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Pre-School and Daycare
KathrynMD
member
Can I have a 3rd birthday party w/o a "special" activity or location
KathrynMD
member
DD's birthday is in December. I was thinking about going to a bounce place, but I think that'll be really expensive - like $300ish, plus food, etc. I'm now thinking of maybe jsut doing it at home and invite DD's friends (and parents). We have a big enough house and we have a separate playroom for the kids. We did an at home party last year and it was fun, but I'm not sure if it'll be boring this year. I probably have between 10-15 kids to invite, plus parents and our families.
Thoughts?
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Re: Can I have a 3rd birthday party w/o a "special" activity or location
I think you can get away with that easily up until age 5 or 6 and even beyond depending on the size of the group.
The kids just have a blast exploring a new house and playing with different toys.
Total score: 6 pregnancies, 5 losses, 2 amazing blessings that I'm thankful for every single day.
do you have a recommendation? We've done arts and crafts at a few parties, but it always seems like it ends up being me doing the project.
DD -- 5YO
DS -- 3YO
We had an at-home party for DD1's birthday last year. We had seven kids (but invited 10), ages 3 to 8 years, so I thought we needed some activities to keep them all entertained and occupied.
Unlike everyone else, with 10-15 kids, I'd want to have some activities planned rather than all free play, because with that many kids stuck indoors I'd worry there'd be fights over toys and complaints of boredom.
When I was planning our party, I asked for ideas here and used this advice (I think from neverblushed) as a guide:
For 3 year olds, a mix of free play activities (a train table, a bunch of balls in the yard, the play kitchen made available for guests) along with one or two whole-group games and a table with art projects where parents will help their own kids out works well. The best parties for this age group are structured using the same logic a preschool teacher uses to arrange blocks of activities for the kids at school. Some flexible free play as the guests arrive, then have the kids come together for a group activity (the freeze dance is one that kids of all ages love), then some time for kids to cycle through the arts and crafts activities, then another game or activity, then cake and singing, then a little more play as you hand out favor bags and say goodbye to guests who are leaving. The whole party can be accomplished in 2 hours. In fact, parties that go much longer than that can lead to preschool meltdowns!
So, with that in mind, we had a Wonder Pets theme and did: free play (as the kids arrived), freeze dance, limbo, a break for pizza, a scavenger hunt (four rhyming clues to find each WP and the baby pig in trouble), duck duck goose (per one kid's request), pin-the-W-on-the-cape, a break for cupcakes, musical chairs, and a pull-string pi?ata. I also had a table set up with crayons and some WP coloring pages and left the playroom open for free play throughout the party. If we hadn't had the older kids, I probably would have kept it less structured, with more time for free play.
We've been to two other at-home parties; one was similar to ours, with a steady stream of activities, for 3 and 5 y.o. brothers; and the other was mostly free play with one craft, but that was outside in June. (The craft was simple and worked well, though; they had foam doorhangers and buckets of foam shapes and letters stickers so it didn't need to be overly supervised.)
Of course you can! That is exactly what we did for our three year old in July when she turned three. It was fantastic. Just a backyard morning party. My DD told me she wanted monkeys for the theme, so I went with it.
We had sangria/coffee/tea/orange juice/Honest Kids juice boxes, monkey cupcakes (banana cupcakes with vanilla cream cheese frosting, decorated to look like monkey faces), tropical granola with yogurt on the side, banana bread, fruit salad, veggies and dip and Banana Nut Cheerios in little cups.
Each favor bag had a barrel of monkeys, bubbles with zoo characters on the outside and monkey munch, which I made. It had banana chips, white chocolate chips, Banana Nut Cheerios and shredded coconut.
No games. Everyone had a blast hanging out and the kids had so much fun playing together.
Wanted to second this.
What I've found from parties with lots of scheduled activities is that the kids don't get to interact with each other as much.
At D's BFF's birthday this past summer they did the freeze game, pin the tale on the donkey, etc. There was very little down time.
Dylan was really looking forward to it because he was at a new school and wanted to socialize with new friends but they were so focused on activities that he didn't really get to "play" with his friends much, KWIM?
Total score: 6 pregnancies, 5 losses, 2 amazing blessings that I'm thankful for every single day.
The foam sticker kits seem to go over well. They need a little help from mom or dad, but they don't make a big mess. You can have them decorate something, like a bucket or bag and maybe do a pinata after where they fill their bucket/bag with pinata loot.
DMoney will be a kickass big sister