4 year old birthday party ideas

[masetane]

I need major help!!!!!!! Last year I did a Tumble Bugs/gymnastics thing for my daughters 3rd birthday. It was fun and easy for me (show up!) but it overwhelmed my daughter. This year she has asked for a "home party" so I thought I would just invite 6-8 of her girl friends. My husband says just do all the games and stuff ourselves but well, I'm not that crafty and thought maybe I should hire someone to do something? She's not too into the music thing but who knows. Do I really need to hire someone or should i just do it myself? any ideas of either what kind of entertianment to hire or things to do/play with 8 4 year old girls??? THANKS
Caroline
http://fool.exler.ru/sm/ma.gif
Isabelle 10/1/00
Nicholas 2/27/03

[egoldber]

Well, for Sarah's 4 year old birthday party (yes, next year, LOL!) I would love to do a princess party or princess tea party. There are just tons and tons of activities available for those themes.

But I would think that 6-8 4 year olds would be pretty easy to entertain. Have a "welcome activity", snacks, a craft or 2, a game, and then the cake, and thats pretty much 2-3 hours of party.

So for example, for our princess theme I would:
1) make princess themes invites
2) as the girls arrive, have them decorate their crowns that they will then wear during the party
3) tea party and tea snacks
4) decorate a princess purse for them to take home (this could do double duty as their favor)
5) princess bingo for little token presents
5) cake
6) maybe open presents if it is a present party

I don't personally think that entertainment is required for a 4 year old party, and I'd be a little leery myself of setting up the expectation.

For DD's third birthday, I used crafts and ideas from this site and found it very helpful:

http://www.dltk-kids.com/

I also got ideas from www.birthdayexpress.com, but I did not use any of their actual products. Believe me, I am about the LEAST crafty person I know, and I still found her party pretty easy to plan. I was also shocked at how excited the older kids were to do the simple crafts that I prepared from the above website. They were literally just all over it.

[papal]

Sarah's next years party sounds like so much fun!! To be 4 again and have a princess theme party! How magical!

[mom2kandj]

We went to a princess party last year that was pretty low key. There were about 6 girls age 3-5. The basic format was:

1) Meet & greet. All the attendees donned inexpensive plastic shiny tiaras and tulle ribbon skirts made by grandma. Play with Barbies until all are present.
2) Craft time. Decorate prebaked cookies in crown, castle and heart shapes with frosting. Place in clear bag with pretty ribbon to take home.
3) Princess storytelling time. The hostess had a friend who happened to look like and had a costume to dress up as Snow White. Snow White then read a story or two and then gave the book to the birthday girl as a present from her complete with Snow White inscription.
4) Cake and ice cream
5) Presents

The girls loved it and it wasn't too much work for the hostess. HTH!


Rose
mom 2 Katie 12/02/00
& Jack 04/16/02

[momathome]

We did a princess dress-up party for Liza's 4th birthday and it was easy and very cute! On the invites, we asked each girl to wear their favorite dress-up dress (which made the pictures ADORABLE!), we played a game of hot potato with Cinderella's slipper (a dress-up shoe), they made decorative fans, and they watched the movie Snow White. We had a beautiful princess-themed cake and strawberries and apples with fruit dip, which the kids loved (although, be for-warned with dips - 4 year-olds tend to double-dip - ewww!) All in all, the party was very easy to do, cheap (under $100), and the girls had a fabulous time! Good luck with your party!

[MamaKath]

Home party is a piece of cake! ;-)

We did a My Little Pony party this year for my dd's 5th birthday. It was a lot of fun, and actually pretty easy. Here was some of what worked:

Food-This year we included lunch since the kids were coming from preschool, but kept it very simple. We just had a ton of food (I did hotdogs, individual bags of chips, pretzels, salads, etc) that could be for adults or kids. We always (parties or playgroup) have PBJ available too. Very picnic style. Pizza is easy. Also things like chicken nuggets and fries for the kids, subs for parents. In the past the biggest hit food wise was a snack outside of air popped popcorn! We plugged it in outdoors, popped into a big bowl and gave the kids Dixie Cups full of it. :-) They LOVED watching it pop!!!

Play Time-We had boys and girls over. I tend to put out things like play food, play tents, dolls, stuffed animals, cars, action figures. Do not put out dress up stuff!!! (We went to a party where the kids got into the dress up stuff, and a few parents flipped that the kids literally changed their clothes in front of each other.)

Craft-I had a couple simple, but related crafts. The craft store has a whole aisle of foam stuff. We got stuff to do like hats (foam visors with elastic cord back), buttons, and door hangers. We only did the hats, the kids used pricess themed foam stickers (about $7 a bucket, included princess, prince, castle, dragons, horses, storybooks, stars, etc) and decorated them. I have been to partied where they have done crafts with glue but it involves having parents help everytime, which I didn't want. The visors were perfect for their attention span.

Story-After running around, it is fun to have some kind of story. In the past I have done themed stories or even puppet shows. Eric Carle books are really good at that age because many have quite a bit of repetition, and even if they have never heard them before they can participate (The Very Quiet Cricket, The Lonely FireFly, Brown Bear Brown Bear What do you See? are some of our favorites).

Games- We did relays since we had quite a few energetic boys. ;-) Book is good to do after this to wind them down.

Cake and Ice-Cream- We do ice-pops (usually the kind that you stick in the freezer but are in a plastic tube) since my dd can't have milk/milk products. Our cake this year was decorated as a Pony from My Little Pony. A friend of mine is a Wilton Cake instructor (we are in So. MD, she is great for anyone thinking of taking a class here, lol) and made a milk/milk product free cake for me. When she went to decorate it, she called my dd and asked what her favorite pony was. Hence a sparkle works cake. :-) Oh and we did this and the presents outside. Actually spread a table cloth on the ground, sat them around the edges, and then just bundled up the mess when we finished!

Other- This year we did a pull string pinata. In the future I think I would skip it. The kids have so much fun just playing together, it was overkill. It also is costly by the time you purchase, fill, etc. If I did it again, I would not do treat bags as well since they had the hats and candy.

Presents-Opening presents can get really crazy so I always put two chairs out, and sit the kids on the floor. One chair is for the Birthday child, one for the gift giver. As the child opens the gift they sit with the gift giver, have a chance to thank them, and get their picture taken. These can be used later for Thank yous also, and they are a great reminder in a scrap book who a special toy or outift is from.

Goody bags-We did things like individual teddy graham sacks, books made of My Little Pony coloring pages printed off the web, dress up necklaces, tiny bubble bottles, match box cars, fruit rolls, fruit snacks, etc. The bags were just My Little Pony sacks from the store.

Cost- It costs about as much to do it at home as out depending on how much you include. I like the simpler shorter parties better I think, I would do it a little later (no lunchmaybe 1 or 1:30), have playtime, craft, games, story, cake, presents.

Resources-
Cake pictures- http://www.geocities.com/cakeandcandylady/mainpage.html is her page, I can't find a picture of my dd's cake on it, but she has some great ideas on there.

Crafts and party theme ideas- http://familyfun.go.com/parties/birthday/

Coloring pages- http://www.coloring.ws/coloring.html

Themes- http://www.birthdayexpress.com/bexpress/default.asp?keycode=RJA-234 When you pick a theme, it will have a link for a Party Planning Guide. If you click the link, it will bring up a page with great ideas for games, planning, etc. Wonderful resource! Example for a Daydream Princess Party- http://www.birthdayexpress.com/bexpress/planning/partyguide.asp?sku=E25471&theme=Daydream+Fairy+Deluxe+Pak

Good luck! I apologize this got SOOO long winded, I guess I need to learn the art of short and sweet still. (bushing) Hope something in here is helpful. :-)

ETA- Sorry for the edits, not sure where my brain is, but I had a bunch of not finished sentences. DUH! Better have some coffee or something.