Help! Suggestions for Appropiate Activities for 2Nd Birthday

Hi A.,
I found a wonderfull website familyfun.com, it will give you tuns of ideas for partys, games, and activtes. I am using it to plan my 4 year old and twin 2 year olds birthday party this year. It's great.

I just attended a 3yo birthday party and I saw two things you might be able to use. One was they did the "hot potato" passing thing to music. They passed a gift that was wrapped with (however many kids in attendance) paper around each gift (pick flat gifts). Then, when the music stopped, that child got to unwrap one layer of paper, get out of the game, and play with a new toy. Between the "hot potato" and the "musical chairs" theme, this worked for this age group. Remember, 2yos are just starting to play with each other so individual-like activities will be good. I like the cupcake decorating and balloons to play with. We did not do 2yo birthday parties either. At that stage, it is really a play date for the parents to get together. Keep that in mind as you plan activities. You might want to target parent involvement. Good luck!

HI Ann. As you may know 2 year olds generally still play next to each other.
It sounds like you have a March birthday which is a good entre into spring.
Dollar stores and Target usually start putting out shovels and pails. I suggest one for each child and stickers that can be pealed from the back to decorate their own pail - Using alphabet stickers so parents can help put their name on them and then maybe your childs favorite stickers.

Then, depending on how much time you want to spend, you can hide things around the house (www.orientaltrading.com) for them to find and put in their shovel and pail. This also takes care of a goody bag.

If you have extra cash laying around a puppeteer is always good - The Magazine "MetroParents" has great resources.

One more idea - Music. Dancing like animals, freeze dance (when the music is turned off) and just going crazy.

If you google "birthday party ideas" there are good websites out there.

Good luck. S.

What about a bean bag toss through a card board box?

You could get a few boxes, tape them together and decorate--make a small maze for the kids to crawl through. I wouldn't make it too big as some children might get scared.

You can always bake some sugar cookies (or cupcakes) and have each child decorate his own--they could use spoons instead of knives.

Play games like duck-duck goose or musical chairs if they seem ready for it.

Get small inflatable beach balls and let the kids play. They entertain themselves.

Playdough is always good too. Use a big plastic tablecloth and let them sit on that (or put it on a table that is easy for them to reach). Give them cookie cutters to use to make shapes.

These are just a few ideas. Have fun! I hope this helps.

I am also starting to think about my daughters 2nd birthday. I just came across the website Family Fun, www.familyfun.go.com and it has a lot of great ideas.

Another fun thing is to get a pinata. They have the pull string kind and that would be so easy for this age. My almost two loves to dane and be silly. I don't think you have to do much. Kids will always find something to do.

D., Stay at home mom of two and child care provider

Hi Ann, I would suggest to continue with family only, and just the fun with opening the gifts and eating cake icecream is truly enough at this age, inviting other friends I don't think is a good idea unless you are really good friends with the parents and just want to have some of your friends there also this is good, but to try and plan games ext..is not necessary, just having supervised area for playing with toys, is surely enough, I think a good time to have a party with games is when they are in preschool, one time I had gotten permission to have a clown come to the classroom, that was at the age of 4 the kids loved it and of course I made the cupcakes and other goodies, it lasted an hour, what a joy to see, and talk about a tone of supervision , me the teacher and the helping mom for the day. It was a blast, then I also had just the family over later in the week. Blessings

dee

oh my I am going through this same problem I dont know what to do. My daughter 2nd birthday will be on the 2 and I have been looking all over the place for stuff so if i find something i will let you know but if you find some will you let me know.

Are they too young for pin the tail on the donkey?

I did and arts and crafts party and had all the cousins involved for my son's 2 yr b-day. (with my family that involved about 8 kids under the age of 5) I went to a teacher's supply store and bought those huges pieces of paper off a roll, covered my kitchen wall first with a plastic table coth and then the paper and let them draw on the wall!! They loved it. I had paint cans (you can buy small ones at home depot cheap) with each childs name on it and all thier goodies inside. I covered the kitchen floor with a drop cloth and told the moms to brign a paint smock or daddy's old t-shirt. I had markers, crayons and soem limited paint and let them go at it. I put out paper, poster board, colorign books and a artsy crafty project they could decorate with sticky foam letters. It was easy and everyone had a blast. I made the cake and it looked like a box of crayola crayons. I woudl post a picture of it all if I could. It was so cute. I served chicken nuggets and pB& J - (no peanut allergies in my family) and had a mexican buffet, taco meat, tortillas, chips and all the fixin's for the adults. NO sweat!

Dear A.,
My advice is keep it simple. He probably won't remember it anyway. Plan a big party for when he's 12 or 16.
Love and prayers,
M.

I put bowls of different sprinkles out and filled a bag with frosting. When the kids were ready, I frosted and let them decorate their own cupcakes. They seemed to really enjoy it!
I checked out a website for outdoor kids games, you could probably find the same for indoors.
Good luck and have a great party!

Do you have a theme? You could make Pin the (part) on (Character name) - we did Pin the Funnel on Thomas the Tank Engine for my son's birthday. Pinatas are good (the string kind). As mentioned, decorating pails or even pots is good (provide some seeds for the pots and they can have a growing reminder of the party).
I've done treasure hunts - provide a picture clue of where they can find a little treat and the next picture clue until all the treats are found.

Hi A., I remember when my oldest was turning 2 (now 4) I was asking the same thing. I read about it in mags. and books. I kept reading that it can still be overwhelming, I read that you should limit how many friends the child will have to his age. Ex: 2 years old invite 2 friends. What I did was we had just family and he has a cousin who is around his age. We really didn't plan any activities but rather just let them play. Because at that age when you plan things they just don't seem to work out to well. Maybe think of just little gift bags with a few small toys so know one feels left out. Hope this helps.

What about hiring someone to do music at your house? Or you have get a simple craft at Michaels and have them decorate it, i.e. the foamie stickers and put them on door knobs, or visors or something like that. My 2 year old loves stickers and likes doing things like that, Michaels has a whole bunch of different foamie arts and crafts to do. Hope this helps.

H.

I don't remember where, but I ran into some excellent little-kid birthday party guidelines years and years ago, and always used them:

1. no more kids at the party than the child is turning (so, 2 for the new 2yo)
2. no longer than an hour for anyone under 5, no longer than 2 hours for any age
3. all children are invited on the condition that they bring a parent
4. all gifts to be worth a maximum of $15, even if they're a super on sale deal
5. no food apart from cake & ice cream and real fruit juice (no reason to go completely overboard!)
6. no 'games' -- winners and losers at birthday parties simply do not work. Think 'activities' instead
7. something to do as they come in (colouring, playing with playdough, lego all over the floor, or whatever), a craft they can take home with them (gluing pre-cut shapes to paper is about what you can expect from a set of 2yos), something else (or the same thing to do) when they're going to be leaving soon
8. lots more free time than directed time
9. children of various ages are more successfully 'together' at parties than all the same age (particularly if you feel like ignoring rule #3)

Little kids like the musical chairs game played with pillows - initally one each, then removing the pillows rather than the kids each time the music stops, so they all end up in a pile on one. Sardines is fun, but it's a bit beyond the average 2yo. so it would work better with a group of mixed ages. Clapping games, singing and actions, some kids love stomping balloons can be made into a fun game (little kids may object to the noise), pretending to be animals, a parade with kids' instruments, etc. are all successful with little kids.

Honestly, I think the most successful part of our parties was always making the parents stay -- they could deal with their kids, it stops the kids from feeling over-excited by the party and the absence of their parents, and gives you extra hands to tidy, serve, find the shoes, or whatever comes up, all for the mere cost of having enough cake and coffee for them to be happy.