What does 20 children + water guns + lots of transformers make?

My son’s 5th birthday party!!

The “big bash” was bigger than what we normally have.  With 20 children ranging from babies to my son’s 8 year old sister, it was crazy, but a lot of fun. I am so grateful to all my Playcentre friends and our family for helping out!

In our family we have big birthday parties when our children turn 1 and 5. The rest of the time we have special family outings and a small party in the evening.

At the party:

• We started out with a treasure hunt that my older daughters ran. They hid the letters from my son’s name all around Playcentre. On arrival the children got a card with my son’s name on it. They had to find the letters and match it to the letters on the card. Once they did this, they went to one of my daughters to get a little bag of lollies.
• My hubby put a Megatron mask on (the bady from transformers) and ran around while the children took turns spraying him with water guns. Once they hit him (over and over again! hehehe) they got their party favours which was their own novelty cup and a curly strawer.
• Then it was time for afternoon tea – yummy fruit platter: strawberries, watermelon, grapes and pineapple. Fairy bread and chocolate hail bread. Marshmallows. Ham & Pineapple Pizzas. Popcorn….I think that’s it?
• For the adults: Spinach & Feta dip with green, red, yellow & orange capsicums, carrots and rice crackers. Beetroot & cream cheese dip with crostinis. We also had some yummy scrummy gourmet pizza .
• After the kids ate they did a lot of running around outside.
• Pass the parcel was next – as you can imagine the parcel started out quite big!

• All the children were eager to get their presents opened, and my son was eager to open them! Thank you for all the lovely presents!

• Singing happy birthday was at the very end and we got to eat some birthday cake! yeah!

My favourite part had to be watching my hubby running around and getting sprayed by the water guns – what a trooper!

TIPS:

• Get a good venue. We used our Playcentre which could easily accomodate 20 children sitting around a table.
• Have enough adults to help. Hubby and I were lucky that so many lovely friends and family members helped out in the kitchen, games, and cleaning up. They really helped make the party such an enjoyable experience!
• Have a plan and keep it moving. Know which order you are doing the games etc and keep and eye on the time. Because we choose to have the present opening as an activity, I put pass the parcel before it to help gather the children inside.
• Keep it simple and special. Everything that happened on the day was a balance of how much time we were able to put into it, how much money it would cost, and the flow of the party on the day. I think whatever we do for our children, in whatever form that may take, I’m sure they enjoy it!