As many of you know, it’s totally impossible to plan a children’s birthday party when you’re at the mercy of the British Weather. Indoors? Outdoors? What if you plan ‘out’ but it rains??
NB. children never normally know they’re even about to get frostbite but they will at a party IF you’re not prepared with a long list of backup party games…
Musical Paarps!
This is Marty’s absolute favourite game – everyone else in the North Pole despairs of him! We play it here and it’s best in the garden when all the neighbours can hear too. With no shame whatsoever, I find this game just unbelievably funny.
- Start with one whoopee cushion per child.
- Everyone dances around the whoopee cushions to music and when the music stops, everyone makes a mad dash for a whoopee cushion and sits down on it. The last one is out.
- Remove a whoopee cushion at each round (like musical chairs) until you end up with two children and one whoopee cushion. The winner is the obviously the one that manages to Paarp! at the end!
- You can also do this with hats – you have to actually put them on your head and not sit on them 😉
The Spider & The Flies
- One child is the spider and stands at one end of the room facing the others but with their eyes closed (I personally find them all big cheaty pants and find it works better if this spider faces the wall instead!)
- The others are the flies.
- All the flies have to try and creep up and touch the spider without being heard.
- If the spider thinks it hears a sound, it opens it’s eyes or turns around and then chases the kids back to their end of the room.
- If it manages to catch a fly then it takes it as it’s prisoner.
- If no-one manages to touch the spider, then the new spider is the last fly to be captured.
Happy Christmas!
- One child is blindfolded and all the others sit around them in a circle.
- The one in the circle points in the direction of someone, who says ‘Happy Christmas!’
- The one who is blindfolded then has to guess who said it and if they fail after 3 guesses they remain blindfolded but if they’re correct, they swap over.
- Warning: there are huge tendencies to use silly voices and giggle a lot….
Traffic Police!
- Two children are chosen to be policeman: one to control the traffic and the other to make sure it does as it’s told!
- The rest of the children ARE the traffic.
- When the controller calls out
‘RED LIGHT’, everyone has to sit down immediately.
‘AMBER LIGHT” and everyone has to stand still and
‘GREEN LIGHT” and everyone runs around the room. - The second policeman has to pull anyone out that’s not following the instructions. The controller can chop and change the colours as many times as they like, in any order and as quickly as they like.
- The winner is the last one in the game.
The Postcard Game
- Collect a number of coloured postcards to allow 3-4 per child if possible.
- Cut each one in half.
- Keep one half to give to the children and hide the other somewhere around the room but easy to see.
- Give each child one half and ready, steady, go…the kids have to find the other halves and then they’re given another one to find.
- The winner is the first one to have completed the most postcard matches at the end of ten minutes!
The Boat Race
- Two teams each standing in a line behind each other at one end of the room.
- They put their hands on the shoulders of the child in front of them.
- The leaders of each team must be level with each other.
- Ready, steady, go! and everyone bends their legs and jumps towards the other end of the room.
- If a player lets go, the team has to go back to the beginning and start again!
Musical Lemon
- Everyone sits in a circle and one child is given a lemon.
- While the music’s playing, everyone passed the lemon round the ring.
- When the music stops, whoever has the lemon is out!
The Chocolate Game
- Bar of Chocolate, knife and fork, adult hat, scarf and gloves and a dice
- If you roll a 6 you quickly put all the gear on and then try to cut off a piece of chocolate. If you manage to do it you can eat it.
- Your go lasts until someone else rolls a 6.
This can be really difficult if you’ve just taken the chocolate out of the fridge!
Mummies
- Two teams and 1-2 rolls of toilet paper per team
- Each team has to wrap up one of their team mates in toilet paper, like a Mummy and the first team to finish wins!
Two Dogs & A Bone
- Two teams standing in a line facing each other.
- They are then numbered from opposite ends and the captains are the number ones.
- An adult puts ‘the bone’ (any item – glove, toy etc) on the floor between the two teams and calls out a number. e.g. 3
- The two threes race to pick up the bone first and the one that gets it gets a point for his team.
- The captains keep the scores!
These party games are really easy and lots of fun – I hope you enjoy!
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Wow, that’s a really comprehensive list. My little man is also a July baby and I’m never too sure what to plan because the weather can fluctuate so much. Pinning now!
Thank you and thank you so much for the share too! The weather is a problem but with a bit of planning and thinking….!!!
I have just giggled through most of this after reading about Musical Parps! I want to play it. There are fab ideas here – will be referring back to this in the future! Thanks for sharing on #SundayStars
That’s my absolute favourite ! You can buy ones that automatically reinflate – you MUST play this at least once in your life.
So many lovely ideas here!Interesting games that I am sure kids would love! I am still scared to throw a party. My son is sharing a birthday with another classmate so I dont know what to do with dates so as not to divide his classmates. Maybe next year! #Whatevertheweather
Do you mean they’re having a join party? These games would work really well with lots of kids! You just need a couple more adults to help organise the kids for each one. Do give it a go if you can – they absolutely love it and you’ll get loads of Brownie points!
Glad you had a good day to play out in the garden after all. Although I do love all the fab games you have listed, I’ll need to save this post for future birthday parties, might need to actually start having games next year when O is 5! I especially love musical paarps!
I need to find those water balloons, they sound so easy to fill up and no ties is good with me! 🙂
Thanks for linking up to #Whatevertheweather. My badge was broken yesterday, so hasn’t shown up properly in your post, it’s fixed now if you want to try grabbing it again. Thank you! 🙂 xx
Hopefully fixed the badge! The balloons are called Magic Water Balloons – you have to make sure you pick up every bit afterwards though because of choking hazards! Oh yes do try a couple of games – it’s the only time kids get to play them really :). Thank you so much for hosting!
Fab ideas – I especially like the traffic police one. A’s birthday is in the middle of Winter so outdoors is not an option at all. I usually end up booking a venue as Winter birthdays are a pain! But this year I may brave it at home and keep your games list handy. Thanks for sharing and I hope your little boy had a great party!
Ha ha yes the traffic police one is a good chance for them to take turns being bossy! Do try a home party – our eldest has a winter birthday too and you can do things then you can’t do in the summer because it gets dark early! We had a disco one year with glo sticks and goodness knows what else! You can do glow in the dark bowling too 🙂
This list is incredible. I love the sound of musical parps haha. I think I’d do so badly at the chocolate game, I’d be desperate to eat it. You’re children as so lucky. You can see why they love home parties so much. I’m bookmarking this page for future parties we have. The games are so inventive!
I really want to come to your place when you have parties. Thank you so much for linking up to #whatevertheweather xx
Thank you so much for your really lovely comments Chloe! You’re very welcome here as long as you bring your costume, towel and a water pistol 🙂
Thanks for sharing these. More great ideas, as usual 🙂 #bigfatlinky
Thanks Al – generated out of desperation ;)!
Wow you really have lots of different ideas for party games!! All super cool. My eldest is 5 years old and I hired an entertainer for her birthday. I t was goo and fun but I think I will try to do something like this next year. It sounds like a lot of fun!! Thanks for sharing, xx
Oh yes please do give it a go :). Have a bowl of funky tattoos they can win as prizes to avoid the sugar overload!
These sounds so fun!! Can I come next year!. Currently ‘planning’ my son’s second birthday ‘party’…it’s basically just involving cake and family. Although I could see him enjoying water balloons…hmm maybe not yet!
.over from #sundaystars
That’s what we did at two too – just a few friends plus their parents with cake and wine (not for the kids obviously!). They start to want more from 3-4 up really – top tip – make any pass the parcel prizes small or you end up with a small mountain to pass around!
There are some great ideas here, different to the usual. Thanks 🙂 #BigFatLinky
Thank you for popping in and for your lovely comment!
Water balloons and musical paarps! Sounds absolutely awesome!
I know, what a killer combo!
What great ideas! I hope your boy has a wonderful party x
Thank you Kim – he absolutely loved it!! They were outside for the full 2.5 hours throwing water bombs at each other etc. I didn’t get the chance to get the party games going!
Thank you so much for including me! 🙂