A Recipe for a Children's Party

For many years we've been doing 'at home' birthday parties, with Roo as MC. I usually hide in the kitchen, popping out only to take a few pictures now and then. Here's a template for what, over the years, has proven to be a very successful party format. The key is the MC. Roo does this act where is a cross between a drill sergeant, Bill Nye and your favourite oldest cousin.

This party was for Hugo, who will turn 10 on Wednesday. For a younger child's party, cut down the party duration and the # of activities.

Our parties are always multi age as we invite siblings if we know them. Heck, we invite them even if we don't know them. This year our youngest guest was almost 7. The oldest was 16, plus we had an unofficial guest older sibling who is 18 and whom I roped in to help serve lunch. Everyone looked like they were having a good time, nobody cried, nobody was too fried or hyper, and nobody lost an eye.

1:00 start. Guests should be arriving. If your guests are anything like ours, you can expect them to come anytime between 1 & 4. That's OK. Our plan has flexibility built in for that. Kids come & get folded into whatever activity is on at the moment.

1:15 Balloon Animals. When the kids were younger, Roo would make them for the kids. He'd take requests, but no matter what they asked for, they got a 4 legged blobby thing which he would 'sell' them in exquisite detail as being exactly what they had asked for. Bonus points if you can do parts of Steve Martin's old balloon animal skits. This year, as the kids are older, they also got to try making their own animals. It helps if you have blown some up in advance. Store them in big garbage bags until needed.

Also in here are balloon javelin toss, where you stand the kids in 2 rows about 10 feet apart and they try to throw the long balloons at each other, and the inevitable balloon sword fighting skirmishes which break out. Put the skirmishes out as soon as possible or you'll lose control of the room.

1:30 Balloon 3-legged race. You tie their legs together with one of the long skinny balloons and they have to race back & forth without the balloon popping.

1:40 Balloon drop. Kids line up. Roo is some distance away, appropriate for age of the group. He calls out a kid's name & drops a round balloon from over his head. The child whose name was called has to race up & catch the balloon before it hits the ground. This is actually an alzheimer's test for Roo as he has to memorize all the children's names and remember them during a time of stress and noise. Roo has a hard time remembering my name sometimes, so you can see it would be a challenge.

1:50 Balloon sit. For older kids, use helium quality balloons as you want them to be hard to pop. You prepare this activity in advance by stuffing a candy (we use a chocolate caramel type candy) inside the balloon, then blow it up with regular air & tie. Store in a bag until needed. Then, each child gets a balloon and they have to pop it by sitting on it on the ground (this is done indoors. Helps if the area is carpeted as it increases difficulty.) It's quite hard to do & they will be bouncing around a while to get them to pop. Then they get to eat the candy.

2:00 Pass the parcel. Prepared in advance. This year it was a package of licorice string, which had been wrapped in about 20 or 30 layers of paper. Kids sit in a circle, music is played as they pass it around. When the music stops, that person gets to take off one layer of paper. Person in charge of music has to rig it so everyone gets a turn at unwrapping. Finally, get the parcel unwrapped & everyone gets a piece of licorice string.

2:15 Wink murder. I'll have to come back and let you know what this is about as I really don't understand this game at all.

If extra time is needed here (ie. the lunch lady - me - is not on the ball), Broken Telephone. Hugo started it off with Stephane Dion. Nobody got it.

2:30 Lunch. As the weather was gorgeous this year, we ate out on the deck.

Dry ice entertainment during meal. Yes, there is danger at our parties. Get waivers if you're worried :-) Buy dry ice. I find 10 lbs is a good amount. If you're buying more than 24h in advance, or are in a very hot climate, get more as you'll lose it. Place containers of hot water on the table, drop some dry ice into the water (using tongs or a measuring cup and gloves). Warn children not to touch the dry ice or the hot water. They will try to catch the vapours. They can fill their drinking cups with it, pour it out over their hands, and blow it at the people sitting opposite them. If you're outdoors, nobody will pass out. If you're indoors, open the windows just in case. This isn't too messy but your table will get wet so if that's an issue, cover it with plastic under the tablecloth. When the bubbling slows down, if there's still dry ice in the container, you can start it up again by adding hot water.

We've been doing this for years and each year everyone still gets a kick out of the dry ice fogging up the table. Anyone who can't explain the process or spell sublimation doesn't eat. (kidding!)

2:55 Paper Airplanes. Roo did a quick demo on how to build a paper airplane. The kids each made on & then lined up on our deck and threw them as far as they could. They were sent to retrieve them and got a candy for coming back with it (yes, that's clean up, cunningly disguised as a game).

3:10 Scavenger Hunt. This is an activity in our garden. Roo made up the list & I printed it out using words & some clip art for those children who may not be fluent readers yet. It had things like granite (Roo, the geologist, wanted to put down things like "plagioclase" but I dissuaded him), two colored leaf, one colored leaf, stick, pine cone, tall blade of grass. There were also small pieces of blue and red streamers hung on various branches ahead of time and they were on the list as well. Each child gets a copy of the list & a small brown paper lunch bag and all their items have to fit in the bag - this to prevent someone ripping off a huge chunk of some bush! Some worked in pairs, some independently & this was semi-competitive because inevitably you get some kids who are raring to go and do a bit of triumphant cheering about coming in first or whatever, but in the end, Roo inspects all their stuff and everyone gets another candy. Again caramels are good, especially the really hard ones as they do stick their teeth together and turn the volume down a bit. (We have done this activity indoors also - just vary the items and hide things in advance. Make it easy enough so everyone will find the things & if necessary, pair the younger ones with some older kids.)

3:30 Cake. Handwashing & back to the table for the cake & singing Happy Birthday. Presents got opened at this time too. Then more dry ice. This time, add a few squirts of liquid soap to the hot water before the dry ice goes in. Makes a great bubbly brain coral effect. The kids can pop the bubbles with their fingers and little puffs of 'smoke' will come out.

3:45 Water Balloon Toss. Prepare water balloons in advance and store them in bins. We have a small path with paving stones just below the deck so there were 'targets' with points drawn with sidewalk chalk on the paving stones and the kids lined up on the deck to take turns throwing a balloon down and trying to hit a target. Roo somehow convinced the kids that they had to go down and pick up all the broken balloon pieces too.

4:00 Goody bags handed out at the door. In a pinch, for children who really don't want to leave, you lure them to their cars with the goody bags. Do not give a child the goody bag in the house or they will open it immediately and never leave, and you will develop a twitch under your left eye which will last for the next 24h.

The End.

Have a beer. Or two.


Supplies checklist:
-balloons: long, round plain, round helium, water. Prepare as many as you can store.
-balloon pump
-large soundproof room. Yes! We have one, courtesy of a previous resident who was a musician. Empty as much of the furniture out of the room as possible.
-masking tape for drawing lines on the carpet
-caramel candy; for stuffing in balloons and as awards
-something to be shared which can be placed in the parcel for 'pass the parcel'
-lots of used wrapping paper
-scotch tape
-source of music
-industrial hearing protection for the MC to be used at strategic times (such as the balloon pop game)
-dry ice
-hot water
-a variety of containers for the dry ice
-liquid soap for dry ice demo
-food & drinks
-cake
-plates, glasses, napkins
-paper for paper airplanes
-scavenger hunt lists
-paper bags for scavenger hunt
-goody bags ready and securely locked up until the end