Inviting Kids from Preschool to Birthday party...help!

The school MAY have a rule that if you hand the invitations out at school, you have to invite the whole class (many will not come) but the school can not tell you who to invite if it is done outside the classroom. Make it a point to catch the parents of his best friends (or leave a note asking them to contact you). Invite just the ones he has told you to invite.

The rule usually is that if you hand out invitations at the school, you should give one to every child. However, there is no rule if you are going to mail out invitations. You don't have to invite the entire class if you don't want to - no one can make you and no one expects you to. If you child has some friends he wants to invite, you can just mail it out to them!

Enjoy.

I've heard that the etiquette guideline is that if you would individually invite at least half the kids, you should invite all. But, if it's just a few, you can just invite those few. And make sure you do the invites privately, if that's the case.

Either to "all boys" or the "whole class"- honestly half of them won't come for the exact reason you stated. My son has been invited to four parties in the last two months and while we go b/c my son LOVES parties, less than half of the others attend.

If you want to include siblings, that's fine but if it is cost-prohibitive then don't. The invites we have received have all had a "We ask that at least one parent attend with your child" and that is what we will put on our invite as well! I know from other moms that when parents RSVP they will ask about siblings if it's an issue (single parent household, etc). If you can include a space for a sibling if a parent asks, go for it. Otherwise, simply say that you have a limited number of children per the party package and you will let them know after you hear from everyone.

If he has 3 or 4 "Best Friends" then call those parents individually and invite them out to do something. If he has 10 "Best Friends" the do the whole big thing!

You might try going "just invite all the boys" route if he doesn't have alot of girls in class that he is close to- it cuts down on the numbers but doesn't exactly exclude anyone-

25 kids is a lot to invite...and I wouldn't bet on most of them not coming. In fact, at that age, I would expect almost all of them to rsvp YES!
Just invite 5-6 of his best friends...mail the invites to their houses so there are no hurt feelings at school...if a mom calls wondering about a sibling also attending then have an answer ready but it should be the same answer across the board for all your invited guests.
Your son will have more fun with less people to compete/play with and so will you :) Best wishes for a successful party!

Of course you can invite who you want, but if you hand out the invites at school, etiquette is that you invite the whole class. In my experience, no teacher will let you hand out invites to only a few kids. Even if you quietly sneak them into the cubbies, there will always be that one kid who opens it at school and brings attention to it, making the left out kids feel...well...left out. It makes for bad feelings. If you only want specific kids to come, mail the invite to their home or send them an online invite via Evite or some other site like that. And if someone doesn't RSVP, there's no reason you can't give them a quick call and say "I mailed out Bobby's invites last week and I just wanted to make sure Billy got his - you know how the mail service can be!!" More often than not, you'll get the RSVP right then and there. Have fun at your party!

I would talk to the teacher or director. As what the protocol is to quietly invite a few kids for a reasonable party. I think that 25 kids at a 4 yr old's party is insane. Or you could see about quietly slipping invites into their cubbies or see if you can catch their parents on pickup/drop off.

if you invite 25 you will be lucky to get 8. 3 or 4 is average. now if your worried about cost parks are great have cake coke, koolaid whatever paper everything else take a trash bag you dont have to clean your house even to impress. :) and at 3 they will never know if you just invite certain friends but if you invite like 6 and no one shows up you are going to have a heart broken kid if at least 2 dont show up

At our schools it is the rule, if you invite one you have to invite all. But they do not ALL ever come. Maybe 5 kids if you are lucky. You need to find out the rules of the class before you start sending invitations to school with him. Feelings do get hurt. Be considerate.

I would say only invite his good friends, since it sounds like you already have family or family friends coming. Read the class list out loud to him so you don't miss anyone that he likes but didn't happen to name off the top of his head. If you don't invite the whole class, you'll need to send invitations by email or mail, not through the classroom. Evite is great (and free!)because the other parents can see who else is invited and not have to ask around. People understand limited space and funds, so don't worry about causing problems, unless you invite the majority of a group and leave out a few. As for siblings, I don't invite them, but with preschoolers you often find that parents end up bringing them if they're dropping off, and then you feel bad about sending them away. You should probably either invite them or allow for them showing up in some cases. I don't do a goody bag for siblings, but if we have extra of an item or two, we'll offer it to them. Good luck, and have a fun party!

Of course you dont have to invite his whole class. If so he would go to 25 parties. most of us need to invite neighbors and cousins as well so it would be crazy!

OH my gosh, do not count on the 'most kids' may not come theory. I wound up alone with about twenty five kids and a clown once. She nearly passed out. Anyway, if you get along with the teacher enlist her (their aid) and ask what way is best. If you are picking up your child you can stop a parent and give them an invitation, you can go to the class early and put it in their backpack and double check with parents later if they got it. Unless you make sure you can handle all the little ones (or make sure it is an adult and children included party) you might want to do the 'best friends' only. You have a lot of years ahead to enjoy other kinds of parties.

At that age, when you invite a kid to a party, you can expect that his siblings and parent(s) will be attending as well, so you have to factor that into your party planning head count. To keep the numbers and costs down, I would suggest asking your son to select "x" number of friends to his birthday party and making up the invitations. After the invitations are prepped, either ask the teacher if it is possible to slip the invitations into the kids backpacks so that they can open them at home with their parents or possibly showing up early at the daycare and handing out the invitations to the kids or their moms as they arrive (a little bit more of a hassle). I think what you want to avoid doing is having your son hand out invitations in front of kids are are not being invited to party to avoid hurt feelings.

Good luck with the party planning.

I have to admit to being confused by a lot of these answers. In preschool, in my daughter's case at least, everyone was her 'friend'. There was no way to narrow it down. Also, it's not like you get a list of everyone's address and phone number so that makes contacting individuals hard. I didn't even know the last names of some of her friends that she talked about constantly. we just invited the whole class. but we had a very big turnout, like 15 out of 18 plus siblings and parents (sometimes both parents). So be prepared for that.
I can't imagine not inviting schoolmates to the party, unless you have a really big family party or something. We don't live near any family so that would be a boring party in our case!

Don't do it! I invited my son's 4 year class, 19 kids and they all came. I had help and it was all planned out. It still was exhausting and expensive! Wait until he is in school and starts to make real school friends that he will go to school with the rest of his life.

You can easily invite a smaller number of just the kids he is closest with. You do not have to invite the whole class, I think that rule is insane. It's just plain good manners though to not bring invitiations to school if you don't offer one to everyone. Whatever you do, don't discreetly put invitations in the kids cubbies if you aren't inviting the whole class, thinking just parents will get to them. I was once picking up my daughter and a friend from preschool. Guess what? When I emptied their cubbies of artwork, mittens, etc, I found an invitation in my daughter's friend's cubbie, but not in my daughters. No, it wasn't missing, the girl had only invited 6 or 8 girls from the class, and her Mom slipped them in before dismissal time. I actually watched her do this, so I know. So then I had to try to sneak this bright purple envelope in to the friend's Mom when I dropped her off, but the little girl still saw it and then so did my daughter. Not cool. I totally did NOT expect her to invite the whole class, now was I upset she did not invite my daughter. I personally prefer small parties, so I get that totally, but I WAS mad at her for being too lazy to actually track down the addresses and mail her invitations out.

Our preschool rule is if you're handing them out at school, it's for the whole class. Discussion of parties and playdates at school is discouraged so other kids don't overhear and feel left out, so I wouldn't worry about fall-out. It's your decision whether to include siblings. I wouldn't. You should state whether parents stay or drop-off. At this age, parents usually stay. If they don't stay, make sure you have a way to reach them. One large party my daughter went to (in kindergarten), the mother wrote out name tags for each child and put the parent's phone number on it if they were not staying.

The rule at our school, is the whole class, or just boys/just girls.
We have always invited the whole class, and only end up with 10-12 out of about 25+ kids.

I know im the minority but i just don't get this whole issue. my kids are 14, 11 and 8 and we have NEVER invited schoolmates to a bday party. we take either cup cakes or donuts to school on their bday and that is their bday party with their classmates! when the kids got to the age that they asked if their friends from school could come to their party I just said no, they will be at your school party and they have always been fine with that. just this last year they were allowed to invite 2 of their friends to their party, but they live on our street and play with them all the time. just my opinion but i think your kid is too young to be having these large parties and frankly too much stress on you to have them. good luck!

If you only want a few individuals to come then hand it to mom's personally after school and let them know that not everyone is attending. If you send it home in their backpack then parents will ask other parents if their going. Most schools do not let you send in some invitations. You either invite the whole class or no one. Some people mail private invitations to the parents so they know that not everyone in class is invited to the party and won't talk about it. Some parents are nice and ask you if they can discuss the party with another mom to make sure everyone is invited.

I think it depends on how many are his "best friends" if he has just 3 of them then just invite them if he has 10 of them then it gets tricky. how many of the kids are 3 or 4 years old? My soon to be 4 year old kept mentioning tons of kids from school he wants at his party and I just eventually ask him to pick 2 of them and he did ( we know a lot of kids that are not in his school already). Just emailed the parent or hand them an invite separate from everyone and mention to them that not everyone is invited.