4Th Birthday Party - Bayonne,NJ

Just did this with my 4 yr old...A great variation on musical chairs. Put papers with numbers (however many kids you have minus one) on the floor in a large circle. Play music and have them walk in a circle around the numbers and when the music stops, they stand on the nearest number to them. Have litttle pieces of paper with the same numbers on them in a bowl. Pick one and the person on that number is out. Pick up their number and continue until there is one person and number left. It prevents pushing out of musical chairs because they don't know whose number will be pulled.

You can also google kids birthday games and get lots of ideas--both indoors and outdoors.

Sorry, my mistake --you have the same number of papers as children to put on the floor so everyone stands on a number. Then draw the number that's out.

We just had my twin daughters 4th birthday party this weekend. It was at our house and relatively small -- 7 kids, 10 adults -- and I decided to take a low-key approach. I did have pin-the-tail, but that was the only game per se. One thing we did beforehand that was a big hit was we got the Balloon Time helium balloon kit. So we had almost 30 balloons tied with ribbons floating around the house. This made for a very festive atmosphere, and the kids all loved jumping for the balloons and gathering the different colors, etc. I recommend it!

While I didn't plan games, I did have an activity for them to do. I bought smallish pumpkins and let each child choose one and then decorate it. We had foam stickers, markers and glitter paint (the kind Elmers sells, where the paint is in the brush, so it wasn't too messy). These became the take-home favors, as well as each kid got to choose one of the helium balloons to take home when they left.

So aside from eating pizza and cake and decorating the pumpkins, the kids just played with the balloons and my daughters' toys. They didn't seem to need any more structure than that, and because it was more freeform, the adults could relax more and hang out and talk, which the parents all said they appreciated. In the end, it seemed like everyone had fun, and I was surprised because people stuck around a lot longer than I thought they would.

have fun!
A.

My mom had a fun one when we were little. She took a ball of yarn for each child and made a web across the room at kid height and then tied the end to a large clothes pin (the old fashioned kind with no moving parts). Each child wound the yarn onto the clothes pin until they got to the end. We always did this one first. Also you can cut the yarn when you have enough of a web, not use a while ball. We reused the yarn and clothes pins for years. She also hid the goody bags for the end of the party.

if you're not opposed to a halloween theme (or you can make it non-halloweeny) cut jack o lanterns and have the kids try to toss mini candy bars into them. whatever ones they get into the pumpkin, they keep.

Red light green light
Simon Says
Hide and seek, but not the children but maybe hide a pumpkin or a stuffed black Cat

A bean bag toss into baskets or draw a shape on cardboard then cut holes out for the kids to toss the bean bags in. Also if you have one of the crawl through tunnels...they like that.

How about hot potato (or pumpkin, or whatever your "theme" is)? Or, toss the BLANK (Whatever your theme is) -- you know, where you have two kids standing toe to toe--they pass something back and forth, taking a step back from each other each time.

Also, you can many variations of "pin the tail" -- pin the face on the jack-o-lantern, pin the pepperoni on the pizza, etc.

At my daughters 4th birthday party (and a few others) freeze dance was a HUGE hit!

Musical chairs or simon says are always winners.