Favorite Birthday Party Games

Through the years we have had many birthday parties for my boys. Their first parties were in the preschool years and we tried to stick to the rule of inviting the number of children according to your child's age, plus one. A five year old in our family would have six guests, and so on. This was a manageable amount for me in addition to the three children in our family. There are many fun and easy prepared party games which we have played including both toss-across and twister. Our favorite birthday party games are those we make up ourselves, homemade fun is the best.

1. Soda Bottle Bowling - This may be played as six, eight or ten pins. Peel of the labels, rinse out empty two liter soda bottles and fill with water, color the water with bright food coloring and recap. The colors add to the party atmoshpere and the water makes the pins more challenging to knock over. Bowl using a backyard "kickball."

2. Bean Bag Toss - A large cardboard box which you paint and decorate and cut circles out of for the bean bags to be tossed into. We have turned cardboard boxes into clown faces, haunted houses, priate ships, barnyards, baseball diamonds and have also just painted fun shapes, stars, rockets, or dinosaurs on them. They can also be decopaged using shapes from birthday party wrapping paper.

3. Races - We have played many birthday racing games. The old fashioned potato sacks are still available, three legged races work out well also. Soccer races are usually a hit at the birthday parties. We line up two rows of soccer cones and in pairs the kids race each other while dribbling the soccer ball down the yard and around the cones to the finish. Egg races are fun, we use hard boiled eggs, each child lines up in a row and with a spoon balances their eggs and races to the opposite side of the yard without dropping their egg.

4. Water Balloon Toss - Great in the warmer weather, we include water balloon tosses in our birthday party games. Not fights, and we make the rule of no aiming for faces. Small balloons are filled with water, kids line up in two rows facing each other, toss their balloon carefully to their partner who has to catch it. Upon catching they each take a step back and toss again, the pair who tosses and catches from the farthest back without dropping their ballon wins.

5. Ping Pong Ball Toss - This is fun to play using colorful sturdy plastic party cups which are available at party stores and the oriental trading catalog. We set the cups up on a table and the object of the game is to bounce the ping pong ball once on the table and hope it lands in a cup. This is harder than it sounds.

6. Contests - Hula hoop contests are fun and easy with no other preparation than to obtain the hoops. The child who can hula hoop the longest wins. Paddle balls can be found at the dollar store and also used for contests, the party-goer who can bounce the rubber ball off of their paddle the most times wins. Limbo is also an easy birthday party game, two people hold a broom stick and the kids limbo underneath to party music.

7. Dinosaur Dig - In a sandbox bury plastic toy dinosaurs and have the kids go on a "fossil" dig. Give each child a plastic pail and shovel to dig with and that they may keep as a party favor along with their dinosaurs found on their dig.

8. Treasure Hunt - In our treasure hunt I hide all of the goodie bags in one box and place it in a secret place. Divide the kids into two teams and give each team a map which leads to clues as to where the treasure is hidden. Everyone wins regardless if they are the first team to find the treasure because of their goodie bag loot.

9. Cupcake Decorating - While not necessarily a birthday party game it is a fun activity. Bowls of sprinkles, candies and small gel frostings are set out for each child to design their own personalized cup cake.

10. Basketball Around the World - My boys love basketball and at our hoop in the driveway we play this party game. To set up "Around the World" you will need masking tape. Facing hoop put one taped "x" at the foul line. With the hoop being considered the twelve o'clock postition tape an "x" on the ground at two o'clock, four, eight and ten o'clock. Beginning at the first "x" each child lines up and takes a turn to make a basket. If you make the shot you move to the next "x", if you miss you stay where you are and try again. The winner makes it all the way "around the world". At our parties we play until everyone makes it.

11. Talent Show - Host your own talent show with a karaoke machine. We use the rule that all comments must be complimentary and encourging. Sometimes we use a "clap o meter", a variation of musical chairs can be done with someone singing karaoke rather than just starting and stopping the music.

12. "Who am I' - Each child takes a turn being "it". With the name of a famous person or an animal or other object taped to their back whoever is "it" asks questions of the group until they can gues who they are, another variation is that each child gives the peron who is "it" one clue and at the end of the clues it is time to guess who they are.

I hope you enjoy these birthday party game suggestions and are inspired to create some of your own, involve the kids and have fun.