Birthday parties with a mixture of ages, especially with young kids are challenging for parents. One of the ways I have found to deal with this situation to make sure everyone has fun is to team younger kids and older kids together.

Outdoor birthday party games

Where the weather permits, it will be a great idea to play games outdoor. Your backyard or the park are some of the great outdoor locations for games.

Treasure Hunts
Treasure hunts are really fun because they are friendly at the same time competitive in nature. You hide your “treasures” before the hunt, obviously. One of the ways we have found that kids really get a kick out of is having them find naturally occurring items. For instance, give them a list of a torn leaf, roley poley bug, round rock and a feather and see who can find all of the items first.

Another way to play the game ‘intellectually’ is to have them find “treasures of knowledge”. Give each player a list of questions and a time limit to see who can get more of the answers or make it unlimited and the first to complete the list wins. These questions can be simple observation (ie: how many windows are in our home) to getting to know each other (ie: what is the name of the person to your right).

Red Rover
Ok, this might sound like an old game but the kids love to play red rover. I use this as a game in-between other games. The kids can play this to keep each other occupied while I am getting the next game set up. It gets some of the wiggles out of the littler kids and keeps the bigger kids from getting bored.

Make two human chains and stand opposite of each other. Then one team says in unison, “Red Rover, Red Rover send (insert kid’s name) right over.” They pick one of the people on the other sides name who they think will not be able to break through. Then they will run and try to break through your arm but you don’t want them too because you get to keep them if they don’t break through. When you have all the people from the other team in your team you win.

Indoor birthday party games

These are some of the games that you can play in the house.

Crowns/party hats
You will need party hats to go with your noise makers. Construction paper, glue, tape, glitter and a pair of scissors is all you need to make party hats or crowns for everyone. You can have the kids color the hats and even glue beads and flitter to them then you can take the tape, roll the paper up to make a circular band (to go around the kid’s head) and tape together in the back. If you want to make hats instead of crowns you should roll so that they hats are pointy like a snow cone cup. Elastic or yarn can be stapled to the sides so that the hat can be held on.

Noise Maker Craft
Once you have colored your pages the kids can use them to build a craft. We like to make noisy crafts if we are working with mostly young kids. Take two Styrofoam plates and a few beans; glue the plates together so that they are facing each other with the beans between them. Decorate with the colored pages, or other colored bits of beans, pasta, beads, paper or even glue and glitter. These can be used to make noise during the party.

Coloring contest
One of the simplest and most ‘hands-off game’ is to conduct a coloring contest. A coloring contest is a great game because it does take up time. Kids of all ages can color and then an appointed official (a mom or an older kid) can judge the art work.

Just last Sunday, I have a couple of parties and I didn’t realised that one of my parties is from a repeated client.

One of the guests has used me THREE times already. Obviously, she must have recommended my company to this host.

Then the kids arrived, I do see a couple of familiar faces… Oh, they must be from the other party! Yup, kids and parents of the same social group.

Well, it seems like it’s going to be another “I know this!” kind of response from the kids. As I perform mainly puppets, the birthday girl already knows the name of my puppets that are coming out.

Personally, while I thought that it is OK, I always feel that I should always check if the client is a repeated or referred client so that I can change a couple of my puppet materials. For this partucular party, I managed to bring out some of my older jokes and other ad-libs so while the puppets is repeated, my performance script is different. (Of course, what do you expect from a performer with more than 7 years of experience???)

Anyway, the show went perfect, as usual!

It is important to understand that as your child reaches their second or third birthday, they are more than likely still be dependent upon their mother and not understand the full meaning of birthday party games. Your child will certainly be happy playing alongside others of his/her age group, but he/she may snatch toys, make other children cry without realizing why and even bite and kick. Although this can be quite embarrassing, it is normal behavior for a child of this age. Therefore it is vitally important that the correct party planning and birthday party game is selected.

An ideal birthday party game for children of this age would be something simple, but with prizes at the end for their best efforts.

Be sure of how many children are attending the birthday party. Purchase small gifts, enough so that each child receives two gifts each. Wrap the gifts in pretty paper and number each one. Cut out stars from cardboard and paint these also. Number them with corresponding numbers that are on the gifts, also place a small piece of magnetic tape on each star. Prepare some sticks, enough so that each child has one stick each, chop sticks or confetti sticks would work well, and place a small piece of magnetic take on the end of each one.

When choosing the gifts for the birthday party game, remember that things that will stimulate their imagination would be best. Things like Play dough, coloring books and pencils, child reading books etc are the best.

Take a bag of poly fiber and place it on the floor to represent a cloud and then place the stars on the bed of poly fiber. Each child has two turns each to catch a star. The number on the stars will correspond with the numbers on the gifts, therefore that child wins those two gifts. Be sure that the children are fully supervised and ensure that they do only have two turns each. Children do not understand rules too well, so it is important to make them understand when they have had their turn.

It is important to play the birthday party game early on in the day, as many children of this age are still customary to having an afternoon sleep. Also keep the birthday party quite short. Children will start to get bored after a certain period of time.

Fill in the gaps with short birthday party games such as ring o’roses, Simon says or dancing to music, which are great fun and pass the time. After all of their excitement, you could consider reading them a short story to calm them down before they go back to their own homes.

It is a strange thing. Last Sunday I did a birthday party for a 4 years old girl and I think she is either a very negative girl or it’s just a vocabulary problem.

Every question that I ask, she always answer “No!”:
“Do you like this puppet?” “No!”
“Do you want to come up?” “No!”
“Do you like this balloon?” “No!”
“Do you like this birthday cake?” “No!”

Then I got a little smart…
“Do you like daddy?” “No!”
“Do you like mummy?” “Yes!”

Finally, I got her to say “Yes!”….

It’s kind of fun, but it’s one of the strangest thing I had faced.

I have just finished 4 parties today and it has been great.

- One German family who used my services for the 2nd time.
- One Chinese family where the members of the family have that ‘high-class’ look.
- One Chinese family who used my services for the 2nd time too.
- One Indian family and I gave out a lot of namecards! Interestingly, this is one party that has NO decorations at all!

Yup, not even a single decorations!

Well, if you are one who is into pure fun & entertainment and not the outer appearance, that’s actually pretty good.