Party Tip #3 - Toddler Parties = Particpation not competitive activities

 My biggest suggestion when doing parties for the younger kiddies...is to make it all about participation not competition. Games should not have a clear winner but something where they all get something for joining in. At this age they do not have the ability to understand why the other person got a prize and they didnt. So to avoid the tears of disappointment keep them all as winners. Some of the activities/games that are easy to do to involve all the kids are:

• Pinata - may I suggest that once the loot has dropped that and adult divide the loot evenly between chidren or if they are old enough to count then they are told how many pieces they can pick
• Treasure Hunts - they can either go individually or look as a team...for my daughters last party we did a animal safari...so we had animals hidden in the garden and each animal had a bag of goodies to be sharesical d out between kids (one animal had stickers for everyone, another had a pencil for everyone etc)
• Musical Hoops - Very similiar concept to musical statues but dance around outside of hoops and when music stops everyone gets into a hoop (bit easier concept for the littlies to understand). The good thing I find with this is it is fun to not eliminate kids but still take away hoops each time...then the kids have to try and fit into the hoops together. Do you think all the kids would fit into the one hoop to finish? Think about the size of the group and set a challenge so if they can fit into ???many hoops then they get a prize as a group. I fit about 6 or 7 (3 yr olds) in one hoop.
• Pass the Parcel - make sure each child wins atleast 1 layer (put somthing little like stickers, freddo frogs or flat lollypops in each layer). t is not a hassle if someone wins more than once as long as everyone wins atleast once.

Other things that you can do that don't involve competition are things like craft activities or cooking activities (make a bunch of bickies or cakes and let the kids decorate them). I am hoping to design some birthday craft kits in the near future but April/May are currently quite busy so these will probably happen mid year. If someone is looking for some ideas in the meantime I am happy to help make up a craft kit suited to your party theme. Send me a message with your theme and budget for craft and I will see what I can come up with. I am also willing to run craft activities at the kids parties so really just depends on what your budget is for your party.
Happy party planning!
Joellen