Party games

Harry wanted a few friends from school to celebrate his birthday with a party at home, particularly as he only sees them once a week now that he's at the SRB unit.

Hosting a children's party in your home can be stressful and it can be difficult keeping a group of children occupied for a couple of hours. We needed a number of games for indoors and outside as I had to be prepared for bad weather but luckily the sun shone and I had to make use of stuff that we had at home as I didn't have time to go shopping.

The first activity we came up with was 'Pin The Fist On Hulk' a variation on Pin The Tail On The Donkey. I printed and laminated a picture of Hulk and scanned in some copies of his fist. After laminating them I named each fist (on the back) and using blu-tack I stuck them up on the patio doors.

Too high! 

Our next Avengers game was a simple jigsaw hunt. I printed and laminated 6 different characters from Avengers and cut them into 3 pieces and hid them around the garden. (Depending on the age of the children at the party you could cut more pieces from the pictures) For reference I copied a smaller version of each picture onto a sheet so that the children knew what they were looking for. This game lasted longer than I expected so I must have used some really good hiding places!

I've got one Mum!!

Another game, which went down really well at the party (and in the trial run with Molly, Charlie & Harry) was the Dressing Up game. A pile of clothing- we used hats, scarves and gloves- was placed in the middle of the floor and everyone danced around to some music. When I stopped the music I had to shout out either 'hat', 'scarf' or 'gloves' and the children had to put one of those items on. We had multiple items so carried on until everything was worn. You could use t-shirts, skirts or anything that would fit over the childrens' clothes. They looked so funny with numerous hats and scarves on!

My floor doesn't always look this messy!

Last year I created a Paddling Pool Treasure Hunt and Harry wanted to do it at his party but because we couldn't be sure of the weather or temperature we had a sandpit version with lots of little toys hidden in the sand. It's very simple but my children, even Molly at 11 years old, always enjoy it.

Then we played some classic games including Duck, Duck, Goose, an obstacle course and Grandmother's Footsteps until it was time for party food and cake.

The children all enjoyed themselves, every minute was filled and everyone went home happy so it was a big success for something that had very little planning!

Happy birthday Little Man x