Successful birthday parties at home- need tips

Hi all,
I'm having my daughter's sixth birthday in three weeks, at our house. About 12-14 girls. If you've done a party at your house, did you have organized games before/after lunch, or did kids do their own thing? Did you have them do any kind of craft? If you did prizes, did you do anything to make sure EVERY kid got some kind of prize?

I'm getting nervous. BTW the theme is Disney Brave, but I'll take any suggestions!

Re: Successful birthday parties at home- need tips

Can you get a foam archery set? That would be really cute with your theme. My other suggestion is to keep it short. Free play as the kids arrive, sit them in a circle and do a game, then maybe a craft, then another couple of games, then pizza, then cake. Keep it moving and don't give them a chance to get bored (aka- trash your house ) As for games, what about hot potato with one of the little brother bears. Archery or pin the arrow on the target type of game. Freeze dance is aways good. The craft an be as simple as coloring pictures from the movie, you could probably even find free ones online.

Re: Successful birthday parties at home- need tips

Structure and organization is key for a home party, and set some rules with your DD before. I know with my DD at a party in the past, she had everyone running upstairs to her room to see this, an that, etc. and I was getting quite annoyed lol.

I would start out with a craft. Maybe decorate your own crown (Merida is a Princess so crowns fit). Michael's sells paper ones, I saw them today, 6 for $2.99. That way everyone has something to do while you are waiting for more guests to arrives. Or you could do tattoos as well. Then when everyone arrives, move to some games. I always have a bucket of prizes and the winner gets to pick one for each game.

After games I would eat. Then take a break for some more games, etc. Then sit back down for cake.

We are doing a home party for my DD's 6th in a few weeks and I'm planning a lot of games, activities, etc to keep them busy and I'm gating off the bedrooms

Pinterest has a BUNCH of Brave party ideas

Message edited 2/22/2013 2:29:40 PM.

Re: Successful birthday parties at home- need tips

We've done all of out parties at home so far. THe first one, DD1's 3rd birthday was the craziest because I planned a bunch of games and had to run everything.

For the next ones, we had an activity that the kids could do on their one. For hr 4th it was outside and we rented a water slide. For her 5th it was a princess them and we made a big carboard castle and the kids played in that almost the entire time (we also had a princess come to the house, she did tatoos, magic, etc). I thought snow white was great but the castle was the hit. I would recommed this for sure. Her is a picture, it' made mostly from wardrobe boxes I got a moving company.