7 Kids Party Games

by Jessica Matthews

In the last newsletter we looked at potential venues in the Ryde area for your parties. Today I am putting together a few points about kids party games that are fun for all, cost effective and easy for you – basically WINNING all round!

Game 1- Pass the Parcel
Ava recently turned 4 so not at the age where all kids can accept not getting something, so I ensured all kids got one opening and in that opening was a small prize. I went to the party section at Kmart & got some racing cars for the boys, dress up jewellery for the girls, bubbles etc – all at bargain prices.

A few tips:

• Write a list as you wrap so you know what the prizes are and in what order (this is key if you have kids varying in ages and a mix of boys & girls).

• Have heaps of wrapping paper – you’ll be surprised how much you need. Places like the Reject Shop have 5m of brown paper for $2 and you could alternate this with a print – they even have some licensed prints!

• Buy a bag of freddos or mini twirls etc. to pair up with the race car or mini wand from Kmart. This means the kids get 2 prizes in their eyes.

Cost wise you’re looking at $3/12 pack of freddos (buy when on sale!!) & then $2/5 pack of cars or jewels etc. So for under $10 for a dozen kids you are sorted!

Game 2 – Pin the mask on batman, the tutu on the ballerina, the fireman on the firetruck!

For Ava’s birthday we did pin the tutu on the ballerina. I used the ballerina from her invitation and printed her on A3 paper ($1.75 for colour at Officeworks – any bigger & it costs too much!), then I printed some tutus – cut those out, wrote the kids names on them and away we went. I put on their mask ($2 from Kmart..how amazing is Kmart these days?!?!?!), turned them twice and helped them walk forward. The child who got the closest was the winner! In this game, we had just one winner – I was trying to teach kids about sharing and not always winning. I know, good one huh?

Game 3 – Craft Station or Lego Station

For Ava’s party we had a craft station – this depends on your skill set as to what you’d like to do here. For Ava’s party I bought some special fabric that you can colour in – it was a ballerina print. I sewed up a dozen little girls handbags and had special fabric markers so the kids could colour their own bags. The boys who came were 2 and 3 so they didn’t mind not doing this. For them we had some cheap bubble toys (again KMART!!).

You could have a Lego play area, craft station with colouring in things, sparkles, pom poms, paddle pop sticks etc. A great indoor option if needed for weather or location.

Game 4 – Piñata

Keep your eye out at Spotlight or the party shops for when these babies go on sale. That way instead of $25-35, you could pay $15-20 or visit Kmart (I should charge them for these mentions!) as they have an every day price of about $10 for theirs. They also sell a a ‘stick and mask’ pack for $2. In the weeks leading up to Ava’s party I kept my eyes peeled at the supermarket and bought packed chocolates/lollies when on sale.

TIP: Give the piñata a few adult pokes before you start as those babies are tough.. like real tough.. they are hard to break!!!