Celebrating your kid´s birthday indoors
Balloons are cheerfully swaying in the wind. A familiar aroma of cake baking in the oven is wafting through the air, slowly filling the entire house and getting everyone fired up about celebrating together. The home is gradually filling with guests, and their excitement is growing.
No matter how old you are: a birthday is always an extra special event! For a child, however, it is even more than that: an event like no other that offers exceptional fun! Friends and family take the time to pay you a visit and celebrate the fact that you have grown a year older. Fun games, a party designed for kids and, of course, gifts are the essential ingredients for making the event a success.
Making a kid’s birthday as enjoyable as possible requires careful planning and a number of exciting games. But, what do you do when the weather does not cooperate and threatens to rain out the party?
Read here how you can still make your party a complete success despite the rain – because a kid’s birthday party inside can be tonnes of fun, too, if you have the right games!
Why is it always a good idea to play games at children’s birthday parties?
No kid’s birthday is complete without some entertaining games! They engage your children and bring plenty of fun for the players, but the best part about them is: They encourage the players to communicate with one another. This is of particular importance if the children at the party do not all know each other. During play, everybody joins in and nobody is left out, strengthening the children’s feeling that they belong to a group.
Aside from bringing fun and alleviating fear of contact, games offer many other distinct advantages – especially for small children. Games have the power to foster creativity and to expand children’s language abilities. Some games even place the focus on advancing the motor skills of a child, as is the case with “Blindman’s buff“.
In addition to the many advantages they have to offer in general, games can also generate a great deal of excitement if they, for instance, hold a small surprise in store for the winners. This spurs on every little player!
What are the things I should keep in mind when organising games for a birthday party?
Arranging for playing games at a party is a fantastic idea! You should, however, keep a few things in mind to turn your indoor kid’s birthday party into a roaring success:
Age-appropriate games
You may have planned the most beautiful game, but if it is too difficult for the children to play, it is liable to cause frustration instead of bringing joy.
There is a plethora of great games for every age that allows children to play together. You should therefore make sure every time that everyone – including the youngest among your guests – can join the fun and that all children can play together without any apprehension.
Space allocation
Granted, playing catch, kicking a ball around, romping and rolling or going on a treasure hunt will make every child’s heart beat faster! Unfortunately, activities of this nature are made impossible at an indoor birthday party by the lack of necessary space. The best thing for you to do is figure out in advance how large your birthday party will be and which children’s games will be suitable for the space you have available.
Game selection
To make sure no child will feel bored, it is advisable to prepare beforehand a small selection of games they can play. As much fun as clapping games may be: they will lose their appeal after constant clapping for twenty minutes and when the little fingers begin to turn numb.
Keep it simple
You have given a lot of thought to the question of how you can entertain your child’s friends? Outstanding! But, keep in mind that a kid’s birthday party is full of excitement for everyone involved and is likely to keep everyone’s attention span at a minimum. You should account for this fact by keeping the rules of the game as simple as possible for the players. No child has any desire to listen to a whole catalogue of rules, but will be anxious to start playing the game!
What type of games are suitable for a children’s birthday party?
There is myriad of fun game ideas for birthday parties held indoors! The key aspect to factor in is the age of the children present. This is because party games are supposed to be fun for everyone – and, a three-year-old is at a developmental stage that is entirely different from that of a six-year-old.
You have children of different ages at your kid’s birthday party? No problem! Some birthday games and joint activities will work for children as young as three and even appeal to children age five or players of adult age! Or, would you refuse to join your kid in a game of musical statues?
Musical statues
Turn on cheerful music and let all children move to the music. When you stop the music, all kids must freeze where they stand. Anyone who moves loses and must exit the “dance floor”. The last kid standing will be the winner of this birthday game.
As simple as can be, this party game takes no preparation whatsoever and theoretically requires just a smartphone with access to music and a small number of children.
Tip: Should you be playing with younger kids, it cannot hurt to bend the rules for them a little: their motor skills are still developing, making it hard for them to stand still.
Painting together
This activity is self-explanatory. All you need to give free reign to the children’s creativity is a few sheets of paper, a couple of colour pencils or some finger paint!
Tip: What about giving your little guests a motto for their work? Maybe they should draw a sun or flowers? Or, maybe even a birthday cake? To find some inspiration, we suggest that you pay a visit to our creative world!
Car races
This is a game that is particularly attractive to car lovers and, of course, Toddys fans! To get started, attach a string of yarn to the front of a Toddys vehicle using a strip of adhesive tape. Make sure the string is plenty long! Prepare as many cars with strings as there are children.
When you are ready to race, place all Toddys vehicles side by side on a level surface. The goal is now for the children standing opposite the cars to wind the same-size strings onto a small stick as quickly as possible, thereby setting the vehicles in motion. The winner is the child whose vehicle crosses an imaginary or painted-on finish line first! Mio and Mounty would love this game!
Eating chocolate
At times, simply opening the packaging can prove to be exceedingly difficult. But, have you ever tried to hold cutlery while wearing oven mitts and to use these eating implements for working your way through several layers of aluminium foil and gain access to delicious chocolate? We hope that you have already had a chance to play this party hit! If not, here is a brief explanation of what you need to do: A child wearing a blindfold sits at a table and is given the task to open and eat a bar of chocolate. This job is not as easy as it sounds as the chocolate has been wrapped multiple times. For this purpose, you can use aluminium foil, wrapping paper, baking paper or power towels. To make the task even more challenging, you slip the hands of the child into oven mitts and only allow them to open the packaging with a knife and a fork.
Attention please! When playing with small children, make sure the cutlery is dull to avoid injury. You should furthermore wrap the candy loosely in a material that is easy to open.
Clapping games
Clapping games rank among the most suitable games for small children. They help advance their motor skills, are super easy to play without any aids and bring lots of fun. In short: playing a clapping game at a children’s birthday party is a great idea, especially when the children are on the younger side. Every child will be instantly hooked on these catchy rhymes that let them all join in.
In conclusion
Rain or shine or storm: you can turn any children’s birthday party into an unforgettable event – even if it is held inside! To ensure everything will go smoothly on the day of the celebrations, you will have to make a few preparations. What would be particularly exciting to your child? Which birthday games would be a good fit for the children you invited? And, which games are age-appropriate? Once you have answered these questions and have come up with one or two exciting game ideas, it can rain, storm or snow all it wants: Your child will be able to celebrate a wonderfulbirthday party.