Fastpost: Party Games

Worried about party games excluding younger or shy children at your parties?

Simply say at the beginning of the game that you will give prizes to 3 of the best players.

This way you can also engineer the games so that everyone wins a prize!

Try this:

Musical Statues - play the game and when the music stops or you yell freeze pick the 3 best princess poses for girls or scary faces for boys.

Larger Parties

If you have a bigger party or are short on time you can adjust the number of winners accordingly :)

Enjoy!

The importance of play by Armineh from Tup Tup Toys

This months guest blog is by Armineh from Tup Tup Toys. Thanks Armineh for a great blog post that really illustrates the importance of play based learning. Hope you enjoy reading it, please comment below :)

The importance of play

I heard someone complain the other day that pre-school was too play based. This made me think about play and what it means. How much play should there be at pre-school, and didn’t it used to be called play-school? Why is play important?

Today’s world can be very competitive and there are ever increasing pressures on our children – at pre school, school, extra curricular activities, TV etc. Shouldn’t they be putting their time to better use? But the importance of play shouldn’t be underestimated. It is apparently critical for children to play in order to reach their full potential in life. Through it, children develop their ability to communicate, understand and imagine – as well as other essential life skills. These are just a few:

• It helps children learn about the world in which they live – playing school, fire engines, hospitals.
• It allows a young child to be in charge.
• It builds self esteem – children often play at something they know they can do well.
• It gives children a chance to work out their feelings – dolly was naughty because she scribbled on the wall. She had to go in time out, just like I did.
• It helps to build social skills – taking turns (children whose parents play with them apparently ultimately develop better social skills)
• It helps children grow beyond their years – they can be anything they want, doctor, fireman, bridge builder (engineer)
• It helps with language development – a new word learnt, will be repeated to teddy later.
• It stimulates creativity and imagination.

So play is important, it is what children do and it’s likely to be better quality play when children know it is valued by adults. One of the ways to do this is by playing with your child. This is something I have to be reminded of from time to time but it is great to spend some time each day, just playing with your child (just remember not to dominate or prescribe the play, a gentle nudge in the right direction and try not to intervene too much unless safety is an issue).

Armineh is founder and co-director of Tup Tup Toys. They have a great range of toys, chosen with care, from brands you can trust. To find out more about their toys, who makes them and what’s new, check out the “Watch Our Video” section on their homepage. You can also find out more about play, top tips and new ideas on their blog.

Preschool Pirate Party

Avast, Me hearties!

Jack, had his 3rd birthday this weekend and his mum asked me to do some entertaining and make some cupcakes.

So I hopped onto google images to find some cake toppers to print out and put in the top to dress them up.

After looking at plenty of suitable printables websites I found the lovely site Cottage Industrialist...lovely craft ideas which the site owner is generous enough to publish lots of printables for free.

When I found out Jack's Auntie Louise had made a big pirate ship cake I wanted to create its own mini armada to go with it so these printables hit the spot. The sails are fantastic with the faux high seas.

The cupcakes were made using a vanilla cupcake recipe from 'The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook' which, I might add, never fails to turn out perfectly. Topping the cakes is a basic chocolate butter icing piped on using a large star shaped icing nozzle from Lakeland.

These are the pictures of my attempts...

Cupcake 'boats'

Cottage Industrialist has a few different printables to match the ingenious cupcake wrappers, bunting, envelopes, invites and thankyou notes all with the nautical theme.

To go with the cupcakes, which are huge, I also made some smaller toddler friendly sized cakes for little mouthes.

I made a batch of vanilla cupcakes using the same recipe as the cupcake boats in Skulls cupcake cases then iced them with Baby Blue coloured water icing and topped with a sprinkle of hundreds and thousands and a chocolate coin.

Buried treasure cupcakes

So even though the party was a toddler party I brought along some additional items just to make the table look abit more "piratey" as Jack said when he sat down :)

I used some knarly 'old' black cloth that I originally bought from Toys 'r' Us last halloween but you can find this in any party or costume shop. Added to that is a foam skull, an old brass candlestick found in a charity shop and the treasure chest from the pirates treasure hunt. A good helping of pirates pieces of eight were added as table confetti.

The tableware is all from the Skulls theme to co-ordinate with the cupcake cases.

  

We ran the usual pass the parcel which had the obligatory too many layers and a jelly baby in each layer.

A twist to the usual pass the parcel is to place a piece of paper in each layer with a fun command such as 'clap 3 times', 'shout ahoy!' etc instead of sweets.

A pirate themed bouncy castle was also hired for the little ones to bounce around to their hearts content. As there was a mixed age range of kids it was great because the littleones were too young to concentrate on playing games continuously for the whole party.

Make a wish!

All in all a great time was had by all and the little finishing touches really made things even more special. All very little details that anyone could do, especially when armed with google, you never know what you might come up with!

Booking a venue

When you decide to throw a party you could have the party at home or at a hired venue.

Your decision is probably based on 3 things:

1. How many children you are having at the party
2. What entertainment and activities you will be doing
3. How good your nerves are!

When I am out and about hosting parties I find that for most people having a small group of children around 10-12 kids having a party at home is perfectly fine. There are always parents who, like me, would book a venue even if they had 5 guests at the party!

Photo courtesy of www.stthomasmoorside.org.uk

There's lots of different types of venues available. There's the obvious community centres and church halls and then theres other places such as function rooms attached to a local pub, meeting rooms at hotels, leisure centres and health clubs. Some schools have their hall to hire too.

A church in my town has their main hall which is huge, 30 kids could easily get lost in the space but they have several smaller rooms which are much better for smaller parties of less than 15 children. So when you enquire about the larger rooms and find they are booked do ask if they have other rooms available.

What about other facilities?

Photo courtesy of www.braidhillshotel.co.uk

Most church halls and community centres are fairly similar with the option of hiring a small kitchen in addition to the hall. The contents of the kitchen are usually stocked with the same standard of items. Cups, plates, dishes, chopping board and knife amongst other things.

"One thing about church halls is that most have a policy of take your rubbish home so dont forget to pack some bin liners with you."

So do I book an entertainer before or after the venue?

Its always best to book an entertainer before your venue. Most venues are similar, they offer the same space, facilities, tables and chairs etc.

If you have in mind a specific entertainer for instance you may want a specific facepainter or clown to entertain at your childs party and therefore plan the venue around their diary.

It is quick and easy to find another hall but very difficult and time consuming to find another entertainer.

Decoration tips!

With church halls and hired venues you can really go to town with the decoration.

Theres no need to accomodate sofas, tv sets and tables etc you really do have a blank canvas.

Go crazy hang coloured fabric for a back ground and decorate with balloons. Hang ribbons of crepe paper from the ceiling. Bring props from home.

Heres a couple of our favourites:

Thanks to www.designismine.blogspot.com

thanks to www.picsdigger.com

Hope these tips help with organising your party. Please do let us know if its helped!

Function rooms and other venues are supplied with tables and chairs only.

Why choose a party theme?

Choosing a theme for your party can help when choosing games, activities or which professional children's entertainer to hire.

A theme doesn't have to be complicated or tied into a popular character from films and television. You could find inspiration in all sorts of ways.

Does your child like to dress up? You could use a theme for the costumes - prince and princess, occupations and animals are all great choices.

You could ask the children to arrive at the party dressed up and either DIY some face painting or hire a professional face painter to paint the kids faces to match their costume.

Arty crafty children might like a party around a simple concept such as their favourite colour. This can easily be applied to the party food, particularly cupcakes.

Sporty children might like a party that has lots of activity, sports, races and parachute games.

Once a theme has been decided it makes choosing activities, food, entertainment and party bags much easier as you can focus your research.

The earlier you can choose a theme the more organised you can be and a greater number of venue, entertainment and food options would be available to you.

Party food can be a whole minefield what to serve, how to serve, when to serve, just for the kids or cater for grownups too?

What to serve?

From experience of hosting hundreds of children's parties I can tell you 2 things with certainty:

1 - parents over cater and
2 - kids waste lots

Kids parties are not the place to expect kids to go crazy for healthy choices. Kids are usually too hyped up to choose carrot sticks over party rings and cupcakes.

If you are keen for the kids to eat healthy party food you could:

• prepare your own pizzas - or buy plain cheese and tomato pizzas and add healthy toppings like pineapple, ham, sweet peppers etc
• Make sandwiches from ham, egg n cress and cheese
• Go retro and make a cheese and pineapple hedgehog - cover half an orange in tin foil and push cocktail sticks with cubes of cheddar cheese, pineapple and the odd glace cherry into the covered orange.
• Have cartons of fruit juice for the kids or prepare a jug of slightly diluted fresh orange or apple juice.
• A nice dessert is fruit cocktail or chopped strawberries, apples and bananas with plain yogurts spooned over the top.

Grownups

There's quite a debate about feeding the grown ups who stay at the party or not.

Parents generally accompany children to parties up until they get to year 1 then after that a party on a Saturday afternoon usually sees parents drop n run!

If the party is for ages 1-3 and you are expecting lots of parents or have had some parents say they will stay then you could prepare something but don't go overboard, you will have enough to worry about on the day without worrying about catering for grownups too.

Chances are they will be too busy attending to their children to have a proper bite to eat so keep it light - prepacked party food which can be found in the freezer dept at the supermarket should be a hit. Also tortilla chips with pots of ready made dips should also do the trick.

Worried about leftovers?

For parents worried about wasting food for parties with lots of guests we suggest that you think about preparing a small sandwich meal in a food box for the children.

Inside pack:

• 1 sandwich pack made from 1 round of bread and either a cheese or ham filling.
• 1 yoghurt in a tube
• 1 carton of orange juice or apple juice
• 1 small pack of plain crisps

Times

If you are using the food time to take a chunk of time out the party then you may want to think about serving savories first then small cakes, sweets and dessert. This should take a crowd of 20 children about 20-30 mins to eat.

If you are short on time then serve everything at once which can shave off 10 mins or so.

We always recommend that parents serve food after an hour to fit in with childrens attention span. After an hour of party games and activities children are usually about ready for a rest so planning to sit down and eat after an hour gives them a chance to rest up ready for more games later.

Hopefully these hints and tips will help you to plan your birthday party. If you use any of our ramblings please do let us know!

Yours colourfully, Angela x

Crowd control - The beginners guide to having a birthday party

This is our guest post created especially for Tup Tup Toys last week!

Many thanks to the lovely Angie from My Funky Party for this wonderful guest post on hosting a child's birthday party. Don't let the title deceive you - it's not just for beginners, there are some fantastic tips the rest of us can use too!

When faced with a bunch of giggly, squeaky, hyped up kids at a birthday party, the idea of getting them to do what you want (in order to play any games or fun stuff) can make you so worried you go running for the hills. But with careful planning and a few knowledgeable tricks (the kind teachers use in the classroom), the daunting task of entertaining children for and hour and a half can be turned into a breeze.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user jessica.diamond

First - Know Your Enemy

There's no point going all out with a "Giggles" theme party for a bunch of 9 year olds, or "Princess and Pirates" for 20 boys who are into Ben 10. The aim of a successful party theme is to choose something that is universal to all the children attending, not just the guest of honour.

Second - "Fail to Prepare, Prepare to Fail"

You may realize this but kids actually like routine and scheduling, even at a party. Take a piece of paper and list time slots of 10 mins, like this:

2.00pm
2.10pm
2.20pm
2.30pm
2.40pm
2.50pm
3.00pm
3.10pm
3.20pm
3.30pm
3.40pm
3.50pm
4.00pm

Allocate three main time slots for arrival, food time (which includes singing Happy Birthday) and opening presents. Food takes approx. 30 minutes for savories, cakes and biscuits. Put it about half way through.

Arrival - there's always one that's late. Actually, scrap that, lots of people are late and it usually takes about 10-15 minutes for all the guests to arrive. Try to plan an arrival activity. This could be colouring for youngsters with printables of their favourite characters. Older children can get crafty and make something to take home (this could be something that's popped into their party bag at the end).

Opening Presents - always a good way to while away the last 20 minutes of a party. You can schedule this to happen during the party, or have it on standby just incase your guests clear through your games faster than you thought possible.

Photo courtsey of Flickr user Mark & Marie Finnern

So, now your schedule should look something like this:

2.00pm Arrival activity (15 mins)
2.10-2.15 Arrival activity
2.20pm
2.30pm
2.40pm
2.50pm Lunch (30 mins)
3.00pm Lunch
3.10pm Lunch
3.20pm
3.30pm
3.40pm Present Opening
3.50pm Present Opening
4.00pm End
This leaves you with two blocks of 30-35 minutes.

Games


Depending on the number of children coming, allocate approximately 1 game per child. There are lots of ideas online and you can ask your family about more retro games you can play. Some ideas to get you started....

Pass the Parcel - put a small sweet in between each layer, or for a smaller party with less than 10 children, put in a piece of paper with an action suggestion, such as 'pretend to be a dog', 'hop on one leg', 'sing a nursery rhyme' etc. For larger groups, this game can go on forever and you won't be able to hold their interest, so try splitting the kids into 2 groups and have 1 parcel per group travelling around each circle at the same time.
The Chocolate Game - You will need, a large bag of chocolate buttons, a plate, a fork, a scarf, a pair of wooly gloves and a dice. Sit the kids around in a circle. Put the buttons on a plate, with the scarf, gloves and fork in the centre. Pass the dice around the circle. Each child takes turns to roll the dice, then they pass it to the next child. If they roll a 6, the dice keeps going around the circle, as before, except the child who rolled a 6 has until the next child rolls a 6, to put on the scarf and gloves, then eat as much of the chocolate as possible. Lots of fun!

 

For boy's parties, any relay races and sports day style competitive games will go down a storm. Passing an inflated balloon around a circle without using your hands is always a good way to while away the time.

Photo courtesy of Flikr user goldberg.

 So the last thing - What if they don't listen to you explaining what's going on? What if they just run around crazy? There are a few steps you can take to ensure your party runs smoothly.


Firstly, delegate all non entertaining stuff to other people, including supervising toilet trips and serving the food. Entertaining the kids isn't just about playing games. It's about making sure that despite running around like a nutcase entertaining the kids, you are also clock watching, and making certain that the momentum is kept running throughout.
Secondly, don't give the kids options. Tell them at the beginning of the party what the schedule is (make it fun, of course!) and stick to it. If a game is going down like a lead balloon, just skip to the next one. Don't make a big fuss, just move on and the kids will think it's just time for the next game.

Thirdly, have a few teacher's tricks up your sleeve. Here's my personal favourite! All children from reception to teens are familiar with the "put your hand up if you can hear me" routine. If you are trying to tell the kids the instructions of a game and some are a bit giddy, as can only be expected at a party, put your hand up and very loudly say "put you hand up if you can hear me". The children will all put their hands up, one after another, and magically should all become silent and await your instructions. It's magic and works again and again.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user micn2sugars


Lastly, be confident. have your plan, have other party tasks delegated to others and enjoy being the most popular kid at the party!
 
Hope you find something to help you at your next birthday party. Do let us know if you use any of our ideas and tips!
 
Good luck!
 
Yours colourfully, Angela x
 

Tup Tup Toys is a lovely online toy shop which has lots of unique toys for children with great customer service.
 
We love their range of baby toys and gift ideas. The lovely people at Tup Tup Toys can even wrap up your special birthday gift too! How useful is that?!
 
Tup Tup Toys also have a blog - so when you subscribe to our blog make sure you go have a look at theirs and subscribe too!

Animal Party Ideas

Animal parties are lots of fun!
Heres some party tips and ideas to get you started:
Four Corners.

The more people you have for this game, the better (more than ten, preferably). Find a room with four corners, and number them one to four (make sure everyone playing knows what corner is what number). Pick one child to be 'it' and blindfold them, then have everyone run to a corner (any corner, but make sure people split up). The kid known as 'it' calls out a number from one to four. The people in that corner are all out, then everyone scatters to another corner, or stays in the same one (it's okay to go to the corner that was just called, but it might get called again, so watch out!). Play like this until one person remains, or everyone is out. It's fun and exhilarating, especially if you're a youngster. To make this suitable for an animal themed party have each corner named like cats, dogs, horses, tigers etc to suit your theme.

Who am I?

Write a different animal on a postit note and stick em to their foreheads as they arrive.

the children have to guess their animal by asking questions.

A great ice breaker for any party - even for grownups!

Birthday food

Serve a picnic - sandwiches cut into triangles, mini cocktail sausages, cold pizza slices, sausage rolls etc with cartons of juice. Follow with cupcakes and biscuits.

Set out picnic blankets and cushions on the floor and sprinkle confetti around.

Decorate

Use light and dark green streamers either attached from the ceiling or from the floor and against a wall. This would be good for jungle parties (from ceiling) and for underwater parties (from the floor and attached up a wall).

Make giant butterflies from wall paper samples and cut out monkey shapes from brown cardboard.

Hope these tips are useful for your next animal themed party. Let us know if you use any and if you send us a picture we will feature it!

Yours colourfully, Angela x

The perfect Charlie and Lola party!

About Charlie and Lola

Charlie and Lola is available on Cbeebies in UK and Disney Channel in America.

The program tells the story of how siblings Charlie and Lola navigate through life through imaginative storytelling, quirky images and fun music.

Charlie and Lola live in a flat in London with their parents. Their parents are not animated in the program however the kids frequently refer to them throughout the program.

Charlie and Lola have a number of friends. Charlie's best friend is Marv Lowe and they often take Marvs dog, Sizzles to the park and play football alot too. Lola's best friend is a lively little girl called Lotta. They love to play at each others houses and they are in the same class at school.


Lola also has an imaginary friend called Soren Lorenson. Soren Lorenson is a real mischief maker that only Lola can see and interact with. In the program he is animated as an almost see through character. He appears to be a male version of Lola and looks so much like her they could be twins.


A Charlie and Lola party is ideal for pre-schoolers and appeals to both boys and girls a like.


We have gathered some of our favourite ideas for creating a lovely party for your little Charlie and Lola fan. Hope you like them!

Invites:

Crafty arty people may like this idea!

Line draw the characters onto a sheet of A4 paper, take up as much space as possible. Water colour the clothes etc.

When dry scan the image as a .jpg file on your computer (a good mail box depot like Mailboxes etc will be able to scan things and put them on CD for a small fee if you don’t have this at home.

Use the scanned image in Microsoft Publisher to create the cover for an invite, you could make a folded card or a postcard is a nice easy invite to design.

Of course if that’s just too fiddly or you just simply haven’t the time you can also buy them.

Decoration ideas!

Use pink construction paper to make a giant staircase and attach it to a wall. Surround the staircase with butterflies made simply from 2 large and 2 small tear shapes of pretty, colourful wallpaper samples.

Copy the Charlie and Lola characters on to large sheets of paper and colour them with poster paints – don’t forget Soren Lorenson, Lotta, Marv and Sizzles!

To create Soren Lorenson instead of copying the outine on paper try painting or drawing with a permanent marker onto a large sheet of cellophane wrap which is available to buy by the metre from all good florists.

Charlie and Lola party plates, cups and napkins are available from online shops. Also available are invites, thank you notes, party bags and table covers.

Activity ideas!

Lola's Music Box:
Lola loves to use her imagination. Have a big brown wooden box and label it “Lola’s musical instruments” inside place saucepans, wooden spoons, bottles filled with dry rice and pasta, the plastic trays from inside sweet and biscuit boxes and other everyday household items that make interesting noises.

Colouring in fun:
Print out some colouring in sheets (enough for 3 different designs per child) and lay themout on a table with wax crayons to colour in. Ensure that there is 1 small packet of wax crayons per child (6 in a pack). You could even stick them to the pink staircase decoration with sticky tape when they are finished.

Party Food ideas!

To eat:
Traditional cold party fayre is the order of the day – Think sausage rolls, Fox’s Party Rings, cupcakes and small triangular ham or cheese sandwiches.

To drink:

Pink Milk

Most young children would probably like water or cordial to drink at the party food table and Pink Milk could be served as part of the sweet course.

Lola’s favourite drink is Pink Milk and it’s easy to make a healthy version without the need for red food colouring or rocket fuel such as Grenadine!

To make a 250ml cup take a glass of milk and put in a blender. Add a scoop of vanilla ice cream and approx 100g strawberries. Whiz the ingredients in the blender for a minute or so until all ingredients are combined. This is a really easy recipe to make more just multiply the ingredients by the number of cups you want. One 250ml serving should be plenty for 2 paper party cups.

Ideas for Games!

Pin the mask on Batcat
Bat cat is Charlie and Lola’s favourite cartoon super hero – you could either play pin the tail on bat cat or pin the mask on bat cat.

Pin the lead on Sizzles
You could play pin the lead on Sizzles. Marv Lowe is Charlie’s best friend and he has a dachshund called Sizzles. In “We Do Promise Honestly We Can Look After Your Dog" Lola and Lotta are charged with looking after Sizzles and loose him when he comes off his lead at the park.

Make a picture of a sausage dog on a sheet of A1 paper, and make a lead, back it with some sticky blue tack. Blindfold each child, turn them around 3 times then have them try to attach the lead back onto Sizzles collar. The winner is the child that gets their lead closest to the collar.

Lola Says
This game is the same as Simon Says except you shout Lola Says instead of Simon Says.

Other traditional party games are good fun such as Musical Statues and pass the parcel.

Music:
Play “The Bestest in the Barn” throughout this is a compilation of all the Charlie & Lola songs including the theme. Released in 2007 it includes "The Bestest in the Barn", "Sizzles", "Batcat" and "It's Snowing".

Storytelling:
Read a favourite Charlie and Lola story out loud to the children. Sit on a chair and have the kids sit around you. Hold up the book facing the kids so they can see the pictures as you read. Charlie and Lola stories are typically short with lots of engaging pictures to hold the attention of especially younger guests.

Party bags:
Fillers can include: Wooden animal yoyos, anything with butterflies and ladybirds on, curly straws, seed packets, mini note pad and crayons.

Thank you notes:
If you made the invites yourself use the same template, change the wording and keep the picture (or watercolour new pictures for the thank you notes).


We hope these ideas are helpful.

Enjoy your Charlie and Lola party – please do let us know how you go with your party!

Yours colourfully, Angela x




Even more Charlie and Lola websites!


Charlie and Lola official website


Charlie and Lola Cbeebies website (Lots of printables to colour in)


Official Lauren Child website 


Charlie and Lola Playhouse Disney America website