3rd birthday party

[pinkgrapefruitjuice]

Just planning ahead, ds is 3 in Sept and up until now have just had 6 or so friends over for little parties. However, this year he wants to invite friends from nursery plus others and our flat is tiny.

I looked at local leisure centre, they do bouncy castle parties for £127 for up to 22 children, plus its £3.50 per child for food. So we are looking at £200 I think they will let us do our own food. Do you think this is reasonable? Any other ideas would be appreciated.

thanks

Round here parties at the local farm are v good value and a big hit with 3 year olds. (Rides on ponies and tractors, guinea-pig stroking etc)

Our local amateur theatre does a children's show once a month on a Saturday - about £1.50 for a 45 minute panto-style show. That followed by a Happy Meal makes a reasonably-priced party.

P.S A picnic in the park? Weather permitting obviously!

Do you have any soft play places nearby? I have a friend who had a party there.

Other friends have rented out church halls/village halls, this should work out a lot cheaper.

I would not personally pay 200 quid for a kid's party ever

Cheaper option - hire a hall - prices vary enormously from hall to hall so you may have to do a bit or research.

Beg, borrow or steal lots of ride ons, mini trampolines etc, put out lots of balloons and let the children have a realxed time.
Maybe get everyone together for hokey kokey, head shoulders etc and maybe some sitting down action songs too. Should be able to get a cd from ELC.

3 year olds vary so enormously in attention span etc it not worth doing anything too structured.

Thanks so much for your ideas, its really helpful.

I felt that £200 was a lot for local authority place but have no experience of this. I found that private soft play areas were equally or even more expensive! One of them charges £25 per child!!! I am trying to make the arrangements as easy as possible as I will have a 2 month old by then, and as cheap as possible because I will be on SMP.

Really like the idea of a local hall and getting a load of toys out, maybe one of the local playgroups would let me use their stuff?

I think a picnic would be lovely but in Sept, weather can be a bit mixed.

Will check out the city farm too and see what they offer.

Any other suggestions welcome. Anyone else recently done a party for 3yr olds? What worked well for you? What did they enjoy the most?

Certainly worth asking local playgroup if you can borrow their stuff. We went to a party like this when my DD was 3 and she loved it.

Fancy dress can be fun; a chance for them to wear their first princess/pirate outfit.

oooh I like that idea liliputlady! and ds would love it. thank you

Most halls charge about £25-40 for the room hire. You can do your own buffet for about £40. Party bags will cost you another £20-30 depending on how many kids, and then you need to get all the plates, cups etc (remember to wipe these clean and re-use them next year)
You can do a really good party for about £120, but its hard work doing it all yourself. If you only have a few people coming, the soft play option works out cheaper. If you are looking at more than 15 kids, DIY is def. the cheapest option.

Good point faddle, I need to do my sums and think about how much work it would be with a newborn too.

Im going to research more soft play areas, maybe ones that do everything including party bags but for less than 10 kids. Then compare costs with doing it myself and hiring hall etc.

Thanks for all your input.