We are having a b-day party at our house for my son and 5 of his friends. We are trying to get away from theme-based b-day parties. I am trying to come up with some creative indoor games for 5 year olds. His b-day is 4/11, but we are having it on 4/4 due to the holiday (Easter). I thought about doing an Easter egg hunt and filling the eggs with toy cars, a little candy, and some other inexpensive toys (maybe stickers and tattoos). The kids would be able to take home what they find. I'm trying to find a way to make this fair. I don't want one kid to end up with ten eggs, and another kid two. Should I limit the number of eggs they can find? Any other suggestions on games? I am not doing goodie bags -- they are usually filled with toys that are forgotten in a day and too much candy. We are doing handprint t-shirts instead. We do them when the kids first arrive so that they will be mostly dry by the time they leave. Oh one thing I should mention, I don't really like pinatas -- just more candy and soon forgotten toys inside. Thanks for your help!
I understand what you mean by the toys in the pinata and goody bags, they are cheesy. One year for my daughter's birthday, instead of candy(her b-day is before Halloween and the last thing the kids needed was more candy) and toys inside the pinata, I used plastic coins instead. I awarded prizes in place of the coins. It kept the fun of breaking the pinata and the kids were able to exchange the coins for a decent prize.
Have them put all of the eggs in one box or basket then when they leave they can each pick out so many to take home with them or you can have another adult bag up the stuff as you distract the kids with another activity. This way the adult can make sure each bag is fairly filled.
Ps I don't do goody bag any more either. I get a gift certificate so each kid can get an ice cream cone at the local ice cream stand instead. It cost's $1-$3 per kid depending on the stand and that's about what you spend between the goody bags and stuff to fill them with.
You could make it sort of a contest. Whomever finds say 5 eggs first and gets back to you with those 5 eggs gets first prize. That way the most they can get is certain amount of eggs and everyone has the same. I like your idea with the T-shirts too!
What about a treasure hunt instead of a egg hunt. Give each boy different clues to a different hiding place. Then each boy gets one larger toy each. Since they can't read yet draw pictures. You can also give each boy a different color paper so they know which one is theirs. What about a pin the tail on the donkey type game. Duck Duck Goose.
For boys there is the treasure hunt, also there is a bean bag tose, ring toss, take a string with cookies /doughnuts, hanging from the clothes line. you could count the winners then allow them an extra egg hunt. Example: Each child get to find 1 egg then come back to the line or all kids start with ... # of eggs then each child that wins a game gets 1 more egg that they can find.
HI,
For my daughter's 5 year birthday party we did a treasure hint and we put the name of each child on the shells that we hid so that not only did they have to find the shells, but they had to find their own. You could label the eggs with names or designate a specific color for each child, etc.
Good hunting!
Just an idea for the Easter egg hunt...
Either give each kid his own color egg or make each color egg a specific prize. Like, red eggs are toy cars and yellow eggs are stickers. Then, tell the kids to find one of each color. That way, they all end up with one of every prize. If you give each kid his own color, then you can make sure that all the red eggs have one of each prize and all the blue eggs have one of each prize, etc.
Have fun!
For the Easter Egg Hunt, there are so many colored eggs you can find at the store now. Buy 8 of each color for each child. And tell each child to pick one of each color. You can find at least 8 -10 different colors. That will make it fair! The kids are old enough to understand.
also, what about playing Bingo? What a fun game.. Make your own cards and Instead of using the letters BINGO... Use PARTY
Good luck!
I like the egg idea - even when it's not Easter - they make great treat holders. If you give children 1/2 an egg carton they can fill it with 6 eggs that they choose and you can paint the cardboard kind with each child' name (or they can). My son's 5th is coming up too - so this is a good time for me to start thinking about it! :)
I would do a treasure hunt instead of the Easter Eggs. This way, there is one of everything to find and the kids can work together. You can even make that into a pirate theme for the whole party. If it's nice out that day, you can even take the kids outside to find things. As far as other games, I would go back to the games we used to do as kids....Freeze Dance, Hot Potato, Musical Chairs, Simon Says! Have fun!
One way to do it is to number the treasures and have each child pick something numbered out of a basket(sticker would work) and they could find and keep anything with that number. They not only look for their own things, but they end up helping each other along the way.
Corn shucking contest...the old hard boiled egg on a spoon race...let them make bird feeders...free play....
