At what age did you start inviting friends/classmates to birthday parties? DS will be 3 next month and has been in preschool with the same kids for the entire year. I think the majority of the kids had their birthdays at the beginning of the school year (August/September), so I can see why the class wouldn't be invited since school had just began. Their rule is all boys, all girls, entire class, or no invitations as far as inviting, so I know nobody has had any parties where the kids were invited. Would it be weird to invite the class to our local park/zoo for his 3rd birthday? I guess I'm just a little hesitant about sending invitations since none of the other kids have.
Re: Age for Friends at Party?
I think I'll wait until they ask. We have a huge extended family and to invite just the core group of people brings it to about 30 ppl. And then add in our close friends and their kids we have about 50 ppl for our "small" parties. Having classmates there would mean either a separate party or no family party and right now I'd rather have family there than classmates I barely know.
Oh, and to answer your other question I don't know if I would do a local zoo. The cost of admission alone would put me off to invite people I barely know. But, if this is something you want to do I don't see why you shouldn't. You party could be the party that brings them all together.
Then I guess it comes down to whether you want more than 40 people at this party. Being the first party invitation in the class shouldn't be the deciding factor on whether you do it.
We invited his whole preschool class for DS's 2nd birthday. It was early in the year (november) and more than half came; add our friends' kids and we had more than 20 kiddos at the party, it was really fun for DS
Anyhow, no one else in his class has invited the other kids to their parties so I'd say 3 is the norm
Park/Zoo sounds like a nice idea (as long as you have a way to keep all the kids under sight/control at the zoo!)