and pin the tail on the donkey, but everyone loved the treasure hunt we organised last year. So much so that it's going to become a regular occurance at my children's parties. You can make them up yourself, but we bought a kit from lello and monkey which was great and it only cost £5.99. Try this link www.lelloandmonkey.co.uk/index.asp

Thankyou all for these ideas

Am liking the idea of races and will also check out the link