Party group games for kids

Or, you can pin the tail on the lion for a safari-themed birthday bash. We bet this is one of those party games you remember from childhood. The last person left is the winner. Musical chairs is a fun way to get your guests moving and expend some energy. Add a disco ball, gold fringe curtains, and plenty of showstopping tunes for the perfect musical game.

Before the party starts, find a small gift and wrap it in layers of paper, with pieces of candy hidden in the layers between. Gather your party guests and ask them to sit in one big circle.

Starting with one person, pass the parcel around the circle until the music stops. Whoever is holding the parcel at that moment gets to unwrap a layer and keep the candy. Keep passing the parcel until there are no more layers left, and the winner ends up with a prize to keep.

For a more eco-friendly take on this classic game, swap the paper layers with reusable fabric instead. Guests can then enjoy the sweet treat and take home the fabric that they can use as a cape for a small toy figurine or a flag for a castle.

Simon Says is the ultimate copycat party game for kids. Have some fun with this and use it as an easy way to get your youngest guests moving and enjoying themselves. Make the tug of war easy for a younger crowd, or ramp up the difficulty for older kids. You could even invite grown-ups to join in, or make it a family versus family team game.

Keep it simple or theme your tug of war to match your party decor by dyeing the rope or asking your guests to wear funny hats. The kids dance to fun music. When the music stops everyone has to sit down as quickly as possible.

The last child to sit down each time is given a small prize stickers or a single sweet work well and then the game continues, until there is either one winner left, or a handful of winners, depending on how many kids are playing remember, attention spans are short!!

The winner or winners each receive a small gift and a round of applause. Any kids that get it wrong get given a sticker or small prize and are asked to watch from the sidelines. Continue until you have either a single winner or a handful of winners. Kids aged three to five are just about at an age where the classic party game of Pass The Parcel works. The key to a successful game with preschoolers is to adapt the game to the number of children playing and to have a small prize within each layer.

This is a great game for getting a couple of parents involved in the activities. Play some fun music and shout encouragement. Pop some little sweets into balloons before blowing them up and tying them. Free the balloons and challenge the kids to pop them all to find the hidden treasure inside.

I did a version of this game for a pirate themed party using black balloons and filling them with gold chocolate coins as treasure. Watch this video for a run-through of how to play Mother May I? Set up a line of chairs back to back with enough chairs for every child. Play some music as the children dance and move around the chairs.

When the music stops each child must sit down on a chair. From the second round either one or two chairs, so that either one or two children are out each time. Give the kids who are out a small prize.

The last child left is the overall winner. Line all the children up with the birthday child as the leader. The kids have to follow the leader around the room. You can create an obstacle course for them to go round or you can have different things that the leader has to do at certain points — like blow a raspberry or wiggle their bottom — that everyone following must also do. Change the leader at various points during the game.

Once kids get to six years old they can start to really enjoy team games and more competitive games. They also have more of an attention span for taking part in fun party games with different elements to them. Kids age six, seven, eight and ten are also capable of waiting for their turn during a game and enjoying watching the child who is having their turn.

You can either play just for the fun of it, or keep track of who is winning and then give out prizes. Here is a selection of Minute To Win It games that six, seven and eight year olds will love. You will of course need to use your phone or a stop-watch to time the minutes!!

Challenge the kids to keep a balloon in the air for a minute. Add interesting rules to the challenge, like keeping one hand behind the back or using no hands or only feet. Partner the kids up into twos. Give one child a paper cup and the other child a cup filled with regular sized marshmallows. The pair with the most marshmallows thrown into the paper cup wins. Play this game two at a time. Fill two empty tissue boxes with ping-pong balls, the same amount in each box. Tie the boxes around the waist of each player.

The kids must shake out the ping pong balls without using their hands. The first to empty their box wins or the child with the fewest balls left in their box after a minute wins. This is such an easy party game! One might think that a jump rope is a solo sport or active activity for kids. It probably makes sense to start small with just two kids. And if there are many kids, then you can try competition, and score each pair of kids on how many successful jumps they land, or how long they can last without getting tangled up.

The famous human knot game is often tried with adults in co-working environments, but it is actually quite a fun and useful kids team building game and activity. Basically, have a group of kids sit together in a circle, ideally a minimum of kids.

Have each kid randomly grab lightly! This is a really fun game which borders on strategy and chaos. Obviously it is important to warn the kids to play this game slowly and gingerly, so that no one gets hurt. In some cases, it might be preferred to allow kids to release a wrist in order to properly untangle themselves.

This is a great team building game for kids because it forces kids to work together toward a solution that everyone is aiming toward. To make this kids game even more of a team building activity, you can instruct the kids that they cannot speak — thereby forcing them to strategize with body language, which likely increase the team chemistry that the game sets out to teach.

And if there are enough kids, then they can be broken up into two separate teams. And the team that completes the Traffic Lights challenge first, by getting all kids to their side first, wins! The team building aspect here is that the traffic light representative is on the other team, and the kids trying to race across the room are not racing against each-other, but rather collectively, in order to beat the other team of racers.

This is yet another circle game in which the objective is to find the hidden object. You will need: A small object that can be passed around discreetly, space to play. Kids use them a lot, just as the adults do. But the listeners hate them. This game can teach the kids to speak without using the annoying filers. Sounds interesting? This is a fun game that young kids and teens will enjoy all the same.

The game is innovative and is sure to bring out a lot of laughs in the room. The game encourages the kids to think and use language intelligently. The game also teaches kids to respond consciously, after careful thinking. Q: When do you do this activity? A: I walrus every day to school and whenever I feel like. Q: Do you walrus at night? A: Yes Q: Do you walrus at home?

A: Yes.