Even More Games for Children’s Parties.
If you’ve already tried and tested all the great traditional children’s party games and are on the lookout for something new, then look no further. Please consider the age of the children and their level of skill and understanding, before choosing appropriate games to play. You may also want to read my blog on Planning Children’s Party Games.
Hedgehogs
All the children curl up on the floor like hedgehogs and close their eyes. You cover one hedgehog with a blanket and say ‘wake up hedgehogs’. All the other children wake up and they have to guess which ‘hedgehog’ is hiding under the blanket. A great game to calm kids down if things have got a little crazy!
Chocolate Bar
All the children sit in a circle and take it in turns to roll a dice. When a child throws a 6, they put on a hat, scarf and gloves or oven gloves. They then use a knife and fork to try and cut off individual squares, which they can eat. They keep going until another child rolls a 6 and then they swap over.
Snap
You will need two packs of playing cards. Hide one pack all round the room. Give the children an equal number of cards each from the second pack. Then the children have to race to see who can find all their pairs first.
Smarties
Children can play this individually or in teams. The idea is to use a straw and suck up a smartie and move it from one bowl or cup to another. The winner is the one who moves all their smarties the fastest.
Animal Bingo
You could make the game yourself, or you can find plenty of options to buy it on Amazon; bug bingo, cat bingo, dinosaur bingo, ocean bingo etc.
How Long is a Piece of String?
Cut pieces of string or wool of varying lengths and hide them round the room. Each of the children have to find as many as they can and tie them all in a long string. The child who has the longest string at the end is the winner.
Jelly Baby Flour Tower
Balance a jelly baby on the top of a tower of flour (like making a sand castle) and the children take it in turns to cut a section of the flour away. When the jelly baby falls, the child who made the last cut has to try and find and eat the jelly baby with no hands.
Taste Test
This can be played as individuals or in teams. The children have to guess what’s in various food items; you could use jars of baby food, or home made fruit punches etc. (Make sure you are aware of any allergies before playing this).
Partner Present Wrapping
The children should be in pairs. Ask them to hold hands in their pair and then they have to work together to gift wrap a present using their spare hands. (You’ll need to give each pair a book or a box to wrap, some paper and some sellotape).
Animal Silhouette
As individuals or in teams, the children have to match pictures of animals with their silhouette. This could also be done with insects, dinosaurs or other characters to suit your party theme.
Pictionary
A fun game to play in teams. You could either buy or borrow the board game and adapt to your purpose or make up your own from scratch. You could even relate the words the children have to draw to the theme of the party.
After Eight Party Game
Each child has to balance an after eight on their forehead and then try to move it down to their mouth to eat it, without using their hands. You can also play this with cookies such as Oreos.
Chubby Bunny
All the children sit in a circle and one at a time pop a marshmallow in their mouth and have to say ‘chubby bunny’. The children are not able to chew and swallow the marshmallows, they keep adding them one at a time and saying ‘chubby bunny’ for as long as they can. The winner is the child that is able to clearly say ‘chubby bunny’ with the most marshmallows in their mouth.
Who Am I?
The children are given the name of a character, animal, fruit etc (it could relate to the theme of the party) and it is put on a post-it note on their forehead so they can’t see it. The children have to ask questions about who they are, that can only be answered with ‘yes’ or ‘no’ until they guess correctly. For younger children you could print out pictures of animals and tape them to their back.
Charades
A team game where the children take it in turns to act out well-known tv shows, films and books, while the others have to guess what it is. You can find more detailed instructions on how to play here.
Hook a Duck
A good old fashioned game of hook the duck, like you play at a fair ground. (Don’t leave the children unsupervised with the water). Alternatively, to avoid using water, you could wrap up small gifts and tape a metal washer to the outside of each and then use a fishing line with a magnet.
Quiz
You could host a ‘pub’ style quiz for the children. Put them in teams and provide them with an answer sheet. The questions could be split into categories such as music, animals, tv shows etc.
Hot Potato
The children sit in a circle and quickly pass around a bean bag or stuffed sock, as if it’s a hot potato. When the music stops, the child holding the ‘hot potato’ is out.
Chinese Whispers in Drawings
Put your children into teams. The first child in each team is shown a picture card and they have to try and draw it from memory. They show the drawing to the second child, who then in turn commits it to memory and draws it for the third child and so on. The last child has to guess what it is.
Treasure Hunt
You could either hide wrapped sweets, chocolates or small toys and you can play this inside or out. Or you can make it more of a scavenger hunt and give each child a list of objects to find and the first one to find everything on the list is the winner. You could even write some clues to help the children find everything.
