100 Party Themes
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Activities, games, and entertainment enliven the party, provide an opportunity for the children to interact, and can be the most fun and memorable part of a party. Advance planning and preparation are the keys to successful party activities.

Ideas for arrival activities, self-serve activity centers, group activities, arts & crafts, entertainment, free play, and closing activities are described below.

Arrival Activities
Simple Arrival Activities, such as making and decorating name tags, gift bags, or party hats, are a good way for children to transition into the party. Provide plain name tags, favor bags, or party hats and a supply of markers, stickers and ribbons. Have an adult available to provide guidance, such as "be sure to write your name on your favor bag".

You can also have arriving children draw on or sign a big Happy Birthday card for your child. Write "Happy 7th Birthday, Jason" (inserting the appropriate age and name for your child, of course) in colorful letters on poster board and then have the children add their names and artwork.

Another fun arrival activity is a "guess how many" jar. Fill a clear glass or plastic jar (with a secure lid) with a known quantity (yes, you have to count them!) of candy, marbles, pennies, tiny toy cars or some other item that ties in with the theme of your party. Decorate the jar and lid with stickers and a bow and place on the arrival activity table. Provide slips of paper for guests to write their names and their "guess" and a small basket or box to collect the entries. At the end of the party award the jar of goodies to the child with the closest guess.

Activity Centers
Activity centers consist of simple activities that are setup ahead of time and are available to the children throughout the party. Children can visit the activity centers between the organized group activities.

Activity centers can be designed for individual children, small groups, or all the children at once, if you have a manageable number of guests. Activity centers can be supervised by an adult or be self-serve.

Activity centers most often consist of simple games or arts & crafts. I purchased some inexpensive games, such as a foam dart board, a bean bag toss, a ring toss, and giant bubble wands that I use year-after-year and customize to the party theme by adding stickers. You can setup other simple games, such as a coin toss (coins into jars or pie pans) or ball toss (balls into buckets, baskets or hoops) using supplies you probably already have.

I also setup an activity center with coloring books and crayons, maze and word search books, and a few small puzzles.

Check out our Games and Arts & Crafts pages for more ideas!

Group Activities
Unlike Activity Centers, Group Activities are designed for all the party guests to participate in at the same time. Group activities can include scavenger hunts, relay races, circle games (hot potato, duck-duck-goose), variations of pin the tail on the donkey, and breaking a pinata.

Group activities can be as high energy as an obstacle course or as low key as a game of 20 questions, or for younger children listening to a story. Ideally, group activities should be noncompetitive, so every child "wins". If the activity requires teams, have children count off (example: 1,2,1,2 for two teams) to determine the teams.

Some of your guests may have very different skill levels than your child. Be ready to help children be successful at a particular activity. A child who has difficulty reading may need help with the "clues" in a treasure hunt. A child who is a bit physically awkward may need extra encouragement on an obstacle course. If a child really doesn't want to participate in a Group Activity allow him to watch or help with the activity or play at one of the Activity Centers.

Check out our Games and Arts & Crafts pages for more ideas!

Arts & Crafts
Arts & Crafts projects are fun, quiet activities that provide a nice balance for more active party games. Completed Arts & Crafts projects can also serve as party favors.

Arts & Crafts should be relatively easy for the children to do, so they don't require a lot of adult leadership and aren't frustrating for the children.

I try to avoid crafts that require lots of glue (messy and frustrating waiting for glue to dry) and I provide washable paints and markers to avoid staining skin or clothes.

Beads and cord for necklaces or key chains, modeling clay, and pipe cleaner "sculpting" are popular arts & crafts project that most children are familiar with.

If you child's birthday is before a holiday, consider a craft related to the holiday. My son's birthday is in early October, so I usually buy small pumpkins and provide markers and stickers for each child to decorate a pumpkin to take home.

Check out our Arts & Crafts page for more ideas!

Entertainment
Some party themes just scream for entertainment. A magic theme party, really needs a magician. On the other hand, no one really expects a guy in a dinosaur suit to show up for a dinosaur party. As you think about different themes for your child's party, think about whether or not entertainment would add to the fun. If so, check out the Kids' Party Fun Directory for your state to find local entertainers.

In addition to the standard clowns and magicians, it's possible to book "character" entertainers, who come as popular TV, movie, or story book characters. Puppet shows are fun for younger children and so are singers and musicians who lead children in musical activities.

If you decide to hire an entertainer try to see her in action before committing to determine if she is the right performer for your child's' party. It's more important that the person be good with children than be the world's best magician, clown, or singer.

When the entertainer arrives, introduce her to your child. Most entertainers will give your child special opportunities to participate in the "show". If your child is shy and does not want to be the "star" of the show, let the entertainer know this ahead of time.

A couple words of caution regarding professional entertainers... It's possible an entertainer may cancel at the last minute or just not show up. Make sure your whole party doesn't revolve around the entertainer and have a back-up plan (additional games, video, etc.).

Also, professional entertainers are not inexpensive. I paid $150 for a magician/clown for my son's carnival-themed 5th birthday party. It was definitely the highlight of the party, but if you're on a tight budget there are better uses (like food and rent!) for that kind of money.

One way to economize on entertainment is to recruit friends and family as entertainers. Someone you know is probably artistically talented enough to do face painting. Removable tattoos are popular with kids and very easy. Take a Polaroid picture of each painted or tattooed child, write her name on the picture, add a few stickers, and give the picture to her as a party favor.

Another form of "entertainment" is "bounce gyms" (large inflatable structures kids jump around in). Bounce gyms typically cost $150+ per day including delivery and setup and come in lots of fun themes.

Free Play
Children, especially younger children, like free play so much that it's often difficult to get them involved in group activities. They'd rather check out the party environment and play with the host's toys. We have a tree house and the kids are so enthralled with it that I don't even try to do any type of organized activities for the first 20 minutes.

Bring out some of your child's toys that would be appropriate for free play (wagon, toy cars & trains, legos, dolls, jump ropes, hula hoops, balls, bubbles, etc.). Be sure to get your child's approval, because he may have some toys he doesn't want to make available to everyone.

Closing Activities
Close the party by making a game out of distributing the favor bags. Have the children follow clues to "hunt" for their bags or distribute the bags as part of a musical circle game (when the music stops the child holding the gift bag keeps it and gets up from the circle... continue until all children have a favor bag).

Parents seem to have mixed feelings about opening presents during a birthday party. I use to prefer not to open presents at a party, because I thought it was bit boring for the other children. However, as my son gets older I see that the other children like to see their gifts opened and also like to check out the other presents. Turn present opening into a game by having the gift giver provide 3 clues or distribute the presents as part of a musical circle game (when the music stop your child opens the present she is holding).

Don't forget to award the "guess how many" jar (see Arrival Activity above) to the winner!

After the Closing Activities, allow children to enjoy Free Play or revisit the Activity Centers until their parents arrive.