Classic Birthday Party Games

A child's birthday party is one of the best events of the year, but it is not without it's stress and hassle. Whether you opt for a small gathering or a veritable posse of his or her friends and relatives, the big question is how to keep them entertained for a few hours. It's all to easy to slip a DVD into the machine and push the play button and hope that keeps them happy. It may do in a small gathering, but when you have many children to look after, you are going to have to do a bit more thinking than that.

So, what better way to keep them amused by playing birthday party games. Some of the oldest games are still the best. Pass The Parcel is the first one that comes to my mind and is one I used to play at my parties and would play at my friends when I was young. The trick is to get a nice novelty item or present, maybe two small ones, one for a boy and one for a girl, depending on the mix you have on the day. Wrap it excessively, maybe with 10 -12 layers of paper, have your CD player close by, and put on a good party track. I recommend Pink's Let Get This Part Started, but you can choose any good dance tune.. Get your children to sit in a circle on the floor and start the parcel moving quickly from hand to hand. Then stop the music, and the child who has the parcel at that moment, gets to take one layer of the parcel off. This continues until the parcel is unwrapped, the child who has this, wins the prize. Make sure you vary the length of time you start stop the music, and of course, you can make sure all the children get a chance to unwrap a layer during the game.

Another favorite birthday party game is Musical Chairs. Arrange a number of chairs or cushions if you like back to back on the floor. Make sure you use one less chair than you have participants. So if you have nine participants, you use eight chairs. Once again you use your CD player to play a good party tune. The children then start to walk briskly in a circle around the chairs. When you stop the music, the children sit down on the available chairs. Of course there will be one child who will not get a chair, or there will be two children fighting to sit on one! The child who misses out is put out of the game, as is one chair. Ultimately you will have two children and one chair, and again you can vary the length of the music and stoppages, to help with the unpredictability of the game. The boy or girl who gets to sit in the chair will win the game. Simple, yet timeless.

Treasure Hunt is a great game for birthday parties for older children - around nine to eleven. You will write several clues, and direct the children once they find that clue to a series of locations, ultimately finding the ' treasure' , a nice gift. It works something like this, you get two teams of children and give them the 2 different starter clues. This clue will lead them to the next clue and so on. For these children, I generally make simple cryptic clues. For example, if you are playing the game outside, and you hide the clue in a crack in the wall, you can add a clue take ten steps left (and that takes you to the wall face), move sideways three steps and reach up. There you will find the clue. Its entirely up to you how, when and where you play this game, and the competition between the two sides, who will be searching in different places until they both search for the final prize, is very exciting and fun.

A variation on the Treasure Hunt party game for younger children is to hide small sweets and candies around the house or garden and let them search for them. You can supervise and help by saying warm or very warm when they are close to getting a prize or cold and very cold when they are going away from it. Of course, for small children, fairness dictates you have a little prize for all of you guests or you might have a few tears to cope with!

I find these games are the best and can be played inside or outside depending on the weather, and time of year of course. Children love them and they are so timeless, that you will love preparing and supervising them. They are my classic birthday party games!