Birthday Party Games Lady Blog

With good birthday party games, you should have no trouble keeping your partygoer’s engaged and on track with the planned activities rather than causing problems and wrecking the party. UNLESS you’ve loaded them up with all the sugar that’s in all the traditional party foods. The excitability that sugar creates makes it much harder for the kids to stay focused on your games, and that can be ‘death’ to a party that’s enjoyed by all- including you.

Candy isn’t the only evildoer here either. Those chips and pretzels are just as bad: the simple carbs in them are converted to sugar way faster than the complex carbs in fruits and vegetables. So you’re not just sending them home on a sugar high- you’re getting the nefarious effects on your watch.

And the kids don’t have to groan when they see your healthy food presentation. You can make it attractive and inviting without the nasty results. My favorite, and a big hit with the kids, has always been chocolate covered strawberries.

A foray onto the web for other ideas turned up lots of good resources. To start, you’ll find a quick list at Kids Party Advice. There’s a yummy sounding apple treat at Penelope Plans. Scroll through all 10 screens of healthy snack ideas at FamilyFun. For vegetarian and dairy/gluten free ideas, check out the list at Adorable Gift Baskets. Lastly, I found 3 more good ideas at girl.com.au.

And for a drink that is also a healthful snack, that helps fill them up a bit and keep the munchies at bay, try one of these delicious smoothies. Making these could even be one of your party activities- I’m sure your neighbors would lend you a couple of extra blenders for the day of your celebration.

One idea always seems to lead to another: how ’bout a smoothie making competition as part of the Survivor Party smorgasbord of games - the best tasting combination wins? You just supply the fruit/yogurt/milk ingredients and they create/drink/choose the winner? Take it one step further and have them create green smoothies - a twist on eating bugs or some similar gross Survivor type challenge that might even show them that healthy can actually taste good!

So don’t let the sugar highs ruin your birthday celebration. Combine these food ideas with any of the great games from Birthday Party Games Lady and your group of kids will be having a ball doing what there supposed to be doing and not turning you into the bad cop. Have Fun!!

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Early elementary school kids ages 6, 7 and even 8 are beginning readers and still not very good at following directions or staying focused. To keep them involved in your party rather than veering off in their own direction, your games must be simple and straightforward and relatively short.

You need to plan a variety of short games, each with simple rules of play. One task at a time, and wrap it up before moving on to the next activity. But just because they’re not yet good readers doesn’t mean they can’t think or solve problems! Provide simple challenges that they can meet, and the fun level will rise accordingly.

At this age and developmental level, your party invitation takes on extra importance. A standard invite to what appears to the child to be a standard birthday party will create very little curiosity about what they’re going to be doing.

The young child’s natural curiosity is a factor you want to use to your advantage. Structure your invitation to create curiosity and excitement about the unknown, and the kids will immediately be drawn into your activities- just to find out what it’s all about. Once engaged, good games will keep them that way and avoid problems for you.

Stay away from games that require any one child to ‘perform’ solo, such as charades. Some kids this age love being in the spotlight, but there’s usually one or two that start shaking the minute they realize what’s expected of them. That anxiety can cause the behavior to head south, create other behavioral problems in it’s wake, and then you have to step in as the bad guy. No Fun. Stick to all group activities.

Many parents believe the answer to those short attention spans and possible behavior problems is to spend a bunch and take the kids somewhere to do something. This party option is not only very expensive; it doesn’t really solve the problem. These places usually provide one activity over the duration of the party and these young kids have difficulty staying focused on that one activity for so long.

To see how best to structure a birthday party for this age group, take a look at the Survivor Party Games at the Birthday Party Games Lady website. Short, simple, silly games strung around a theme the kids find interesting and exciting. Team activities that incorporate simple challenges and keeps all the activities in a group framework.

I’ll be posting soon about the age factors you need to consider in planning birthday party games for older kids, so stay tuned. Or, check out the birthday party games for older kids.

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By far the most frequent question I get asked by parents is whether kids older than 8 can still enjoy my Survivor Party Game. So it seemed appropriate to address this issue here in my blog.

That answer depends on the kids in your group- not just the birthday child. If they are 9 or 10 or 11 and going on 16, ‘too cool’ for their own good and likely to look down their noses at anything that doesn’t measure up to their ‘coolness’ standard, don’t try this party. And very unfortunately, it only takes one kid to make a comment that puts all the others up on their guard about not measuring up to ‘the standard’ to put a real damper on your festivities.

On the other hand, if the kids in your group can still get down and dirty and be silly, they’ll have a wonderful time. The team competition built into the party makes it much more likely that they’ll all ‘buy in’ to all the activities and work together to ‘win’ (even though the only prize for winning is the fun they have).

They all grow up too darn fast as it is, so if your party group are still ‘kids’, celebrate that with the Survivor Party even if the group is a bit older than my recommended age on the website. It’s all too soon they won’t want these kind of parties anymore, and then you’ll miss it. I know I do.

And that’s the whole point of the Birthday Party Games Lady parties: to celebrate our children while they’re still kids. I swear my oldest was in pigtails and braces last week: she leaves for college in 15 days!!

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