The organization of a children’s party is a far bigger challenge than organizing an adult one. The keyword for organizing a good adult party is FUN while the keyword for organizing the children’s party is ENTERTAINMENT. Without entertainment, children cannot have fun.
The key to every children’s party’s entertainment is simple. It is – a game. The game is the main essence of a beautiful childhood. It is often described as key for a healthy child’s development (both physical and mental) and socializing with other children. We all remember the fun time we had playing when we were kids but also remember the tales of our grannies about their childhoods and their games.
Probably, you remember how those old-time games seemed funny to you when you were a child. Well guess what, that is probably how does your game offers might sound to your kids now. The time has passed since your childhood. Some things remained the same while some of them have radically changed. Thus, organizing the children’s party might seem like a real puzzle to you when the reality of the generation gap hits you hard. To help you, we wrote this article. In this article, we will present you with birthday entertainment ideas for kids of all ages. So, let’s solve the puzzle!
Birthday party entertainment for toddlers
When your child is still a toddler, you might consider skipping the traditional party celebration. The toddlers’ birthday entertainment requires a special approach. Every child is different, therefore, every child will have a different reaction to stuff that follows every party (e.g., a larger number of unknown or barely known people, crowded everyday space, etc.) The best knowledge of your child is owned by you. That means that the only person that can organize your child’s party fun and stressless is you.
The milestone of a good birthday party entertainment for toddlers are easy games (since toddlers are not capable to keep attention long) that do not cause many tantrums. At that period, babies are still learning and exploring the world. Here are some ideas:
- Bubble smash (make a lot of bubbles with bubble toys and let toddlers chase them)
- Adult-free zone (select a safe corner of the house, secure it with baby gates, spread some rubber sheets and banquets, and fill it with everything soft that toddlers like to play with, limit the number of adults to only one supervising adult)
- Baby fashion show (dress toddlers according to the birthday theme and let them demonstrate all their cuteness and be center of attention, of course, give birthday boy/girl a priority)
- Ride on the wagon (decorate a kid’s wagon with the balloons and other decoration then give your baby and its guest one wild roller-coaster ride in toddlers’ edition
- Obstacle race (create a race for crawling babies with ropes, soft toys, balls, soft blocks, and bouncy balls)
- Storytime (sit in the chair and let all the toddlers gather around you and read them the story, remember that reading a story to babies requires a special type of storytelling, so try to use the character’s voice, mimics, and direct interaction with listeners)
- Birthday parade (this is ideal if the child is walking if it is still crawling, help him to participate in a big birthday parade in its honor)
- Cardboard boxes (give kids a few empty boxes and let them use those boxes as imaginary rocket ship)
- Building blocks (ideal for imagination and creativeness development)
- Birthday time capsule (turn one of the boxes into a time capsule, since babies are growing fast so put inside everything that toddler has grown up (e.g., its old shoes, toys, locks of hair) together with messages that guests will write on the piece of paper to the baby. This is an ideal way to create a unique memory.
- Photo guessing game (before the birthday, ask guests to send photos of themselves as babies, on the party day, hang them all around the celebration space, let the toddlers guess who is on each photo and prepare the prize for the won who guessed the most)
- Birthday photo board (put a photo of a kid in the center of the room and let the guests write messages and stick them to the photo after the party collect all messages and frame them together with the photo)
- Bubble pit (fill a small inflatable pool with BPA-free plastic balls)
- Water table
- Tunnels
- Slide
- Finger Paint (pick up a non-toxic washable paint and let the kids get messy)
- Music (good old music is a good option for all ages, except that toddlers require special attention, make a special choreography or dance (like duck dance) as an additional flavor to child’s music taste)
Birthday entertainment ideas for younger children
During pre-school time, a child lives in the world of imagination. Whatever he/she does, it takes the form of a game. The games that attract children in this period are mostly creative – they “construct” houses, tunnels, and other buildings, “bake” cookies, imitate animals, and listen to fairytales and stories. So, any entertaining game during this period should take shape of circumstances that are happening in nature or the child’s life/environment. Here are some ideas:
- Beading Necklaces
- Coloring Books
- Crafting Stations
- Cupcake Decoration
- Dress Up
- Face Painting
- Follow the Leader
- Freeze Dancing
- Handprint Shirts
- Hot Potato
- Musical Chairs
- Pin the Tail
- Red Rover
- Simon Says
- Sticker Books
- Temporary Tattoos
- Treasure Hunt
- I Spy
- Relay Races
- Where’s Waldo
Birthday entertainment ideas for elder children
When school starts, the child’s life is starting to change. He/she is facing the obligations for the first time and therefore, his/her life is not as stress-free anymore as it used to be during early childhood. Therefore, the purpose of the game is changing. Its main focus is not anymore on discovering and understanding the surrounding world. Instead, relaxation took over the throne of entertainment’s main purpose. As pedagogies emphasize, now it is your job as a parent to transform the games from the previous period of childhood according to the new situation. They should be relaxing but must not in any case lose their pedagogical function. Here is our list of suggestions:
- Board Games
- Balloon scrabble
- Balloon smash surprise
- Capture the Flag
- Card Games (Old Maid, Go Fish)
- Catch-the-thief
- Catching the bugs
- Dress-Up Relay
- Heads Up Seven Up
- Hide-and-Seek
- Line Dancing
- Marco Polo
- Line Tag
- Memory Game
- Musical Chairs
- Obstacle Courses
- Painting
- Photo Booth
- Piñata
- Red Light, Green Light
- Start and stop
- Scavenger Hunts
- Sunday Buffet
- The Floor is Lava
- Three-Legged Race
- Tug of War
- Tattoo the donkey
- Toss the ball
- Water Balloon Toss
- What’s in the Bag?
- Who danced that?
Birthday entertainment ideas that require hiring a professional
As we already said, it is necessary to understand the age of a child and its requirements. We understand that sometimes it is an easy-to-say-hard-to-do task. Challenges are always good but if you notice that things are going out of your hands and that you can not handle the task, it is a good solution to call the professional. The price of professionals’ engagement is usually determined per hour, and it may vary based on location, travel distance, number of children, and the type of entertainment or performance that he/she is providing. All those issues you will have to arrange personally with the professional. Here are some of the entertainment activities that professionals may offer:
- Animal Balloon Artist
- Caricatures Artist
- Character Voice Actors
- Circus/ Petting Zoo
- Comedian
- Costume/ Mascots
- Dance Group
- DJ
- Dynamic Story Teller
- Face Painters
- Funny Memes
- Hula Dancers
- Juggler
- Living Statue
- Magician
- Mariachi Band
- Musician
- Photographer
- Puppeteer
- Speed Painters
- Ventriloquist
Your child is a celebrant
As a Dutch historian and cultural theorist written up in his 1938 study (title in Latin meaning playful man), the game is one of the most important aspects of human culture and also the one that existed even before civilization started. We hope that by organizing your child’s party you will play as well by solving a puzzle that we put in front of you in the introduction paragraph.
The pedagogies suggest that one of the main components that a game should have is to be as risk-free as possible. To make the puzzle game Organizing Children Party Entertainment the most risk-free as it could get, we would like to give you a few extra pieces of advice on how to pick the option for children party entertainment:
- Prepare games for an average age of invitees (in the text above we explained to you the difference between toddlers, young and elder children and their understanding of the game, as well as your task as parents – have that in mind while making a game compilation for the party)
- Planning games with a larger number of kids may be complicated. Therefore, plan each game and be prepared for every option
- Whatever game you pick, it should not last very long. The long games may be boring to the kids (the length of the game should be appropriate to the invitee’s average age, in case you are not sure how long should every game last and pay attention to the children behavior and when you notice that they are getting bored, quit one game and move to the another)
- Try to make a good balance between active games and intellectual games, if you push too many active games, kids will quickly get tired and if you push too many intellectual games, there will be a lack of excitement)
- Don’t pick gender-specific games (e.g., princess dressing session) unless if there are only boys or girls at the party, if there is even one guest who is not the same gender as others then pick gender-neutral games.
- If you are making a themed birthday, don’t be afraid to introduce games that are not strictly related to the theme, especially if invitees may have fun playing them.
Happy birthday to your kid and good luck to you. May you create the memories that will be remembered for your whole life!
