Daughters birthday party

marywooyeah

bridgend_girl wrote: »

Local church hall or community hall is about £25 in my area. Hot dogs for all costs under a tenner. Ice-cream, sauce and sprinkles another £10. Then do old-fashioned party games. Musical chairs, musical bumps, pass the parcel, sleeping lion, musical statues, chinese whispers, best dancer etc and some arts and crafts (perhaps recycling theme). Sorted.

Better still ask if there's another child with a birthday around same time and double up. Cheaper and you get to share the workload.

Kids love 'traditional' parties because they are so new to them. Better still if you have the space do it at home. My third child's best ever party was at home. He loved it and I could set up hours in advance so I wasn't stressed and rushed. Marvellous.

Good luck

^^^ this. Also take a cd player with a homemade mix cd to have a disco and for games such as musical statues, and a lot of village halls have bouncy castles you can hire cheaply too x

ViolaLass

"She wants to invite the whole class" Why not just tell her she can't?

Running_Horse

Even with the help of an entertainer the whole thing is stressful beyond belief. Some of the better alternatives if you can keep numbers down are bowling, ski centre toboggan, and the best we were invited to was an outdoor bush tucker challenge where they explored the woods, got filthy, and ate hot dogs by a bonfire.

System

All of my children had the 'whole class' parties for several years :-) It tended to tail off around age 10.
I second the above advice, local hall, bouncy castle, plus home made food, we found that the sandwiches and sausage roll type stuff was barely touched but the crisps and sweeties were guzzled down :-)
One of the best parties was where I hired a commercial sized bouncy slide (I got it half price from a colleague) it was great!
Poundshop plates etc and plenty bibbags to clear up after.
Linda x

themull1

Does your local sports centre do a room/soft play party?

seven-day-weekend

At home with a few close friends? You don't need to go with the crowd with this whole class stuff. Old fashioned games like pass the parcel?

Or is that not grand enough for today's six-year olds?

Janepig

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

At home with a few close friends? You don't need to go with the crowd with this whole class stuff. Old fashioned games like pass the parcel?

Or is that not grand enough for today's six-year olds?

I don't think it's always a case of not being grand enough, but I can't think of anything more likely to send me demented than having a gang of other people's six year old's in my house for a party!! Besides which my house and garden just aren't big enough anyway. I wouldn't even consider it, full stop.

From about year 3 onwards the parties tend to scale right down and it's mostly small affairs either at a venue with a selected group of friends, or sleepovers. Most of the "whole class" parties that do happen tend to be when parents share a party between two or three as I've done.

Jx

valk_scot

Re whole class parties...if you don't have these your child gets asked to fewer parties as time goes by and often ends up in the position of not being asked to any after a couple of years because s/he has been dropped from the circuit. Numbers do get cut down after they get to about 8 or 9 years old and the kids that get dropped first are the ones who haven't ever invited your child to one of their more exclusive events.


Yes, tacky and unfair and really smacks of being a pushy parent but imho it's worth a couple of full class parties early on rather than your child coming home several times a term upset because they've not been asked to someone else's party. It means you get to know the other mums a bit too which is helpful for playdates and such. This goes double if you're not a regular on the school gates, the other mums just don't register that your child is there when thinking about who to ask to events.


I used to hire a room at the local community centre (£30 or so), take my own food, which didn't have to be a big spread, play party games and have a disco using a tape. And a big cake and party bags. I don't think I spent anywhere near £100 (this would be 5/6 years ago) and I would ask another mum to help if OH wasn't available. (I would reciprocate at her child's birthday.) I didn't find it particularly stressful, it was hideously noisy of course but an hour and a half soon passes. In my experience too the kids actually preferred this sort of party to the "experience" type at that age and it's certainly a whole lot cheaper. And numbers/unanswered invites are less of a problem, it's easy enough to have a few extra sandwiches and spare party bags available, less so when you have to book places at £6.99 a head.


You may find your local community centre can also provide a bouncy castle or soft play area to hire.

Spendless

I never did whole class parties and yes, mine didn't receive as many birthday invites back, though I agree either way they start tailing off around yr 3 to a select few friends.

Probably not going to be a popular view but if you do go down the shared party route, I'd do half of the class invites come from child A and half from child B. It was a personal bugbear of mine that the parents had halved the costs, my child got to go to one party but meanwhile I had to pay double on presents, and on one occasion treble when 3 did a shared party.

seven-day-weekend

Janepig wrote: »

I don't think it's always a case of not being grand enough, but I can't think of anything more likely to send me demented than having a gang of other people's six year old's in my house for a party!! Besides which my house and garden just aren't big enough anyway. I wouldn't even consider it, full stop.

From about year 3 onwards the parties tend to scale right down and it's mostly small affairs either at a venue with a selected group of friends, or sleepovers. Most of the "whole class" parties that do happen tend to be when parents share a party between two or three as I've done.

Jx

I was thinking solely of the cost. I didn't like kids' parties either, but I'm glad to say after the first one, my son asked if he could just go to the garden centre with three friends and have an ice cream.

He didn't care that he didn't get asked to loads of parties. He was like I was as a child and didn't like them much, I'm sure lots of children are the same.