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FUN PARTY Games & Activities
By Jamie Jarvis

Games and activities provide an opportunity for the children to interact and can be the most fun and memorable part of a party. Advance planning and preparation are the keys to successful party games and activities.

Simple arrival activities, such as making and decorating nametags, gift bags, or party hats, are a good way for children to transition into the party. Provide plain nametags, favor bags, or party hats and a supply of markers, stickers and ribbons. Have arriving children draw on or sign a big poster board Happy Birthday card for your child.

Another fun arrival activity is a “guess how many” jar. Fill a clear glass or plastic jar with a known quantity of candy, marbles, pennies, tiny toy cars or some other item that ties in with the theme of your party. Provide slips of paper for guests to write their names and their guess and a small basket or box to collect the entries. At the end of the party award the jar of goodies to the child with the closest guess.

Activity centers consist of simple activities that are setup ahead of time and are available to the children throughout the party. Purchase inexpensive games, such as a foam dart board, bean bag toss, ring toss, and giant bubble wands, that you can use year after year or make coin and ball tosses with supplies you already have. Set-up an activity table with coloring books and crayons, maze and word search books, and a few small puzzles.

Unlike activity centers, group activities are designed for all the party guests to participate in at the same time. Group activities can include scavenger hunts, relay races, circle games, variations of pin the tail on the donkey, and breaking a piñata. Group activities can be as high energy as an obstacle course or as low key as a game of 20 questions or for younger children listening to a story. Ideally, group activities should be noncompetitive, so every child succeeds and has fun.

Arts and crafts projects are fun, quiet activities that provide a nice balance for more active party games. Arts and crafts should be relatively easy for children to do, so they don’t require a lot of adult leadership and aren’t frustrating. Beads and cord for necklaces or key chains, modeling clay, and pipe cleaner sculpting are easy arts and crafts project that most children are familiar with.

 Children, especially younger children, like free play so much that it’s often difficult to get them involved in group activities. Set-up a free play area with toy cars and trains, building blocks, dolls, jump ropes, hula hoops, and balls. 

Close the party by making a game out of distributing the favor bags. Have the children follow clues to hunt for their bags or distribute the bags as part of a musical circle game.

Jamie Jarvis is the creator of the Kids’ Party Fun Web site, www.KidsPartyFun.com