1. Be positive! The first thing to bear in mind is that children’s expectations are often lower than we imagine and, with a little ingenuity and some basic planning, they’re not that difficult to please. A simple fancy-dress theme with a few appropriate decorations is all it takes to get children’s imaginations working, and before you know it an hour will have passed with everyone happily pretending to be knights, princesses, fairies or pirates. Parties are more than just the way the venue looks, too. Remember: a delicious cake and an afternoon having fun with their closest friends is the perfect way to celebrate your child’s birthday.
2. Make a scene Parties for toddlers can often mean more to the parents than the children, but a teddy bears’ picnic is ideal for this age group. Creating a pretty picnic spot – indoors or outside – is as simple as putting down a rug and scattering a few cushions around. You could also put up a child’s tent festooned with festive gingham bunting to provide a focus for the birthday tea.
3. Toddler tactics Children under two aren't always cooperative when it comes to sitting down for tea, so have a few simple activities close at hand, such as trolleys of building blocks, dolls’ pushchairs or a sandpit to play in. Although the under-twos are too young for traditional party games, you could hide a few small toys in the sandpit and help them dig for buried treasure.
4. Fair weather picnic plan If the weather permits, hold the party in your garden or at a nearby park – not only is an outdoor setting more appropriate for a picnic, but it will also save your house from an invasion of rampaging toddlers with sticky fingers.
5. Create a cake centrepiece The birthday cake is central to the big day, and a thick layer of brightly coloured butter icing with a generous sprinkling of sweets is all you need to give your child a cake to remember (the icing is all they’re interested in, anyway). Look out for some brilliant cake ideas in part two of our party feature in the May issue of Junior.
6. Keep spare props on hand Some children may forget to bring along their own teddy bear and will end up feeling left out if everyone else has one. To avoid squabbles over another child’s favourite bear, it’s a good idea to put out as many soft toys as you can. This way, you can ensure that everyone has something to play with. It’s a good idea to follow this principle of providing spare props whatever theme you decide on for your party.
7. Theme your treats Juice served in tiny tea cups is perfect for small hands, as long as you’re relaxed about the inevitable spills. You may decide that the tea set is best used in a ‘let’s pretend’ game with all the guest’s teddies before the real tea is served. You can also theme your food. For a bears’ picnic, look out for teddy-shaped biscuits or use animal-shaped cutters to make your own.
8. Choose familiar and fun favourites A party based on simple, familiar motifs such as jungle or farm animals, combined with easy activities, games and singing, is ideal for the under-threes. Decorate your space with some colourful, oversized decorations to turn it into a memorable celebration.
9. Dress the part Fancy dress is a little too complicated for toddlers, but popping some cute animal ears, tiaras or pirate’s hats on your partygoers’ heads is just right, especially as young children love trying on hats.
10. Opt for an ‘away’ location Although it’s nice to host your child’s birthday party at home, a local community centre or school hall is an excellent alternative if you’re obliged to invite the whole of your child’s playgroup or nursery class. Halls can sometimes seem a bit drab, so cheer it up by adding some simple home-made decorations based around your child’s favourite stories, animals, characters or toys.
11. Be practical Devise your theme according to how much time you’re prepared to give to it, and also bear in mind the practicalities, such as how you will transport and set up any decorations that you make. A dull hall can be given an instant lift with balloons, streamers and tables of party food. But if you really enjoy the challenge, the transformation of your local hall is limited only by your imagination, and with a little lateral thinking and very little cost, you can create a highly personal celebration.
12. Make some music A selection of simple musical instruments, such as tambourines, drums and shakers, is all you need in the way of entertainment for young children. Bring them out at a suitable moment, such as just before tea, and let the children make as much noise as they like.
13. Think about the little things For babies and toddlers, remember to set up a changing station with a mat, wipes and nappies – some parents may forget to bring them. Don’t forget to provide a bin, too. A potty for toddlers who are toilet training is also a good idea.
14. Party nibbles for all Before you go overboard working out what to cook for the grown-ups at the party, remember that most adults are secretly fond of cocktail sausages, crisps and child-sized sandwiches and other popular nibbles. You could save yourself a lot of time and effort by simply treating the adults the same as the children and catering accordingly. Fairy cakes and biscuits always go down well with all ages, and so much the better if they’re home-made.
15. Booty for winners Keep prizes and goodie bags simple. It’s a good idea to give away some of the decorations, such as large paper flowers. Children will love to keep them as a souvenir of the fun they had and parents can put them up in their child’s room. Toddlers also love blown-up rubber or helium balloons, which provide hours of entertainment.
16. Add a little home-made touch Provide a fun going-home present by making home-made play dough. You can put it in little baby-food jars and add a label bearing the recipe, too. To make play dough, combine 1 cup plain flour, 1 cup water, ½ cup salt, 1 tablespoon vegetable oil, 1 teaspoon cream of tartar and 1 tablespoon food colouring in a heavy-based pan over a medium heat. Stir as the mixture thickens and, when it becomes a dough, remove it from the heat. When cool, knead the mixture for a minute or two and it’s ready.
17. Playtime for preschoolers For a party with a group of preschoolers, it’s a good idea to create a small play area (inside or out) that is stocked with a selection of your child’s toys.
18. A cool ice party trick If you’re having a party in the summer, make giant ice cubes with plastic toys embedded in them. Save yoghurt pots or margarine tubs and place a small toy in each one, then fill the tubs with water, and place them in the freezer until they are frozen solid. On the day of the party, take out the blocks and set them out on a tray. Small children will be intrigued by these slippery cubes and will enjoy trying to extract the toys as the ice melts.
19. Sing a song Circle songs are the closest that preschoolers can get to playing an organised game. If your guests attend nursery or go to toddler groups, this will be a familiar activity, and everyone will want to join in. Make musical shakers for the children using old drinks bottles filled with dried lentils, rice, pasta or sand.
20. Take a dip If the weather is good, set up a paddling pool with a few centimetres of water in it, or a sandpit – both will provide a huge amount of fun. You also won’t need much else other than some towels to dry the children off at the end.
21. Go West, young man! Evoking the spirit of the Wild West, even in an urban back garden, is surprisingly easy and can involve very little in the way of decorations – just a bale or two of hay (available from pet stores or local stables), a length of gingham and some cacti cut from flattened-out cardboard boxes. Add a log cabin, made from cardboard painted to look like wood, and a fake campfire made from real twigs set ‘ablaze’ with flames made of tissue paper.
22. Add some pow The costumes for a Wild West party are easy to put together. For boys and girls alike, a pair of jeans, a checked or denim shirt and a cowboy hat are all you need. Sew on some gingham or suede patches to give an added Western spin. Invest in some joke shop accessories too, such as plastic arrows or pop-guns with little flags that say ‘Bang!’
23. Create a sea world A mysterious, watery wonderland is lots of fun to create. Take the colours of the sea as your starting point and look for fabric, tissue paper and other props in greens for seaweed, turquoise and blues for the sea, and yellows and pinks for the sand and coral. Scatter some shells on a turquoise or yellow plastic tablecloth and use bath toys as sea creatures. Look out for plastic fish, which can be ‘caught’ by the children in a large net (you can buy nets from most good party shops – they’re usually used for balloon drops).
24. Mermaid magic To make mermaid wigs, cut lining paper into strips and sew them together along a central parting on a sewing machine (or use sticky tape). Finish with a rough application of yellow paint and a sprinkling of gold stars.
25. Swim with the fish Create a shoal of silvery fish by cutting fish shapes out of sheets of iridescent card or thin plastic and suspending them on fine thread. To create something more dramatic, make a table-top beach by painting a sheet of cardboard or MDF yellow, then coating it with a mixture of sand and PVA glue. Add some miniature sandcastles by painting individual segments from an egg box in the same mixture. Just add a little flag bearing each guest’s name to turn them into place cards.
26. Theme snacks Bright seaside buckets filled with crisps and popcorn make fun alternatives to bowls, as do plastic sea moulds, which can be used to hold jellies or filled with sweets and biscuits.
27. Goodie bags Plastic snow shakers that contain glitter-filled water and a slot for a photograph make perfect goodie bags for a water-themed party. If you have a digital or Polaroid camera, take each child’s picture as they arrive, then print it out so you can put it in each snow shaker before they leave.
28. Set the stage A climbing frame makes an excellent starting point for a pirate galleon sailing the high seas. You can make a sail using an old curtain or a dust sheet. Paint it with poster paint mixed with a little PVA glue (this works out cheaper than buying fabric paints, which are expensive and only come in small quantities). Buy flags and balloons from a party shop and make bunting by cutting black and white fabric into triangles, then simply sew on some string and decorate them with a home-made skull-and-crossbones stencil.
29. Fly the flag Nothing says ‘pirates!’ as powerfully as a Jolly Roger flag, but if making decorations is not your thing, your local party shop should be able to provide plenty of pirate flags and black balloons.
30. Buckles and belts Pirate costumes are really easy to concoct, and even the most self-conscious child can usually be persuaded to don a pair of cut-off jeans and a stripey T-shirt.
31. Ham it up Silly accessories go down a storm. Put together a box of accessories – for example plastic hooks, headscarves and eye patches, for arriving pirates – so that guests can embellish their costumes. Charity shops are a great source of clothes that can be customised to create outfits. For pirates, old jeans cut in bold zigzags just below the knee look great – just add a white shirt with some patches sewn on, a waistcoat and headscarf, and there you have a perfect salty sea dog!
32. Hunt for hidden treasures A treasure hunt is another fun activity that any group of children will enjoy. Bear in mind that the clues need to be very simple, and it will probably work best if a parent helps by leading the children through the clues to find the buried treasure.
33. Be adventurous Organise a fun assault course. For the pirate theme, establish two ‘islands’, one at each end of the garden, and arrange a chain of chairs, cushions and so on across the garden. Tell the children that the grass is a shark-infested ocean and they must get across without falling in – the winner is the one who makes it across first.
34. Nibbles and snacks Keep food simple: sandwiches shaped with cookie cutters, veggie sticks and cherry tomatoes are ideal. Sausages on sticks and pineapple chunks with cheese are also fun and easy to make.
35. Fairy enchantment Little girls always leap at the chance to dress up as fairies. What’s more, the costumes are so easy to provide – not only do most girls have a fairy outfit of some form already, but improvising with netting, ribbons and a pretty party dress is just as good. As for the decorations, all you need to do is think pink!
36. The crowning glory! Hand out tiaras as each child arrives at the party, or give them out as prizes for the games (though you’ll to have to make sure that each child manages to ‘win’ one).
37. Dressing the table Cover the table with a pretty tablecloth and add plates and cups with floral patterns or in pretty pastel shades. A cake stand piled high with fairy cakes will make a sweet focal point. If you want to take the theme further, cut out clouds of butterflies from pink, white and purple tissue paper and stick them to the windows, curtains and walls with a dab of glue or a burst of spray mount. You can even stick them onto balloons (where static alone will hold them in place). A fairy tea without sweets wouldn’t feel right, but first offer plates of heart-shaped sandwiches with a selection of healthy fillings – egg mayonnaise and cress; tuna and carrot; chicken and avocado; or cheese, bacon and tomato – before letting your little fairies loose on the marshmallows and iced gems!
38. Add some abracadabra Slightly older children will enjoy an organised activity in keeping with the party theme, such as wand-making or decorating fairy crowns. It’s best to prepare the crown shapes and the sticks and stars for the wands in advance, then help the children to assemble and decorate them with lots of glittery and sparkly bits.
39. Lend a little light Fairy lights always give a magical, celebratory feel to a room, which is just the right effect for a fairy party. Dig out your Christmas tree lights or look out for slightly more ornate lights in a variety of eye-catching designs and pretty colours. For some inspirational lighting ideas, visit www.juniormagazine.co.uk to see some of our favourites.
40. Get physical For an outdoor party, a ball is all you need. Provide an adult- and child-friendly picnic and everyone will have a good time. If you live near a park, try a bikes and trikes party. Arrange for everyone to gather at an easily identifiable spot and plan a route from there to the picnic spot (keep it short – they can always do it twice). Once everyone has arrived, the children can set off en masse, with parents directing operations and keeping tabs on any stragglers.
41. Finders, seekers… Children tend to shed bits of their costumes, so have a Lost Property box for abandoned items, which the children can retrieve at home time.
42. Pace the prizes If you want the children to eat the food you have prepared, avoid giving sweets as prizes before the meal. Instead, give a sheet of colourful stickers to the winner and single stickers to the other players to keep everyone happy. If you can, use stickers that tie in with the theme of your party.
43. Perfect prizes and party bags For parties near any national festival, like Easter and Hallowe’en, it’s fun to theme the treats accordingly. Try giving away mini chocolate eggs or plastic spiders or bats. Three and four year olds are more than happy to walk off with a large cookie or gingerbread figure, especially if it bears their initial and is prettily wrapped. You can also give them a balloon as a bonus.
44. Have a cunning game plan Keep party games simple and avoid long instructions. A simple treasure hunt searching for chocolate coins or small plastic animals will be a hit. Don’t be too ingenious with your hiding places, though, or it might all end in tears.
45. Go with tradition The old games we played as children are still the best: Musical Bumps, Pass The Parcel, Pin The Tail On The Donkey, Musical Statues and – every parent’s favourite for the promise of five minute’s peace – Sleeping Lions.
46. Get artistic A decent set of face paints is a sound investment, even if you’re not particularly skilled at applying them. Children love being made up to look like their favourite characters, and they won’t mind about wobbly lines as long as the colours are vibrant and the details are bold. Buy a face-painting book or check out some websites for ideas – www.snazaroo.com has some great designs and also supplies face-painting kits.
47. We’re all winners! A lucky dip is a nice way to dole out the prizes and adds a welcome element of surprise. After each game, invite the winner to delve deep into a box or bin filled with shredded paper in search of a prize. Remember to put enough prizes into the bin and if the party is mixed, make sure that the prizes appeal to both boys and girls.
48. Time to head home If your guests are slow to leave, your goodie bags will come into their own – hand them over only as your guests leave, and you’ll be guaranteed an empty house in no time!
49. Bye bye, bubbles A bottle of bubble-blowing mixture may seem like the perfect cheap, goodie bag treat, but it’s probably best to avoid it. Most parents loathe bubble mixture, as small children more often than not end up tipping the liquid all over the car on their way home.
50. Pressie time Get into the habit of looking out for party bag items throughout the year and buy them when you see them, especially if they’re on sale. Stationery shops (as well as party shops) are often a good source of useful bits and pieces like fun pencil-toppers and colourful rubbers, crayons or pencils. Don’t think about quantity, or even about how much you spend – think instead about how to present what you are giving to your departing guests. Wrap up your going-home treats nicely and you’ll find that even very simple things are guaranteed to charm the children.
