Children's birthday games: instructions for birthday games for children, philosophy

If you want to make your son’s or daughter’s birthday party a real event, you have to come up with something special. It is not only crucial to think of great gifts, but also to provide fun and games.

When it comes to planning birthday games, you shouldn’t make the mistake of focusing entirely on your own "intuitive moments" to leave. After all, it is difficult to estimate how well a game idea is received by the children. What was thought nice can easily turn into a flop.

You can prepare for such situations by imagining a whole range of games that children can be offered.

So that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel, I have put together a small collection of 11 games for children’s birthdays. You can use this collection of children’s games to design children’s birthdays up to the age of around 11 years.

With a little creativity, the game instructions can of course be easily modified so that you can better adapt the level of difficulty and the fun factor to the children present.

I chose the ideas in such a way that they can be accomplished with minimal financial expenditure. Because what children enjoy on their birthday doesn’t have to be expensive.

1st birthday game idea: paper plane long throw

Here you only need some paper that the children can use to craft the paper plane. If the children are still too small, the adults can also take care of the paper planes. Then all you need is a long corridor and a starting line. The children can then start one after the other and try to let the paper plane sail as far as possible. You can also throw several rounds here, with points being awarded for the longest throws. After 10 throws, for example, the winning places are determined. The first 3 places, for example, get a little attention.

2nd birthday game idea: scavenger hunt for birthday presents

It’s actually boring to just put the presents on the table and from Let the birthday boy unpack. The gift delivery can be made much more exciting with a small scavenger hunt. For this purpose, the gifts from the parents (possibly also together with the other birthday guests) are secretly hidden in the house and garden. For each hiding place you write a small riddle on a piece of paper that the birthday child has to solve in order to be able to use the respective one "sweetheart" get.

Hiding oven: I (the gift) hid in a place that only gets hot when you’re hungry!
Hide under the stairs: I am under a place where you can walk. Whoever walks on me always wants to go high or low.
Hide under the apple tree: my hair is green and I have just one leg. For me, people are just little dwarfs, whom I give sweet fruits in summer. A little treasure is waiting for you where my leg touches the ground!

You put these puzzles in a box – the birthday child always draws a riddle that has to be solved to get the gift. The other children can help and get a little attention for good advice. If the riddle is too difficult, as a parent you can give the child further tips with help.

Variation: The birthday child can also play a pirate captain who has to find the hidden treasures with his team. When all the treasures have been found, the birthday child may "Open treasure chests" and enjoy the gifts. Instead of working with small puzzles, you can also design small treasure maps that should show the birthday child the way.

3rd birthday game idea: "I can see what you can not see"

The children sit in a circle and one of them is allowed to choose an object in the room that can be seen from the circle. Then he says "I can see what you can not see . " and describes a property of the object.

Everyone else has to guess from the description what the little puzzle master might mean. The winner, i.e. the one who solves the puzzle, may formulate the next puzzle.

4th birthday game idea: pantomime terms – guessing proverbs

You give in advance notes in a pot with various terms such as stomach ache, policeman, teacher, truck, tractor, dentist, towel, carpet, traffic light, homework etc. Then a child is allowed to draw a term and has to play the term pantomime, so only with hands and feet (body) without saying anything. The other children guess which term is meant. If you want to make it a little harder, you can also choose famous idioms, which are then to be shown in pantomime.

Examples: Morning hour has gold in your mouth! – Show someone around! – Go through the wall with your head! – Suck something out of your fingers! – Write something behind your ears! – Blame someone! – Hit the nail on the head! – Don’t see the forest for the trees! – Put sand in someone’s eyes! – I have no idea about turkeys and bubbles.

5th birthday game idea: silent post

The children sit together in a circle and one is determined who is allowed to send the silent mail. This child should choose or think of a small sentence e.g. B. "Hocus Pocus Fidibus – three times black cat" and whispers to his neighbors as quietly as possible (without the others being able to hear him). The last one has to say out loud what he understood. Since usually not everyone understands the sentence correctly, it is twisted in the course of the whisper and in the end, funny things come out like: Hoskus drives the school bus and eats the black cat. The more children on the "Breastfeeding Post" participate, the greater the likelihood that such funny nonsense will end up coming out.

6th birthday game idea: Eating with someone else’s hands

A child is seated at a table and provided with a small cape so that only the head can be seen. In front of him is a cake on a plate that he is supposed to eat. Behind the child there is a second blindfolded child who is supposed to feed the child with a cloak. To do this, they can stretch their arms under the cloak and feed the child with the cloak. From the front it looks as if the child (with a cloak) is eating with his own arms and doing very strange contortions to get to the cake. A real roar that not only makes the little ones laugh.

7. Game idea for the birthday: tap the pot

A child is blindfolded and given a wooden spoon. A saucepan is hidden in the room with a little candy underneath.

The other children can help by following the right or wrong direction "hot" or "cold" specify. The "Blindman’s Buff" must now guess in which direction the pot is standing and tap the floor with the wooden spoon until it hits the pot and then gets the candy.

8. Game for children’s birthday: blow cotton wool

The children sit together in a large circle and in the middle is a flat plate. Then each child receives a balloon and a cotton ball. The children are then given the task of blowing the cotton ball into the plate (the target) with the air from the balloon. However, you can only move your own cotton ball with the balloon – if you blow another person’s cotton ball away, you have to start over. The winner is the first to blow his cotton ball into the plate. If the balloon runs out of breath in the meantime, it can of course be inflated again.

9. Game idea: who is the kitten?

The children sit in a circle with their eyes closed and the parents secretly fetch a child from the circle. This child is the kitten. It then goes to another child, taps it from behind and has to "meow" say – or make another sound that is typical of a cat. The person who was tapped has to guess who the cat is based on the sounds. If he guessed correctly, a new cat is determined – if he guesses wrong, he must "cat" tap another child in a circle.

10th birthday game idea: Lirum Larum spoon style

The little guests sit together at the table and a child (or an adult) taps the table with a wooden spoon and says: "Lirum Larum spoon style, if you can’t do anything, you can’t do much!" The other children should repeat the sentence and knock on the table, just like the person who does it. The presenter can try to trick and stop knocking or saying something in the middle.

You can make additional movements that the others have to imitate. For example, wiggle your head, take a spoon in your hand, touch your nose, etc. Anyone who continues by mistake or has been confused has to give a deposit. When the verse has been sung, the child is wrong and can also play with the others.

11. Game idea Gifts advise with the guests

Every child who has brought a gift for a birthday can secretly hide it in the house. The birthday child has to wait blindfolded until all the presents are hidden. Then the birthday child can remove the blindfold. The guests are now giving tips such as to the birthday child "hot" and "cold", to guide it to the hiding place. Once the gift is found, the birthday child has to guess who the gift is from.

With this collection of games you should now have a lot of ideas on how to turn a children’s birthday party into a great event. With a little imagination, these games can of course be modified and the level of difficulty adjusted to the level of the children.