Are you looking for tips and ideas to make your childs party really special? Izziwizzi Kids Play Fest got together with mums and party entertainer Pippa Saunders @PippaTrulyMadly and hosted a party on Twitter and Facebook to brainstrom some ideas for fantastic kids parties. We hope these ideas will spark lots of really creative ideas and get your party off to a lively start in a way that suits your budget. We’d love you to share your ideas by contributing to this post.

What do you need to think about when you start to organise a kids party?

Play Fest came up with details of all the things that you need think about when you embark on your project of organising your child’s party.

1. A theme

2. Who to invite

3. A venue

4. The games and activities to bring your kids party to life

5. The food

6. The cake

7. Your budget

8. Crowd control

9. Party bags

1. A Theme

Your party theme could be based around something that your child loves to talk about, but you might also like to consider the mixture of age ranges who will be attending the party and what might capture their imagination. Ideas include pirates and princesses, nursery rhymes,

2. Who to invite

How many children can you invite within your budget? What will the age range be? A smaller age range makes it easier to maintain the interest of children in the games and activities.  Don’t forgot to check with your child who they want to invite to their party and guide them where appropriate.

3. A venue

You need to think about where you will host your childs party. Do you want to have lots of children in your house, or will your budget allow for hosting your childs party elsewhere? Sometimes it can be as cost effective to host your childs party elsewhere and save you a lot of cleaning up at home.

4. Games and activities to bring your party to life

The games you select make a difference to your party. Do you want to energise children? Do you want to calm them down? Do you want to get different age groups involved? Here are some party games and activity ideas that Play Fest came up with.

• Fish for your party bag
• Pass the parcel – You can include a prize on every layer such as a golden coin or medal to maintain the interest of younger children.
• Musical statues
• Dead ants – where children lay on their backs and wave their arms and legs in the air. Thanks @Chaoskay
• Treasure hunts – using golden coins for example
• Parachute games – e.g. for a pirate theme you could make the parachute the sea and catch the fishes i.e. the children running around under the parachute.
• The bumps
• Bubble machines seem to go down really well
• Plate or cup decorating
• For a space theme create rockets with plastic bottles and launch them with alka seltzer
• Make and decorate a biscuit
• Fabric snakes
• Picture frames
• Simon says
• Pin something on something e.g. pin tail on donkey, pin tail on Peppa pig

5. The Food

A couple of food ideas came out including plenty of fresh crunchy food such as carrots, cucumber, grapes etc and lots of nibbles.  Don’t go over the top with food. They will be so interested in playing that food often gets left. Themed food boxes are an idea as an alternative to a buffet style.

6. The Cake

Play Fest came up with some novelty cake ideas to spark your imagination. Please do share your creations to spark more ideas. Cakes included bomb cakes (using liquorice sticks as the fuse), toadstool, numbers, hedgehog (using chocolate buttons as the spikes), princess castle, spider man cake with web cup cakes, fire engine and a Vanessa Phelps look alike Tinkerbell.

7. Your budget

Think about how much you are prepared to spend and hopefully these ideas will give you lots of low cost ideas to bring your party to life.

8. Crowd Control

What techniques will you use if your party guests get over excited to calm them down and get their attention? What will you do if some children don’t want to get involved? How will you keep the interest of different ages? Ideas to gain the attention of lots of noisy children include sounding a horn to let them know that you are ready for the next game.

9. Party Bags

Will you provide party bags for kids, or do you prefer something alternative. Ideas for party bags include personalised colouring pages and crayons, bubbles and cup cakes in a box. Printed t-shirts were also mentioned as a big hit.

Relax as much as you can. You know your kids party will deviate greatly from the plan, but that’s all part of the fun.

Finally Play Fest came up with some ideas for your Party Play List. Try some of these to see if you can get your little ones jiggling.

Time Warp
Agadoo
Zingzillas theme tune
Party rock
Birdy song
Hokey Cokey
Witch Doctor Ooh Eeh Ooh Ah Aah Ting Tang Walla Walla Bing Bang

How do you get a good response to party invitations. Do you have any tips on how to increase your response rate to party invitations?