How to keep a dozen kindergarteners happy for a coupla hours

The smartie game. good for all ages up to adults

actually I dont know if you have smarties... substitute M&Ms

Several plates/bowls filled with m&ms, a drinking straw and empty bowl for each child.

Place the straw in the bowl of M&Ms pick up an M&M by sucking on the straw transfer it into your own bowl. continue until the main bowl is empty.
If you want a winner count who got the most

you get to eat all you can pick up.
Some adult assistance can be applied for those having trouble getting their share.

Make and decorate a digeridoo. Use the cardboard roll from rolls of material. usually if you ask at a habadashery/material shop they will save them for you. decorate with stickers if paint is inappropriate. Make shorter ones from glad wrap rolls.

themes: princesses and pirates. Fairies and Elves.

Face painting by an adult. child makes a cadboard photo frame and decorate it. again stickes or paint. Digitlly photograph each child. Print photos out and glue onto photo frame for each child to take home.

I had another idea last night since I'm seriously considering plonking down money for an outside venue -- hire one of those animal wranglers to come here. There are one or two who come to our local library once or twice a year. Have animals/ zoos be the theme of the party, clear out this room, and have 'em do their thing with snakes and lizards and crocodiles and such. (Sozlet LOVES this stuff.)

This is a typical venue, we've been to parties here twice. $240 for two hours, ack.

It's cool, but...

http://www.adventurecenter.org/Birthdays/

I found one, it does look like a lot of fun! Another in the $250 range though.

I found a really cool animal guy who's based in Cleveland, no prices on the site which was ominous, but wrote to him asking a) if he comes to Columbus and b) if not, if he has any suggestions for more local people. Oh and the price <shields eyes>.

http://www.outbackray.com/

Click on "Amazing Animals" -- Kinkajou! Chinchilla! Blue tongue skink!

I see no reason that birthday parties have to be professional. You can be ever-so-stylishly retro with old fashioned party games.

Granted, dropping a clothespin in a milk bottle might be impossible to stage these days, but Musical Chairs and Pin the Tail on the Donkey (or Pin the Rocket on Mars) are perfectly good games. I'll try to remember the other standards.

I just Googled "Old Fashioned Party Games" and this was one of many sites:

http://www.seedsofknowledge.com/bgames.html

There is nothing new under the sun.

I happen to have one single old fashioned clothespin, which I'll be glad to mail. It was my exhub's mother's, and he didn't want it..

I'm sure there are big glass milk bottles somewhere out there, I think I've seem them not too long ago.

I'm pretty much on Noddy's wavelength, while acknowledging a five year old's world is - if not wider than mine was entirely - wider in the sense of what they're used to for fun projects. Me, I was a happy little thing left with a box of buttons in a quiet room. I probably didn't go to a birthday party until I was nine... and what I remember from those is mostly the cake.

Mrs. Hennessy made angel food cake, from scratch of course, with seven minute frosting colored something sublime like light turquoise....

The games were sort of dumb but fun (but they were games for nine year olds, so that's no help).. These were held inside, and we were always dressed up, if not in Sunday best, in dresses (all of us being girls).

I just sort of gaggle at spending that money...
on the other hand, those animals sound terrific. Is five the right year? Helfino.

Another question I have as a skitterish non parent aware of some liability issues relative to play... when people mention skating, etc., I have a little frown, unless it's at a venue which is, presumably, insured. Kids playing on your property, healthy and good. Twelve? But that's me, and in the days of olde, we didn't worry about that. One of my cousin's kids broke his arm playing at my house on Thanksgiving (fine, thank you, he's about 40 now and a teacher) and we all just stopped and went to Emergency with him.

Soz,

In case you need a site with some Cleveland party/activity ideas, check this out:

Winter activities in Cleveland area (indoor and outdoor):

http://www.lkwdpl.org/parents/inexfun.htm


Year-round Inexpensive Fun:

http://www.lkwdpl.org/parents/inexfun.htm

Butryflynet - Columbus is the city. Soz has done a bunch of searches already, but I don't mean to discourage you, you may think of something she's missed.

I know what you mean, Noddy. I totally go back and forth on that one. I have four main categories that I'd consider and I'm not sure which one to go with.

1.) Plain old party. Cake, some games. At home. Nothing too fancy.

Positives: Is anything else really necessary? Negatives: Sozlet and her friends have LOVED the rather labor-intensive at-home parties I've put on so far, and I just kinda like something about that. I think it's cool that Butrflynet's mom put that effort into her kids' parties, and that her kids have such fond remembrances of them.

2.) Party at home but with some extra oomph. Animal guy for 20-30 minutes, an extra-creative theme, that sort of thing.

Positives: Can be more creative and WOW but can keep costs down by having it at home. Negatives: More expensive in terms of time and money.

3.) Party at an outside venue that's pretty bare-bones.

Positives: Much easier to do in terms of preparation and running while it's happening and clean-up. Still some room for creativity in terms of the party-room part. Negatives: Seems kinda boring and conformist, and even if it's still bare-bones it's pricey.

4.) Super-cool but expensive party at an outside venue.

Positives: Just plonk down the money and forget about it. Negatives: Money!

I can't imagine spending more than $150, and that's a stretch itself.

One other thing I'm considering that doesn't really fit into any of the categories is that the circus is coming to town right around her birthday (Ringling Bros.) and tickets are as cheap as $8. Not quite sure how it would work, though. Circus theme stuff at home, then transport 'em all? Just gather there?

Right now what I most like is the idea of having an animal-theme party (zoo, safari, something) at home, with a person coming in with real animals for some but not all of it. So have your standard games (pin the tail on the kinkajou, what have you) organized around that idea, and then a brief highlight in the midst of an otherwise pretty normal party.

Oh one other aspect to this whole thing. She's always had small parties. That's been the exception, and it's been a bit of a thing that she gets invited to parties and then doesn't invite that person to hers, because we've kept the guest list small. 12-20 is the norm around here (I don't know how normal it is in general). Inviting the entire class is not at all unheard of.

So once the numbers get up I get more nervous about having 'em all in my house and keeping control over 'em. I can rope in more parents to help of course. But there's definitely something attractive about just turning 'em loose at a nice kid proof escape proof facility.

Our school allowed mothers to bring a cake to class on birthdays so the whole class got to share the birthday. Making a cake for 20 or 30 kids was a challenge, sometimes it ended up being 2 cakes. Light the candles blow the candles out cut and serve the cake paper plates in the bin all over in 20 mins = painless
It was necessary to organise an apropriate time first with the teacher, as an added bonus it worked well when the kids got to high school to threaten them with a classroom birthday cake if they go out of line.

Outback Ray; *DP screws up nose*. I guess I'm used to the real deal. Blue- tongue lizards are cool though.

We are running into the same problem here. We have a "traditional" party every year for each kid's birthday. Our tradition is that I bake the same chocolate cake (from the back of the Hershey's cocoa can) and we invite two other families with kids, one of which is usually family. It ends up being more of an adult celebration with cake where the kids are pretty free to play dressup and/or dance. We always have music.

Now though, invitations for parties go out through school. The school has a rule that if you send invitations through them you must invite everyone in the class, which I think is a good rule. However, the fallout from that is that duckie gets invited to a lot of parties and of course wants something like that for his party.

So, that said, I like your idea of at-home plus animal guy. That's a pretty universal theme that boys and girls alike would enjoy. But if you have to invite the whole class... ugh.

That sounds like a really nice tradition, FreeDuck. Maybe you can still do that plus have the "school" party?

Sozlet's school doesn't have any rules like that, that I know of. Mostly just the other thing you said, that she goes to parties with tons of kids and wants a party with tons of kids. (Actually also she just knows a lot of people now -- a pretty bare-bones, good-friend list is 11 people. There are four main groups -- preschool friends [very little overlap with kindergarten], kindergarten friends, non-school local friends [met at the pool or whatever], and kids of our friends. Adds up but quick, can get to 20 easy.)

When I was doing online research I found something called "Noah's Ark Animal Workshop," idea is like Build-a-Bear but it's lots of different animals and home-based. No prices, wrote to get more info, I bet it's too expensive. Gave me an idea, though. Can go ahead and do something similar (if much simpler) for an activity at the party and then to take home. Sew unstuffed creatures of some sort (depends on what we go with, animals or Spongebob or whatever) with zipper or velcro closures, hand 'em out with tons of stuffing, let the kids stuff 'em and put in some little thing (a star, a heart, a fake jewel, something) and close up, then dress. Can also be fairly simple -- a selection of skirts and superhero capes from fabric scraps, something like that.

I don't mind doing ahead-of-time labor, (and I could probably do this with fabric I have plus a coupla yards of fur or polarfleece or whatever, could be done for under $10 easily) it's the active hosting that I like less, especially if there are a lot of activities to get through, this then this and this and explaining rules and bleh.

Another idea I saw somewhere is to get newsprint and thoroughly cover the table with it, then draw with pen some sort of thematic outlines (various animals for example), and cover it all with a large washable tablecloth. Do the activity/ craft on the tablecloth, then when ready for the food phase take off the tablecloth, put out crayons, and let them go to town coloring/ drawing while the food is prepared and set out and stuff. That transition has always been awkward, I like that idea.

Another thing you could consider is to let them decorate individual cupcakes instead of having a larger birthday cake. You can pre-bake a couple dozen cupcakes and then put bowls/cans of frosting, sprinkles, etc on the table and let them each prepare their own. At the end you can plunk a giant "6" candle in sozlet's cupcake so that everyone can sing and she can blow out her candle. This can take up to 30 mins for the decorating, singing, blowing, eating and keeps everyone occupied at the same place and time.

What is the local tradition on opening gifts during the party? Here, oftentimes the gifts wouldn't get opened until after the kids left - particularly if it was at one of the party venues. I never liked the idea, but it was fairly common. Gift opening, oohhing and awwwing, thanking, etc. is another time chewer-upper. These two things alone could consume one of your two hours.

Another thing to consider for an at home party is to set it up for 1.5 hours. The kids will start arriving 10 - 15 minutes early and the parents will show up anywhere between on time and 15 - 20 minutes late, meaning you'll end up with a two hour party.

It's not as awful as you're imagining, soz. Really, it's not. I've mostly done at-home parties. Changing the venue means hauling stuff to the place, prepping for the party, holding the party, taking down the stuff + removing the presents, leftover goodies, etc. It may take a whole 2nd vehicle to load the excess in, but then again, maybe not... And of course, remember, you are paying for the alternate location and its interesting (or not so interesting) features... Which may not be so kid-safe as you think, kwim? You can hire a person to houseclean for you before and after for what you are proposing to pay to have the party somewhere... Of course, over here, there is only a couple of places, Mulligan's (which is a video arcade) or the zoo (where you try to reserve the covered pavillion for Saturday during the petting zoo time, and good luck to ya getting that time.) There used to be a place w/jumping castles and mini-golf, but it closed down a few years ago. Also, no McDonald's w/a playground any more, and we never acquired a Chucky-cheese or the likes... Having it at home is not so bad.

Yeah, I know you're right. I'm going more and more in the at-home direction. The last two parties I had at home were a TON of work but point taken about having it away from home maybe not being so much less work, and also 12 kids might not be twice as bad as 6 kids, at home, since a lot of the work is regardless of the number of kids.

When you figure you have to pack the stuff into boxes you can carry to the site and pack to take home from the site, it becomes a daunting task. Of course, there are places designed to have everything on hand, the cups, balloons, scissors and tape, party hats and favors, goody bags, cake, ice cream, etc. I've just never used them... I have, otoh, been searching through my boxes for the scissors I packed, or my tape, or realized I needed string when all I had was tape, and wished I'd stayed home to have the party on familiar turf. But, that may be more me being a homebody than anything...

This is pretty much my scedule for an at-home party: kids come and make their own goody bag or crown or creation (ask their parents to help them make this before they leave or have some big kids over to help.) Then you do Pin the Tail (some kids will be finishing up their 1st stop craft; some kids will refuse to play Pin b/c they don't like being blindfolded or whatever- feed them some crackers or have them talk about whatever while you spin the kids playing.) Then another game. Then musical chairs (this we play at least twice.) Then do the cake and ice cream. Then it's time to open presents. Then there is time for one more round of musical chairs or a pinata. This is about 2 hours of fun for 12 kids. If you have fewer kids, add in another game to bring the time up to 2 hours. If you have more kids, let the parents know you hope to be done in 2 hours, but it might be a bit longer. Ask any parents you know well to help through the craft part, or ask if they'd like to come back a bit early for cake and ice cream. Usually somebody will gladly assist if you need an extra pair of hands. (I do this a lot since I often have parties w/babies screaming while I'm hosting an older child's birthday.)

Oh, and if it's in your house, put away all precious antiques from the party room(s) and push the furniture back as far as possible to make room for the party. Have as many chairs as you can ready for musical chairs. If you don't have enough chairs, fold some towels for seats and take those away first.

That's a good template, thanks!

Here's what I've done basically the last two years:

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=39920

Last year's was a little modified, not much. Had face painting, and "pin the crown on the princess" and at one or both of them had musical chairs but with flower cut-outs on the floor rather than chairs. Plus last years' had flower garlands/crowns that I made from silk flowers and I can't remember what the craft activity was.

The fact that last year's was so similar to the one the year before that and that there was only one extra attendee (the other five had been to the first party) was a problem. It went OK, but not nearly as well as the first one. And the competitive games really didn't go over well, not sure what was up with that. A whole lot of whining from the losers. That's the kind of managing I dislike; explaining the rules, dealing with whiners, etc.

Anyway, current thinking:

- At home.

- All-new, and not so girly.

- Animals may well be a theme, with or without an appearance from some actual animals.

- Basic structure: craft at table with tablecloth over it, then games, then unveil newsprint-ed table for drawing/ coloring while cake et al is presented, then eat, then presents, then goodie-bag distribution, then home.

A new question -- what time of day do you usually have the parties? I'm thinking 1:00 - 3:00 -- cake + snacks but not a meal. Should I make it earlier and serve lunch/ pizza? Have it then but serve pizza or whatever?

Ooh!

http://www.columbusparent.com/?story=columbusparent/guides/birthdayguide.html