Birthday party for an 8 year old

delain

My DD will be 8 this summer (boy I feel old! ) and is getting a bit big for the play centre we have had her previous parties at, plus at £10 per head they get expensive with more than a few kids.

I was thinking about hiring our local church hall this year so that she can have more people, I can do our own food, it has a kitchen so can do some hot bits and do sandwiches and everything else at home and take with as it's 5 minutes from our house.

My question, is what should I have there to keep a whole bunch of 8 year old girls (and maybe some boys!) entertained for the party??

Please don't mention clowns, there's one in our town but he's £90 an hour and, tbh, I'm a bit scared of clowns!

Not against entertainers per se, but my DD is a 'young' child for her age, and I wouldn't like her to be picked on for having a 'babyish' party. I'm looking into getting someone to do facepainting, but beyond that I'm stuck!

Someone please help me :o

escortg3

What about a bouncy castle and a BBQ. When my daughter was that age i used to have a sleepover party. limit it to 10, they used to have the lounge and we rented movies had pizza and popcorn etc. they would eventually go to sleep about midnight . but always had a good time.:)

mummy_Jay

http://www.growingkids.co.uk/ChildrensPartyIdeas.html

http://familyfun.go.com/parties/parties-by-age/tween-parties/

Try these for ideas.

I'm having fun and games trying to plan my DS 6th party, he wants a Dr Who party. Good luck and let us know how you get on.

delain

escortg3 wrote: »

What about a bouncy castle and a BBQ. When my daughter was that age i used to have a sleepover party. limit it to 10, they used to have the lounge and we rented movies had pizza and popcorn etc. they would eventually go to sleep about midnight . but always had a good time.:)

I would really love to do this, unfortunately my house is tiny, her bedroom is 6ft by 7ft and my garden is pretty dinky as well!

Surfbabe

Have you asked her what she would like to do for her birthday?We found that going back to an old fashioned party - with party games etc worked really well. quite easy to organise and great fun.

bestpud

They still enjoy traditional games at that age, even if they don't always like to admit it!

DD and her friends (same age) loved playing musical bumps/statues at her party.

Put on some loud music and they will fill most of the time running around and dancing anyway. If you have christmas lights and can get it dark enough, you could make your own little disco for them.

Get yourself a whistle for the games or you will have no voice by the end!

If you want some downtime, you could get them to decorate their own little cake instead of taking a piece of birthday cake home, or come up with a craft activity. You could even get them to make mini pizzas if you have use of an oven...

You could do a themed party if she likes a particular character or colour...

You definitely don't need to pay for entertainment.

System

Hi Delain,
I don't know how it would work with class sizes, but my youngest daughter has only eight other girls in her class, so we had the party at home, a Glamour & Glitz party, I did arts & crafts with them, decorate your own party bag and they also made and decorated a fancy door sign, that was very popular. Fairy cakes were made in advance then the girls iced and decorated them, again very popular. I also did glitter tattoos on them all, exceptionally popular and did some face painting ( not as much as I thought, especially considering that this is my job!) We then played a couple of traditional party games, but the biggest hit (apart from glitter tatoos) was Just Dance on the Wii. We had a dance off competition and the dancing didn't stop till the end. It was a great party and I would say that it wasn't too difficult to organise at all. As the hall you are thinking of using is so close to your home, I'm sure youcould have something similar,
HTH, Linda x

adea

My DD turned 8 at the beginning of the month and as we haven't got a lot of spare cash to hire a hall, we took her, her sister and 9 friends to the saturday morning £1 a bum film although the film was naff - Where The Wild Things Are - the girls enjoyed the trip out and we went to McDonalds for lunch after.