5th Birthday Party Wash Up!
I'm catching up on here after a quiet few weeks as I've been spending most of my time planning and preparing for W's birthday. We decided a few months back that having a party at a soft play or village hall and inviting the whole class wasn't what we wanted to do. He's not really into big groups and I think there is a fair chunk of his class who he doesn't play with so it didn't feel like the right approach for him. We also deliberately kept school and family separate - I don't know how W would react to the two sides of his life mixing but was pretty sure that one of them would come out on top and he would completely ignore the other side.
For the school side, we settled on inviting a few friends to our house for a party after school. I toyed with the idea of inviting people to a park somewhere where the entertainment would be provided by the play equipment but we couldn't think of anywhere that felt like it was a reasonable distance from the village. For several months, W has had the same list of four friends he wanted to invite to his birthday. He upped it to 5 shortly before we gave out the invites, I think because one of his friends particularly likes another boy in their class. I realised I had to get organised and get some invites out when W started writing indecipherable ones that he wanted to hand out to his friends.
I found planning the two hours really tricky. I have never really seen W play with his school friends. With the cousins, he is the oldest and very much top dog so they all do what he says. The only time I have seen him with school friends is at class parties when he is often quite reluctant to get involved and definitely follows rather than leads. So I wasn't sure how much structured entertainment I needed to provide and how much would be dictated by the children. My step-mum's advice was to plan every 10 minutes but I decided as we only had five coming (four in the end as his best friend was ill) we could be a little more relaxed. We came up with a list of games and activities that we could draw on as and when and then pretty much left it to unfold. We did start off with making these funny loop paper aeroplanes as everyone arrived which helped to avoid the first few awkward minutes where everyone clings to their parents' legs.
I think they all had a good time, no-one started leaving until after the scheduled two hours which I took as a good sign! The weather was great and we ended up with a really nice group of friends, siblings and parents. I enjoyed getting to know a few of the children and parents a bit better, it was nice to be able to invite them into our home for a couple of hours. W definitely enjoyed himself, although he has already told me that he wants to have his party somewhere else next year!
And as good analysts, Mark and I spent a while thinking about what we learned for the next year/the next child:
- Don't stress about the cake, or pudding. By the end of the two hours they were fairly uninterested in any pudding and completely uninterested in the cake (probably not helped by it having to be dairy free for W so not made of chocolate and covered in sweets). I made what turned out to be a massive apple crumble cake cut into a 5 and Mark took most of it to work to get rid of it!
- Trust at least some of your instincts. I refused to do 'pass the parcel' on the basis that it often turns into a traumatic event for all concerned. So we came up with a few of our own activities that were more about everyone getting involved rather than picking winners and losers, the most successful of which was the hidden Lego men. I bought 24 Lego-like characters (some expense was spared!), hid them around the garden and printed out pictures of each one. The kids had to find a picture they liked the look of and then find them in the garden. It worked really well; with only minimal parental intervention I think everyone ended up with at least one or two figures they wanted to take home with them and it kept them entertained for a good 10 or 15 minutes.
- Apparently people do 'drop off' for a 5 year old birthday party, even if you've never spoken to them before! It was a bit of a surprise but it was only one child so easy enough to keep an eye on him and make sure he was happy.
- We will find it terrifying! I knew I was quite worried beforehand about the party going well and W having a good time but I underestimated just how nervous we would both feel when it came to the day itself. I had picked W up from school and rushed home to make sure we were back before any guests and Mark and I both stood there feeling incredibly anxious while we waited for people to arrive.
- Maybe next year we will just have a play date! We had W's friend who was ill and another little boy around the following week after school to make up for missing the party. A few days later W told me he preferred that to his party! So next year (assuming there are no friendship bust-ups in year 1) I think we will just invite those two and find a good activity to do with three six year olds.
For the school side, we settled on inviting a few friends to our house for a party after school. I toyed with the idea of inviting people to a park somewhere where the entertainment would be provided by the play equipment but we couldn't think of anywhere that felt like it was a reasonable distance from the village. For several months, W has had the same list of four friends he wanted to invite to his birthday. He upped it to 5 shortly before we gave out the invites, I think because one of his friends particularly likes another boy in their class. I realised I had to get organised and get some invites out when W started writing indecipherable ones that he wanted to hand out to his friends.
I found planning the two hours really tricky. I have never really seen W play with his school friends. With the cousins, he is the oldest and very much top dog so they all do what he says. The only time I have seen him with school friends is at class parties when he is often quite reluctant to get involved and definitely follows rather than leads. So I wasn't sure how much structured entertainment I needed to provide and how much would be dictated by the children. My step-mum's advice was to plan every 10 minutes but I decided as we only had five coming (four in the end as his best friend was ill) we could be a little more relaxed. We came up with a list of games and activities that we could draw on as and when and then pretty much left it to unfold. We did start off with making these funny loop paper aeroplanes as everyone arrived which helped to avoid the first few awkward minutes where everyone clings to their parents' legs.
I think they all had a good time, no-one started leaving until after the scheduled two hours which I took as a good sign! The weather was great and we ended up with a really nice group of friends, siblings and parents. I enjoyed getting to know a few of the children and parents a bit better, it was nice to be able to invite them into our home for a couple of hours. W definitely enjoyed himself, although he has already told me that he wants to have his party somewhere else next year!
And as good analysts, Mark and I spent a while thinking about what we learned for the next year/the next child:
- Don't stress about the cake, or pudding. By the end of the two hours they were fairly uninterested in any pudding and completely uninterested in the cake (probably not helped by it having to be dairy free for W so not made of chocolate and covered in sweets). I made what turned out to be a massive apple crumble cake cut into a 5 and Mark took most of it to work to get rid of it!
- Trust at least some of your instincts. I refused to do 'pass the parcel' on the basis that it often turns into a traumatic event for all concerned. So we came up with a few of our own activities that were more about everyone getting involved rather than picking winners and losers, the most successful of which was the hidden Lego men. I bought 24 Lego-like characters (some expense was spared!), hid them around the garden and printed out pictures of each one. The kids had to find a picture they liked the look of and then find them in the garden. It worked really well; with only minimal parental intervention I think everyone ended up with at least one or two figures they wanted to take home with them and it kept them entertained for a good 10 or 15 minutes.
- Apparently people do 'drop off' for a 5 year old birthday party, even if you've never spoken to them before! It was a bit of a surprise but it was only one child so easy enough to keep an eye on him and make sure he was happy.
- We will find it terrifying! I knew I was quite worried beforehand about the party going well and W having a good time but I underestimated just how nervous we would both feel when it came to the day itself. I had picked W up from school and rushed home to make sure we were back before any guests and Mark and I both stood there feeling incredibly anxious while we waited for people to arrive.
- Maybe next year we will just have a play date! We had W's friend who was ill and another little boy around the following week after school to make up for missing the party. A few days later W told me he preferred that to his party! So next year (assuming there are no friendship bust-ups in year 1) I think we will just invite those two and find a good activity to do with three six year olds.
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