3rd birthday party in Dec...what do to at home?

[robin3]

DS1's birthday in in Dec and I'm looking for some ideas about what we can do to entertain them all.

Ideally we'd like it at home to keep costs down.

On holiday we saw this brilliant girl who did disco dancing/gymnastics but getting all the children to follow her moves, congo etc., and was wondering if that might work if we blackened a disco room. Would that be fun for that age and if so where would we find someone in Surrey/SW London area?

[robin3]

bump

[Karensara]

You can always hire an entertainer but that would cost at least £100 and for a bunch of 3 year olds, that is an unecessary expense. They have a short attention span and like lots of different things to do. For my daughter's 3rd birthday party (10 children) I bought loads of stickers, crayons, glitter glue, etc... and they 'decorated' their own white paper plates and the white paper tablecloth. That took a good 1/2 hour up, then they had their food, (mini sausages, sandwiches, grapes, carrot sticks, babybels, cherry tomatoes and fairy cakes and chocolate rolls), that's another 1/2 hour taken care of. Then we did games, (nothing complicated, they are too little and get bored easily), musical statues/bumps, pass the parcel (inside each layer was a prize - Haribos - but also a piece of paper with a nursery ryhme on it which they had to recite), 'pin the tail on the donkey' (bought from Tesco for a couple of quid) - that all takes another 1/2 hour and to finish off I've got a CD with action songs on it and we did that for 5-10 minutes. They all had a brilliant time and it hardly cost anything. They all got party bags containing a Noddy sticker book/felt tip pens (from the pound shop) and a bag of magic stars of course with the obligatory slice of chocolate birthday cake. I had some lovely comments about the party, especially holding it at home, where in this area, a party is not a party unless you have booked a hall/hired an entertainer and had it fully catered and spent at least £300 - I've been to parties like this and I really can't understand people spending so much money, which in all honesty is wasted on the child, it's really just to impress their friends! Keep it simple, no longer than 2 hours and most of all have fun!

[Snowstorm]

Karensara PLEASE come to my house and do my 4 year old's party next week - that sounds great!

[ills]

For dd party they arrived decorated homemade gingerbreadmen which then went in the party bags. Played pass the parcel. Had aplay whilst we took clingfilm of food. Made most of it From Annabel Karmels party book. Birthday cake. Play with lots of ballons and bubbles and music on dressing up stuff out and then home. House was a tip happy kids shattered Mum

[robin3]

Thanks everyone...sounds great

[robin3]

Thanks everyone...sounds great