How Many Kids for 7 Year Old Party and Ideaevery

You are in California. How bad can the weather be? NY in March yeah a problem. Plan for a baseball party at park, but have a back up plan in case of heavy rain.

If my son wanted to have a baseball party during a season of unpredictable weather I would take a small group (no more than 12) to one of those indoor sports parks, where they could have fun in the batting cages.
If that's not an option you need to tell your son that he needs to rethink his plan. I'm all for trying to make a child's birthday special but sometimes you simply can't have everything you want, and you need to be flexible.

I think your son's idea is wonderful.

A 'real' game or a few kids (so one up to bat, one waiting and the rest out the field)? It will be kind of a big party if you have team teams of kids (which is fine, but bigger than you may want).

I would invite the kids he wants and do a semi game without the correct number of players. This will allow you to have fewer kids and not an 'us against them' vibe at the party.

I would risk a park (i agree the weather is not that extreme and think of bcd up plan like the wii at home or batting cages indoors) and do a total hotdog and other baseball food party. You can put the dogs in a crock pot or just cook them and have them all wrapped in tin foil. Chips, fruit, veggies and water.

How about batting cages?

My kids invite their close circle of friends only. Those are the kids they regularly play with outside of school. There are usually between 7 and 10 kids invited to the party. I would make a list of the kids that come over to your house to play, invite your son to play at their houses or to go on outings and see how many that is. You could do a pizza and video game party at home with ten kids or less.

Another thing that is common here is having the party in a different month. Many kids with winter birthdays have summer parties so they can do outdoor venues.

What about going to watch a baseball game? We were thinking about that for one of my boys this year. Our local team has birthday party packages for games.

I read a rule of thumb on mamapedia years ago, that I sort of stick with each year. The age of the child is the number of friends he can invite. (My daughters don't have to count our family friends or cousins in that number, so we do end up with more people.) A turning-7 year old would get to invite 7 of his friends.

Please don't tell him to just invite the boys. Not all girls would be bored by baseball. Some girls like sports! He should know which of his friends like to participate in sports and which might like to just spectate.

I too live in California, and have to deal with unpreditable weather (though mine is in the middle of summer... so how hot will it be!). If there is an indoor sport park nearby, that might be your best bet. But if it's too cost prohibitive, or unavailable, I would plan a park party and with a rain plan just in case.

BTW, if your son just wants to invite friends over to play wiisports, then there is nothing wrong with doing just that.
Good luck!

Plan his party in the last weekend of March. Either plan for a game or batting cages. I suggest you tell invitees to bring their favorite glove and a pair of cleats. Then make sure the field is available. You don't want to battle a coach for a field. Our fields are first come first serve.

over 50 guests????
i'm overwhelmed just thinking about it.
the party is for him, so there's no way i'd tell my kid 'your guests might not like your idea.' if you scale it back to the more normal 'age plus one', i'll bet he can find 8 kids who love baseball.
weather here is ALWAYS unpredictable, so the norm is to have a plan, and a plan B. are there indoor batting cages if the weather is bad?
khairete
S.

What about the battting cages then to a pizza parlour then ice cream shop?

Do you have a park near your house? You could have the party at your house for as many people as you wanted. Then 30 mins in walk to the park for a baseball game...make it no longer than 30 mins or ppl will get
bored. Walk back for games/food/cake/ice cream & gifts.

You can still cut back. Just invite friends from school. You could do a separate family party at home (low key, no baseball).

Maybe only have him invite the boys from school if he wants to play baseball as the girls might be bored.

If he wants to invite everyone, you could have it at home, play "baseball type games, have a pitching net out front in the yard/street/sidewalk/side yard.

Then decorate the entire house in baseball attire. Little baseball shirts you hand out as party favors.

Penants

Decorate the house as a baseball field (dugout in the living room).

Hand out little bats.

Have mitts hanging everywhere, pick a team color, banners, baseballs,
someone carrying a thing to hold popcorn like they sell at a ball park, serve hot dogs, popcorn, corndogs, soda, cotton candy,

We have local indoor places to play baseball or do batting cages. Why not do something like that? Or even wait a month and do it a little later - though I can tell you it can rain any day anywhere, so outside is always taking a risk

I love the idea of going TO a game. We have a local minor league team and that's not only affordable, but a ton of fun. They would make a big deal about it being a birthday too.

Well--if you need two teams--how about 18-20 kids?
Aren't there any indoor sports places near you?

Postpone the party till mid April? Just do a family dinner / cake a small gift on his actual birthday? He is old enough to understand that if he wants a party at a park he need to wait a few weeks.

In our area there's an indoor sports center that hosts birthday parties. The kids can go play baseball inside, use batting cages, play soccer, basketball, frisbee, puttputt, whatever. Mostly they run around. I'd say 25 kids for a party like that so you have enough kids for a baseball game.

However, I'm not the type to host big parties. I'd suggest inviting his 2-3 closest friends to a spring training game. Cheaper than a season game, and they'll have a great time. Check out the link: http://losangeles.angels.mlb.com/schedule/index.jsp?c_id=...

Our rules was always the age rule: 7 years old, 7 kids. 8 years old, 8 kids. Nobody enjoys a party with 50 people, not really. Certainly not you and certainly the birthday child doesn't interact with all of them. If you have a very large family to make up the 50 people, have a separate family day with no theme except "birthday". Then have a "peer" party with just a small number of friends. In fact, the large parties start to appear to the school friends like a "gift grab" - the birthday child never opens the gifts in front of the guests, the guests don't feel the pleasure of giving, the child never learns to say "thank you" (whether he loves the gift or not), and everyone just ends up feeling disconnected.

You're going to have to break with tradition and start a new one here - he's older, he's got to learn to make choices in his friends, he needs to be a good host and realize that he has friends who like him but who do not play baseball. Suggest a summer get-together "for no reason" other than inviting his baseball playing friends for a day at the park. Separate the birthday from that. He can certainly have a birthday theme - get cupcakes decorated like baseballs, get balloons and paper goods that reflect the theme, etc. We have a candy store in one of the malls that has all kinds of things including chocolate balls wrapped in foil that looks like a baseball. Put a paper tablecloth out and scatter some baseball-type confetti on it, put out baseball plates and cups, and you're done. You can serve ball park type food if you want to (ball park franks? small boxes of popcorn?) - and if you are really into it, you can make a tray out of a large cardboard container (such as the thing that holds a case of soda) and be like a ball park food vendor, passing out the goodies.

In my music classes, to get the kids up and moving sometimes, I played a "music baseball" game. I made "bases" and put them on the floor, then I asked music trivia questions (anything we'd been covering in class) and the kids advanced through the bases with 3 strikes available. You could make up questions of ANY topic or topics, and mix them up. As the "pitcher" you could choose questions for each "batter" based on that child's area of interest - sports, music, toys & games, spelling, math, someone else's middle name or siblings' names, etc. Even with 3 strikes, it goes fast if you don't give them 20 minutes to answer each one. I also had an "on deck" circle for the next kid who was "up". If you don't have a ton of kids, it goes fast and everyone has a chance to be "up". Make some of the questions harder to be sure you get some "outs" so the other team can be up to bat!

I think this is going to be much more fun than kids waiting their turns to play Wii, and parents will be thrilled that you did some real games instead of video games.

You could also play indoor ball with Nerf products, or get a pool "noodle" and cut it down to be a "bat"

You can also get a great book of "old fashioned" party games - kids around here just LOVE that their parents have introduced things the kids have never seen, and now a bunch of parties have potato races and sack races (old pillow cases that are stained or don't have mates work great, or go to the dollar store). People have given up the bounce houses and the petting zoos because of the outrageous expense.

Go simple and let your child enjoy the company of GOOD friends (learning to make choices as well as be a good host so everyone has fun), let him open the gifts right there with his guests and thank them, have him write thank you notes afterwards, etc. - at which point he will be thrilled he didn't have 50 people! You can have a manageable party in your home and not break the bank.

One kid per year of age. We always kind of followed this rule except for certain years (like 10 - double digits, or family parties).

The problem with the Wii is that there will be a number of kids sitting around while the 2 kids play.

I nunderstand that weather can be unpredictable but you could always plan it for a sAturday and have a rain-date of Sunday or the following SAturday. Or, how about an indoor baseball place, or a batting cage? I'm not sure how much these things cost but call a few batting cages and ask if they have a guy who can show them how to improve their batting. If you don't know of any call your local little league - they know where they are.

Then bring them all home for pizza or hot dogs and a baseball movie like sandlot.

when you mentioned unpredictable weather I assumed you were in the north - we can't play baseball now until April.