Holding a birthday party without cheapy favors/games?

[rafiki]

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[Alenee]

I'd google kids party crafts and games. This is how my girlfriend put together a "horse" themed party. For a theme, you could do "harvest" and have the kids dress up as a scare crow. That could be really fun! And at it's core, it has nothing to do with Halloween.

 

I'd do two games total. My plan would be something like this: Everybody shows up, allow kids to hang out a few minutes. Play games. Maybe a craft. Do cake. Do presents. Allow kids to play. At those ages, they can come up with plenty to do given a little free time. Then I'd send them home with a little thank you goodie bag filled with a pencil, a mini notebook, bubbles.....

[Snickerdoodle]

Instead of party favors make a pinata. It's a load of fun for the kids and easy to make.

[hsmom]

I ordered a whole set from here http://www.birthdayinabox.com/. The stuff is awesome. We got everything for a great price. We got the deluxe pirate set, it even came with the pinata.(sp). The shipping was good. They have this thing where you put in the date of your event and they make sure it is there before then.

[JFSinIL]

A craft that makes an item they can take home with them is always good, and eliminates the need for a party favor - the craft is the favor.

[Gretchen in NJ]

One year, we hooked up a slip-n-slide. The children had a ball.

[gandpsmommy]

In my experience, at the younger end of that age group (4-6) the kids usually just enjoy playing and don't necessarily need a lot of structured activities, but I've found that the seven and eight year olds really like games.

 

For my 7yo dd's party (which I think lasted 2 1/2 hours) we planned some art/craft sort of activities, two games and a pinata. She had a dog theme. We started the party with some open-ended art/craft activities that kids could do as they came.

 

First we had a table set up for decorating treat bags. We had a plain white paper gift bag for each guest to decorate. We had dog stickers, paw-print & balloon stamps and ink pad, and markers. The kids wrote their names on the bags and decorated them. This was their treat bag for collecting prizes and treats from the pinata. Then they got to choose a puppy visor to wear as a party hat (the paper ones are a waste of money, imo), and a puppy blower (These are worth the money for me for the fun my kids have with them.)

 

Then we had face paint for the kids to transform themselves into a puppy. We let them do it themselves, so we had some mirrors and a package of baby wipes at that station.

 

I've found that any variation of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey is a great success. We played pin-the-nose-on-the-puppy. I drew a puppy on a large piece of white craft paper. Than I glued it onto foamboard and let dd and her friends color the puppy (before the party). I cut out enough noses for each guest to have one, and we put tape on the back of each nose as their turns came up.

 

We also did a relay. They had to race to our sandbox and find one of the paper bones we had buried, then run back and tag the next person.

 

Then we had a puppy pinata.

 

Ideas that I like for prizes that aren't junky, cheap plastic stuff: play-doh, bubbles, matchbox cars, chapstick/lip gloss for girls, stickers/temporary tattoos, bouncy balls, small note pads and pencils.

 

I google whatever theme party I am trying to plan for. I also look on sites like Birthday In A Box, Birthday Direct, etc. for ideas.

[Doran]

...because "our" (by this I mean the community of friends whose kids' parties we are likely to attend or who might attend ours) parties almost never include(d) specific games. Just food (kid friendly) and general fun, maybe a pinata at the end - that seems to do it. But, if you feel you want planned activities, you might consider letting kids paint a pumpkin to take home, or decorate an acrylic frame into which you put a Polaroid photo of each child taken day of party. Of course, there's always "Pin the _____ on the ______ (stem on the pumpkin, nose on the scarecrow, wheel on the race car, jersey on the basketball player, etc.). Or, what about buying a bunch of straw hats or plain t-shirts and letting them decorate them in some way?

 

Seriously, though, kids here seem willing to make their own fun if given some time and space, and maybe a few props. Unless you plan for the party to go on for hours, a simple activity and a craft may be all you need.

 

Sounds fun! :001_smile:

[milovany]

Different tack here: I remember your post about wanting to do a birthday party on/instead of Halloween and maybe this was covered in the previous post ... but are the GUESTS people who are not wanting to do Halloween as well? Because many children may not want to forego trick or treating for a birthday party. Some kids look forward all year to dressing up and going trick or treating. Just a thought!!

 

On Halloween we give out candy and Bible booklets at the door. It's great, we have a fun time.

[Stacia]

are the GUESTS people who are not wanting to do Halloween as well? Because many children may not want to forego trick or treating for a birthday party.

 

Good point.

 

As far as birthday party stuff, I like this site for ideas for parties. Many of these folks go all out, but I've found some good ideas for games, decorations, etc... by reading the various entries.

 

In our group of friends, I think we're known for having birthday parties w/ games & funny food names (using place cards to 'label' the food based on our theme).

 

We haven't had a sports party, but you could do some type of toss game (perhaps cut different sized circles out of foam board) & then have them toss beanbags, or a little ball, or something through the holes. Label each hole as a different point amount.

 

You could alter the following game for a sports theme (we did it at a Halloween/autumn party). We divided the kids into 2 teams. Each team had to 'build' a scarecrow (on the floor) w/ the supplies they were given. Each team had a pair of shoes, pair of jeans, a sweatshirt, a hat, gloves, and a balloon head. They also had a bag of old newspapers to use for stuffing the clothes. I alternated the sizes of clothes, so one team had an adult pair of jeans & a toddler sized sweatshirt. The other team had the opposite. They also had a marker to draw a face on the balloon & had to do it w/out popping the balloon. One team's balloon popped, but my nephew (the quick-thinker) quickly lay down & put his head on the floor by the top of the sweatshirt & plopped the hat on his head, in an effort to beat the other team. LOL. If you had some sports outfits (baseball, football, etc...), you could have the teams build athletes.

 

Musical chairs or any variation of it always seems to be a hit too.

 

We always have a pinata & that contains most of the 'small' prize type things (candy, stickers, small balls). I've also done things like the mini firecracker/popper things (that you throw). I often try to pick things that will get 'used up' so the moms don't have to deal w/ assorted bits of stuff & toys being added to their homes.

 

For goodie bags (if you have them), I'd choose something like a pack of baseball cards (or other sports cards) or food items (homemade cookies & a mini water bottle, or something like the individual size bags of goldfish or pretzels, etc...).

 

Have fun!

 

ETA: I don't usually do 'craft' type things. Also, I tend to plan the party so that all the structured activities happen, then the kids can just run around & play afterward. So, we often do: approx. 3 games, pinata, open presents, eat, then let the kids run around & play.

[Mom to Aly]

The best b'day party we ever did was at home, in our backyard, with a pinata and a variety of craft items. I got most at Oriental Trading, and we had a huge variety of ages, so I made sure we had a variety of crafts (and the left over stuff was stuff my dd could use to make presents for fam for xmas, etc.). It was wonderful! And the goody bags were bags they decorated themselves filled with the little crafts and stuff from the pinatas. Then, I had arranged a bunch of games, like the carrying of eggs in spoons, etc, (I did boiled eggs, you could see they were cracked when dropped, and didn't make a mess--but the kids didn't know until they dropped them ;) ), but they had so much fun just playing they did almost none of the games I'd planned! Warning, they had so much fun playing, & I have so much trouble saying no when my dd is having a ball, they ended up staying 6 HOURS!!! I was beat! But I did make sure it was outside, on our patio, and I just had to hose it off afterwards!

 

Ooh, almost forgot the best thing, which I do for any party when I have to arrange things--I make cupcakes, and I put out icing (I buy tubs, then color them, as needed), and I get the diff kinds of sprinkles, decos, etc. And I let each kid decorate their own, or two, if they want. This was the best I've seen--and they always have a ball! This was my dd's 7th b'day, and we had a 12 yo who made a really, REALLY tall one! Trying to see him stuff that whole thing in his mouth made our day!!! This is the biggest hit of any party I've been to. I know you don't have time, but I buy the decorations at the end of each season, like the Wilton ones that have four different ones in a round container at the end of xmas, Halloween, Easter, Valentine's Day--they last forever, and the tubes of icing--I've never seen a kid pass it up!

[Guest]

We like to get our party stuff from Birthday Express. They are more pricey, but they have good quality stuff. Last year, we combined the kids' birthday party and had a bounce house, face painting (I have a friend who did this for us) and cupcakes. We didn't want to deal with party favors (tight budget) so we just had a pinata and those were considered the kids' favors. Although our kids are younger, we had about 60 0-8 year old kids (lots of family in town, combined b-day party between 2 kids...) and it ended up working out real well.

 

I would caution against planning too many structured activities. I think some of the ideas given by other people are good ones. I just know that whenever we go to parties where the moms plan a bunch of activities, everyone just gets really stressed out. Either everything's not staying on schedule or activities are forgot, etc. It's good to have something to do, but be careful not to overplan.

 

Have fun!

[mommylawyer]

You said "instead of trick or treating." Is the party going to be close to Halloween?

 

I ask because my son's birthday is a week after Halloween and one year we had a "halloween" party for him. The kids dressed up in their costumes. I put one adult at each entrance to our house - we have 4 entrances to our home - and let the kids "trick or treat" around our house. I made the cake and used old Halloween decorations and I had each of the kids bring a bag of candy to be used for the trick or treat. CHEAP!

[Stacia]

Hey, my ds & I were just looking through the book "The Secret Life of Food" by Clare Crespo & they have some cute sports theme cupcakes in there. If your library has the book, check it out.

 

Basically they did cupcakes to look like different sports balls.

 

Yellow icing w/ 2 small curved stripes for a tennis ball.

 

Orange icing w/ 3 black curved stripes, crossed by a 4th stripe for a basketball.

 

White icing w/ 2 red curved stripes (made by little dots of red) for a baseball.

 

Looks really cute, but fairly simple too.

[PeterPan]

I threw my dd a Narnia party a couple years ago that was pretty awesome. I decked out the whole room into a winterwonderland (balloons on the floor, white and icy blue easter confetti everywhere, fake trees with the confetti snow, plastic lions on the table, etc.). I covered the entrances and made the main one to the room look like doors to the wardrobe. Each child had a brown fur coat to put on, which was just a piece of fake fur from walmart cut to about the length I estimated for the dc and a button at the top, though any fastener would work. Not all the kids had seen Narnia, so we watched the pertinent parts, then ate. While they ate, I hid the things for the scavenger hunt. There were quite a few kids, so we had two teams, one in the front yard, the other in the back. I made each team a book with the things they were supposed to find (like the rules Aslan told them to remember and repeat, I guess), and of course the objects were Narnian objects that became prizes for the kids. (Mr. Tumnus' flute, plastic lion, Lucy's healing potion which was a bottle of bubbles, etc.) When they found their objects, they met at our lamp posts (yes, we have lamp posts!) and received crowns, becoming kings and queens of narnia. What a happy party!

 

I guess I shouldn't tell you the anecdote where they then thought it would be a good idea to POP those hundred some balloons I had littering the floor of our snowy wardrobe starting place, so by the time we were done there was confetti and balloon bits and... EVERYWHERE! But it was still fun. They cleaned up and we of course took cool pictures with them all dressed up in their narnian fur coats and crowns. If you google narnia party, you'll get TONS of ideas. Gum drops work for turkish delight. There are were just so many things I found online. The fake fur is a little pricey, but you'll go to Joanns and use a 50% off coupon, saving you money. And really, the coats were so cool that all the kids wanted to take theirs home.