3 Year Old Birthday Party - Malvern,PA

We did a 3pm party for our 3 year old in the summer.

Honestly, most of them have such short attention spans, that we just let them wreak complete havoc of all the toys (it ended-up raining and ruining the idea of letting them burn off energy outside).

They had a blast. I probably won't plan any activities until they're closer to 5-6 as they're too short-attentioned and hard to get to be together all at once.

3 year old boy party...so fun!
Theme: Join the band
Time: Jam it up at eleven
Serve drum sticks(chicken),pb and Jam, chips and dip it,and jazzed up fruit salad(colorful).
Craft could be decorate your own tamborines....stickers and such
and play mucic, and let them jump around with there tamborines. Play music freeze....etc....fun fun fun.

I love Celeste's idea of a musical theme. I would say morning is best & serve an easy lunch. Musical chairs, pin the thing on the whatever is always a hit. LIMBO is always a huge hit. My son & his buddies would have done that alone for 2 hours! :) The simpler the better. I'd skip crafts at 3.

For 3 year olds you could do it right before lunch and hot dogs or something to start off. Or you can start off right after lunch. People usually will feed an early lunch before coming.

We always loved pinatas! Just be sure you have someone keeping the kids in line away from the pinata and taking turns. And when they pinata breaks open, keep the kids away until the child hitting has the bat/stick down and has their bag ready as well as the other kids. Then yell for them to go for it! Take pics! Fill with candy that is age appropriate, nothing that chokes and put in a some cheap toys like sunglasses, spinning tops, etc. With this, you won't have to make up treat bags. So this kills two birds with one stone, game and treats, lol!

We would let the kids run nutty for a while, do the pinata, then do gifts and then cake and ice cream. They'll have their treat bag to play with while the birthday boy opens gifts, and any mess will be made as the kids are eating cake and ice cream and heading out the door for home, lol. Don't keep it too lengthy or they'll get bored. Make a 2 hour window max and time your activities. And give parents a specific time to pick up if they're dropping off, and if they stay, give them a specific time that the party will be over so they can make other plans, or go straight home and put their child down for a nap, lol.

K. B
mom to 5 including triplets

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Hi D.,

I racked my brain about how to throw a birthday party in the winter time where you can't use the outdoors. It was tough but I finally came up with a Tinkerbell/Pirate Theme and it worked out great!

My daughter's 3 year birthday party was in Dec. and I started it at 2:00pm. We had no problems with any of the kids. There were about 10 kids and their parents at our party. There was a lot of people =0). We had it at my house. My daughter doesn't like naps anyways so having it in the afternoon was not a problem. But if your son needs to have a nap I say do the party from 12:00pm to 2:00pm. The kids will nap in the car on the way home. =0)

As I said above, my daughter's party was Tinkerbell themed. The little girls came as fairies and the boys were pirates. You can do the opposite and have a pirate party where the little girls invited get to be fairies or pink and black pirate girls. There is a lot of pink pirate stuff at Party City.

We played games such as

1. Hot potato (You could use a scarf and put gold coins in it and pass that around. You could call the game "Pass the treasure.") I used a small tinkerbell megaphone that I had purchased at the dollar store to use as decoration and give away with the favors.

2. Walk the Plank: I got a fake foam sword from Target. It was a $1. And I got a piece of ply wood that I had in the shed to use as the plank. You could just use blue painters tape and put that on the floor if you need to. I placed tape on the floor boxing three areas at the end of the plank. The first area was closest to the plank. That was area one, then I place a two in a box (Like hopscotch boxes in a straight line)and then the last box was number three. I got a blind fold and put goodies like candy and stickers in a treasure box I got from my nephew's house. I told the kids that I had pirate treasure in my treasure box. To get the treasure inside they would have to walk the plank and then jump. What ever box they landed in was how many pieces of treasure they got to choose to take home from the treasure box. So if a child jumped in the #2 box they got to pick out two pieces of treasure. The little kids were not blind folded. But the older kids where. I held the sword out so when they reached the end of the plank they knew when they had to jump. When I was ready for them to jump I took the sword away and they jumped. Kids and parents enjoyed this game. It got really funny when my 11 year old wanted to participate. The little ones were helped across the plank but they had fun jumping and earning prizes.

I did a lot more at the party. The girls made fairy wings and decorated them with glitter glue pens, gems and markers. I played tinkerbell in the background on the TV. Even the cake was in the shape of a tree with a tinkerbell candle sitting on top of it. Areas in my basement were named after areas in Pixie Hollow. So the game area was Fall Forrest and you put your presents in Winter Woods. The girls made fairy wings in Tinkers Nook and the grown ups hung out in the Mainland...where the food was. So you could do this idea but pirate themed.

The party was great!

Hope this helps you!

T.

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If your heart is set on an activity, stickers is probably the easiest (either just on paper, or to decorate something - kazoos if you went with a music theme). Parents will need to be involved in whatever craft you plan, so keep in mind that you'll need space for the parents as well as the kids.

We did my son's at Atomic Bounce. It was perfect for 3 year olds (though we had kids up to 8 years there too and they loved it) because there were 4 inflatables to play in and lots of ride ons, and huge blocks. No clean up. No worries about our house having anything broken. It was lovely and everyone had a great time.

Here's their address. http://www.atomicbouncerocks.com They also do outdoor rentals if you just want something at your house.