Five Of The Best Children's Party Ideas

Children’s parties should always be lots of fun and nothing goes down better with kids than a themed party. From pirates, ninjas and princesses through to popular cartoon characters such as Hello Kitty, Ben 10 and Sponge Bob Square Pants – you can throw a themed party to suit children of all ages and you should sit down with your child to help them choose what theme they want to do.

There are lots of dos and don’ts when it comes to planning a children’s party and you will need to make sure you don’t overreach and invite more kids than you can handle.

Step 1: Choose a Theme

You will need to get started with the party planning as soon as possible but first of all you will need to decide on a theme for the party. You shouldn’t simply let a five-year-old decide what they want to do right off the bat and instead you can write down a few ideas that you know you will be able to execute and put them to your child, so that they can make a decision based on achievable ideas rather than a wild whim.

Step 2: Send Out Invitations

In order to do this, you will need to work out when you want to host the party, where you want it to be and who you want to invite. It is also important to tell the people you are inviting what the theme is and give them some directions about what they need to do to prepare - such as telling them everyone needs to dress up like a princess or a dragon.

You might want to have the party at the weekend to make it easier for working parents to come and a few hours is long enough for a great children’s party, as you will find kids will get tired fairly quickly because of all the excitement.

Tip: Make sure your invitations match the theme you have decided on and you can look online for some ideas.

Step 3: Plan the Entertainment

Ensuring the children are well entertained is arguably the hardest part of planning a fun party. You will need to book a magician or clown in advance if you have a large budget to play with.  You can set up some games yourself to save some money. A sand pit, a treasure hunt, a piñata, playing relay races and pass the parcel are all easy yet fun ways to entertain a group of children.

Step 4: Organise the Food

Children love to eat and you will need to give them a quiet 20 minutes to enjoy everything from jelly and ice cream to sandwiches. Pizzas, burgers and hotdogs are all great ideas and the easier it is for the kids to eat, the easier it will be for you and the rest of the parents.

As well as organising things such as a themed birthday cake, you should also buy themed plates, cups and tablecloths to decorate the tables and you can keep the cost down by making some of the food rather than buying it all ready made.

Step 5: Party Favours

You will need to give everyone who attends the party something fun to take away with them and how you do this will depend on your budget. If you don’t have a large budget, you can pop some sweets and a slice of homemade cake into a themed bag or if you have a larger birthday party budget, you can always go all out and create personalised photo books with images of the party.

There are different ways to organise a birthday party depending on how much money you can afford to spend and the above tips are designed to help parents to plan a themed birthday party whatever their budget.

Enjoying birthday parties is part of any great childhood and they play an integral part in developing children’s social skills, so as well as being fun they are also a good opportunity to be educational.