Birthday party ideas for three year olds - Germany

Hi,

We are having around 5 kids around for a birthday. All of them are apprx 3 yrs old. I wonder what I can do to keep them entertained? Also, apart from fruits and fruit juice, what can I offer them and their mums? Something healthy ...?

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Rana

If you have a garden and the weather is fine put as many garden toys out as possible and they will entertain themselves. For an activity you could try making paper hats and decorating them. I tried pass the parcel at this age but they didn't really get the point of it. Play dough is good if you have enough space to fit them round a table.

You could offer the parents coffee or Sekt.

Take them to Mc Donalds it is no problem, and the children enjoy it.

A great game to calm down excited kids is "Toter Fisch" (dead fish). Basically all the kids have to do is lie on the floor and not move. You make a big deal of it, walking around saying "ooooh is little so 'n so moving", "aaaaah Susie is not moving an inch", "hey look there's an elephant" etc etc. Every time one of them moves, he's out of the game, and obviously the winner is the one who is last to move.
I don't know if three year olds would be into this game yet, but I used to play this with my friend's son and his little guests at birthday parties. They actually used to ask to play it, and it really did calm them down too.

You could also buy a big roll of paper (they sell rolls at IKEA), roll it out on the floor and let the children draw a big picture together.

How about stick the tail on the donkey (or nose on the clown, whatever..). You could draw a donkey or clown and cut out tails or noses for each child to try and stick on to the correct position, while blindfolded of course. Kids like a good giggle, and when they see that the tail ends up on the donkeys ears or eyes etc, they'll think that's great.

A friend of mine always serves carrot sticks, sliced peppers and cocktail tomatoes, as well as the usual cakes and sweets. I was surprised that the children did actually eat any healthy food at all. Of course they went beserkers on the sweets first, but that's all part of a kids party isn't it.

Have a great time!

Some of my favourites:
We used to tie Pretzels up and have the kids eat them without using their hands. You will get great pictures.

Another one which was fantastic fun, if you can have the party outside, that is. It might be too early for a 3-year old, though. We filled some balloons with water, blew them up and hung them up (separately) quite high - a clothes line or something. We attached a nail (or something sharp) onto a long stick and the children had to try and burst the balloon. The fun of the whole thing was being dexterous and completing the operation WITHOUT getting wet in the process.

The German game "Topfschlagen" is brill. You put something under a saucepan. One kid is blindfolded and given a wooden spoon and has to look for the saucepan by banging the spoon on the ground while the other kids yell "hot" or "cold".

The first two are our own inventions - am proud to say. Maybe they exist already but we thought them out for ourselves.

I like these games, because I was always someone who never won the "prize". Musical chairs, pass the parcel, hunt the thimble... *sigh*. These are games where nobody "loses".

oooooh another one and I am ing at the memory.

Not the Laughing Game. Where you have all the kids sit on the floor and they are not allowed laugh.

I remember:
It was my sister's party. My father started playing this game. We were all sitting down with serious faces, nothing but absolutely nothing was going to get us to laugh.

My father sat down in front of us. Started rolling his trouser leg up. Well this certainly was NOT funny. And he rolled .. and rolled .. and rolled... Finally, after eons, he shook the calf of his leg and said, totally deadpan: "this is my sausage" ...

Nobody won.

rla

Maybe it loses in the telling, but I have never forgotten it - I must have been about 7.

If you've got the adult manpower to pull it off, kids always love the zoo, especially when they're still that young, they've never seen most of the animals before. But if it's going to be at home, all the suggestions given so far are excellent ideas.

As far as party snacks go, the crunchy colorful vegetable tray is a great idea - kids here especially seem to love sliced cucumber and cherry tomatoes. You could even make a game out of the vegetables by helping them make veggie people with toothpicks, sticking carrots for legs, tomato for a head, a big piece of cucumber for the body, etc. Toothpicks might still be a bit dangerous at this age though, would have to be careful about it.

Have fun!

Hi All

Thanks a ton for the great ideas. Just finished our 3yr old's party and I am exhausted. Headache, footache and a terrible mess, waiting to be sorted and cleaned.

Our theme today was pizza. I bought the aldi''s readymade pizza dough and the children spread tomato sauce and decorated it with cheese and veggies. It was great fun and they loved it. Tried to organise some games, but the kids were all over the place, interested in their own little world of things to do. However, it was fun, my son loved it and so did others. I am glad I have no more birthday to plan and execute for the next one year.

Thanks again girls.

Ratna