Food for a 4th birthday party...

bektoria · 1 February 2006 at 1:32PM

I am doing a party on Saturday for my son's 4th birthday, at our village hall. It is the first time I have done a party and I am in desperate need on advice regarding the food. I don't know what to do or have any ideas on the quantities !!! We are having a pirate theme and there will be about 30 children. Any ideas will be gratefully received !!!!

Thanks,
Bek x

FunkyFairy · 1 February 2006 at 1:40PM

I tend to make up plates for each child with a plain buttered roll, baby bell, carrott and cucumber sticks, mini sausages on then cling film them. That way you can make up 30 and there will be little or no waste.

I then put out cakes and biscuits once they have finished.

Something a friend did was to get children to colour in a treasure map when the arrived and place a sticker on were they think the treasure is. That child then had to find the treasure chest. In the chest was the party bags for everyone.

Hope all goes well and your son has a lovely day

squeaky · 1 February 2006 at 1:51PM

Hiya,

Ignore the ages mentioned in these posts - most ideas will fit your needs to some degree or other, or at least point you in the right direction.

Birthday cake for three year old
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=140695

Birthday party
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=30315

Old Style Birthday party
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=50333

Help with birthday cake
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=3972

Pink. · 1 February 2006 at 2:01PM

I thought that this post by frogling on the I wanna board was a great idea.

Pink

kazd · 1 February 2006 at 2:43PM

Its a party do not stress over the food, just give them what they want. I find the following normally go down well

Cocktail Sausages (I would estimate between 100 and 150 for that many children)
Hula Hoops
Skips
Cubes of Cheese
Cubes of Cucumber
Fairy Cakes
Pop (own brands, kids are not fussy)
Jelly & Ice Cream (Never fails)
Sandwiches (Keep it simple - Cheese/Ham - Crust off)

In my experience the mini pizza's do not ever go very well, chicken dippers etc not much better when cold. Personally I think the thing with a kids party is just to give them the c**p that they like. Its only a couple of hours and it won't hurt them, let the parents worry about the regular 5 a day side.

If you watch them, they will all put a few sausages on their plates, skips etc and cakes, then most of them will eat the sausages, a few skips, take the cake out of the wrapper, eat the icing and leave the rest! They are afterall only four, can't expect clean plate brigade.

livilou · 1 February 2006 at 3:37PM

for my daughters 4th bday I had 20 children and I brought plain food boxes (mcdonald type ones) and put a sandwich, bag of crisps , fairy cake and a carton of drink in) this worked wonders, there was no mess, no plates of leftover food etc and saved me a fortune!!!

At a friends party at the weekend she plated up food for each child, bag of crisps, sandwich and a cake, it was perfect, the kids aren't often that interested in eating much and this seemed to work well.

hth

xx

Crispy_Ambulance · 1 February 2006 at 4:09PM

I always do fishfingers and chips with lots of ketchup. Then yogurts, fairy cakes or jelly and ice cream. If your venue has a kitchen, you could try hot food - I found that otherwise, they tend to pile their plates with food and then eat hardly any of it, apart from a few crisps.

Have fun!

kiwichick · 1 February 2006 at 4:10PM

Yep, I have to agree about the boxes idea. I did the same for my daughters 3rd. Made some ham finger rolls, some cheese finger rolls cut them in half and put half of each in the box, a packet of raisins, value carton of juice, packet of crisps and some cold sausages. They loved it, I think they associate the box with junk food so were more likely to eat whats inside.

I also spoketo some of the mums prior to the party and we all agreed that party bags were mostly wasted, toys forgotten about after 2 mins, sweets put kids on a sugar high and mum ended up eating the slice of cake. So instead I bought a sticker activity book for each child from the market at a cost of 80p per book. It works out cheaper than buying bags and filling them with bits and was far more appreciated by the kids too. We still did a cake for the party so she could have her friends sing and do the candle bit but we only had a small one and we took it home afterwards.

HTH,
Al.

Chris25 · 1 February 2006 at 4:36PM

my cousin used this website for her 3yr old's pirate party http://www.amazingmoms.com/htm/party.pirate.htm

Chris25 · 1 February 2006 at 4:47PM

can't seem to edit the above message..............

anyway, just wanted to add that she had a dvd sound recording (bought in the US) with sea sounds, pirates chuckling, 'ahoy me hearties' type things and a load clock ticking, for effect.
She also played a game where she hid pieces of 'treasure' and gave each child very simple (different) clues to find it so each child had one piece each. hope that makes sense.
She was lucky in that her son's birthday is just after Halloween and she was able to get loads of cheap necklaces and drape a box turned into a pirates chest with them

kazd · 1 February 2006 at 8:47PM

I have a good game that is similar to pass the parcel, but they would need to be slightly older than three or four and they need to know their left from their right. I use it at my choc parties it is always good fun.

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Food for a 4th birthday party...

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