Party

I always had craft materials and let each child make their own party hat when they arrived: it helped the shy ones settle. We played musical statues, pass the parcel and had a dancing competition, making sure that everyone won something. Another game they always enjoyed was seeing how long they could keep a balloon up in the air.

Picture Bingo always goes down well. They’ll play it forever and it only has to be a little prize each time. A sticker will do. And it’s easy for the adult to make sure everyone wins at least once.

Six pictures on a card, 24 different pictures on the master cards.

If you pin the master cards up somewhere you can get them to choose and draw their own cards.

A good calming down activity after the rushing around ones!

Grandmother’s footsteps, highly appropriate
Grandmother stands at the front, with her back to everyone else.
Everyone creeps up behind her, taking tiny steps. .
Grandmother turns round and anyone she sees moving is out.
The winner then becomes Grandmother.
This can go on for quite a long time, allowing the grownups to revive themselves with a small glass of sherry
Musical chairs
Statues
Farmer wants a wife
Good luck - we always had DCs parties at home, and I loved doing it, but the individual games never went on quite as long as I thought they would.
And there would always be one child who didn’t want to join in and sulked in a corner!

We used to save Sleeping Tigers for near the end of the party, it guaranteed us adults a few minutes of absolute peace! Everybody lay on the floor, if you moved or spoke you were out. Oh, the wonderful peace!

Eating jelly as a competition with a knife and fork was a highlight I remember at a party when I was a child !

Hardly a P and Q thing, but my little Gdd (nearly 4) loves doing the Okey-Cokey! (Hokey-Cokey?)

What about 'Who am I?' Write on pieces of paper and put folded up in a biscuit tin the names of celebrities and the others have to guess. The correct guesser then takes their turn.
Musical chairs?

Remember to put a tiny treat between every layer of the pass the parcel. I also used to put an easy forfeit.
The chocolate game where they sit in a circle and take turns to throw the dice - if you get a 6 you go to the middle of the circle, put on a hat, scarf and gloves, the try to get at the wrapped bar of choc using a knife and fork. Then the next person throws a 6 and takes over.
The memory game where you put some things on a tray. Then you go out of the room and remove an item, come back in and they have to remember what is missing.
I also agree have some craft activities for those that want to sit out. You can always just have a table where they can sit an colour.
Finally musical statues,

We used to play a game using dried peas and straws: each child has a bowl of dried peas in front of them, and a drinking straw. By sucking, they can pick up a pea. See who can transfer most peas in this way to another bowl, say 12 inches away, in a given time. Either everyone can play at once, or they can take turns.

Jigsaw pictures: my dad collected as many big, colourful pictures as he could from magazines - most of them were adverts.
He cut each one in half, usually in a slightly zigzag way.

Before the game, one half of all the pictures would be spread around the house.
To start the game, each child would be given one of the other halves, and they had to go off to search for its missing piece. As soon as they found it, they went back to the organiser, who then gave them another half (at this stage an adult needs to have a list of the names and put a tick against the appropriate one each time that child completes another pair, to see who has found most when there are none left to be found)
You need a lot of pictures, so that each child gets to search for several.

Alternatively, I suppose you could put the children in pairs for this game, and perhaps give each pair a set number of pictures right at the beginning (four, maybe), so that the winner is the first pair to find the corresponding halves of all of their pictures.

Some great ideas!! Love at home birthday parties, glad to hear they are back in fashion!

Hunt the thimble (we've done it with a picture of Cinderella's slipper with our Rainbows, aged 5-7). Kim's game, tray with 10-12 items on give them 20-30secs to look at it then cover items with a cloth and get them to name all the items, can also ask them to turn their backs/ shut their eyes and remove item, they then have to say what's missing. Simon Says..... the sillier the actions the better. Jigsaw pictures suggested by MamaCaz is a good one too.

Great fun. I loved it when my children were that age. We could have 25 in the house for a party and they all behaved. They were only just at school and had a very organised teacher. They were used to doing exactly as they were told!
We played all the old games and the hokey cokey (as it's my favourite!). We kept them occupied the whole time and it all went well.
Soon they grew out of that sort of party though.
Have fun!

Hot and cold.
My aunt packed a case and in it she put ..... x, next person repeats ..... x and y......... next person repeats x, y and z. Make a mistake and out down to winner.
I sent a letter to my love and on the way I dropped it .....
In and out the dusty bluebells ...

My son always does themed parties- once he turned their garden into the Deep Dark Wood for a Gruffulo party. Then there was the Jake & Netherland Pirates party. The children just seem to get into the spirit & don't need much organising at all. We just let them get on with it mainly.
He themes any simple games he does too-seems to go down well- we keep games simple as they really don't want to sit still for long. Pass the parcel is always the most popular.

Blow up balloons and put something small inside use it as a pass the parcel and the winner gets to pop the balloon. Musical statues.

Team games of passing a ball/orange/balloon without using hands - clamped between chin and top of chest. Between knees? The outer part of a matchbox passed from nose to nose

Get them to decorate their own biscuit shape or cup cake to go home with - lots of coloured icing, sprinkles, choc buttons etc. Have baby wipes around because it gets super messy

We played "The farmer wants a wife" - children in a circle singing the song, the birthday child in the middle as the farmer who chooses a wife, then the wife chooses a child, the child a dog, and the dog a bone.

Might be as well these days to end the game there, as the last verse was ""The bone won't break, the bone won't break, ih oh my daddy-o the bone won't break". Sung while thumping the unfortunate bone on the back!

We also danced "The grand old duke of York", played the round game of the sleeping beauty, played musical chairs, "Simon says". "Oranges and Lemons"

Your local library should be able to help with descriptions of these games and the music. Sorry, I can't remember the English version of the sleeping beauty rhyme, only the Danish one. Right now, I can't remember the difference between playing "Oranges and lemons" and "London bridge is falling down" as I think the bridge caught whoever was under it when the song ended too.

There was also a game called "The parson's pig" where each child chose a part of the pig in answer to the question "What part of the parson's pig do you want?" All and every other question had to be answered by whichever part of the pig you had chosen: "What do you brush your teeth with" " The curly pig of the parson's pig"

If you giggled while answering you were out.

When my children were young I loved doing traditional parties at home. I used to get plain paper small carrier bags and let them decorate and name their own, so they had something to do while everyone arrived. We used the bag as a party bag at the end to take home a small gift, piece of cake and a few sweets. Could do party hats as well or instead of. A treasure hunt type game where they have to find all the parts of an animal around the house or garden. Each child looks for a different color. Musical bumps, musical statues, pass the parcel with a simple fun forfeit in each layer, pin the tail on the donkey. Children this age love games like this. Have fun

I went on Amazon and bought a book ' The great big book of children's games'. It's been invaluable over the years, not just for parties but any time the grandchildren came when we were at a loss what to do with them. It includes party games, card games, pencil and paper games, ball games, word games etc etc and comes with suggested age range. Money well spent, in my opinion.

Sleeping Tigers? We always called it Dead Lions!

Statues always seemed popular at my GDs birthday party up to age 6. Music plays, children dance about, adult turns round when music stops and whoever is spotted moving is out until there is an ultimate winner but of course all receive a little treat fir trying hard.

When I was a child my mum always did parties at home. We always had a treasure hunt where items were hidden and a list of items had to be found. That works indoors or out.
My favourite was the flour cake. A small mixing bowl was used as a mould and filled with flour which was then turned out onto a plate. A coin was placed on top. The children then take it in turns to cut a slice from the 'cake' until it collapses and the coin falls in. The child who causes the coin to fall in has to get it out with their mouth but gets to keep the coin. Since I didn't mind getting a face full of flour I became very good at causing the 'cake' to collapse.
Another easy one is matching halves of Christmas cards. All our Christmas (or old birthday) cards were cut in half diagonally. One half of each card was spread around then each child was given one of the other halves to find it's partner. When you found the other half you were given another to match. The winner was the child with the most matched pairs. Particularly good if there are a few duplicates of some of the cards or very similar ones so they have to be an exact match by the way they are cut.

We hired a magician for half an hour. Wasn't very expensive