Saturday, November 27, 2010

Snow Babies!

As a mom of a winter baby, I understand the limitations on what you can do for your child’s party. You can forget the giant bounce houses in the backyard, the barbeques or the pool parties; you are having an indoor event!
Yikes! Does the idea of 15 kids running around your house make your hair stand on end? No worries!  We just need an action plan.
First, make sure you put an end time on the invitation.  Not only will this insure parents collect their children at a reasonable time, it will be your guide on how many activities to plan.  For a child’s party I would suggest a 2 hour limit, less if the child is under 5.

Assume the first 15 minutes of the party is going to be occupied greeting guests and allowing for late arrivals. You now have an hour and 45 minutes left to go.
I’m a big fan of theme parties.  It gives me a spring board for all my planning.  So for the sake of showing examples I’m going to plan a winter festival for a 5 year old.
I like having the table set up for a themed craft right off the bat.  Not only does it corral the kids, but it gives them a take away from the party.  For the next 15-20 minutes the kids will be making Paper Plate Snowmen.  You now have roughly an hour and 25 minutes left to go.  Plenty of time to let that glue dry!
The kids have been sitting for a while and getting restless, time to stand up, stretch and play some games.  Pin the carrot on the snowman, frozen snowball (hot potato) and snowball toss (bean bag toss). Depending on how many kids you have that should eat up about another 20-30 minutes.  Yay!!!! Just about an hour left!
It’s time to sing and eat some cake. Now I’m not delusional, I’d like to say that will take a bit of time. However, I’ve seen how fast a 5 year old can inhale a piece of cake. We’ll be lucky if it takes 20 minutes.  Counting down, I still have 40 minutes to fill. 
Let’s hope that opening presents will take a bit longer!  Probably about 15-20 minutes.  OK, that’s not so bad. It’s only about 20 minutes left.
There is something to be said for letting kids be kids. So I leave the last 20-30 minutes as unstructured play time. 
That’s it! They all go home and you reclaim your house. But you now have a very happy birthday girl\boy.  Makes it all worth it, doesn’t it?


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