Birthday parties are a great way for your child to connect with friends, be entertained and most importantly have fun! Kids party entertainment ideas are limitless: from fun games, face painters, balloon twisting, to even having a unique theme for people to follow.
However, there is usually one problem that comes up every birthday season: what to do for entertainment. Younger children may prefer bouncy castles, a fairy party, or disco party. However, older children may prefer to just stay indoors, talk to their friends, and do something less extravagant. This, of course, all depends on you and your child. In this article, we have compiled our favourite kids party entertainment ideas.
Tips and Tricks You May Want to Consider
- Recruit friends or ‘older kids’ to be helpers on the day
- Set a start and end time. You don’t want to overwork yourself (or the kids), so keeping the party short and sweet is a great way to make sure your guests have fun for the whole time.
- Stand out with the entertainment. Try to avoid the comparison game with birthday parties, you don’t need the most lavish food or location. Entertainment on its own can make a world of difference.
Things to consider when choosing children’s entertainment:
- Cost. Depending on your budget, you may want to stick to some more budget friendly options. For example, you can stick to yummy snacks for food, rather than entire meals.
- Effectiveness. A key factor to choosing entertainment is how many children you can entertain at once. Although face painting can be fun, it only has the capacity for a few children at once. Something more effective, such as a bouncy castle, ensures many children are having fun at once.
- Your day. As a parent, you want to choose entertainment that makes your day easier, and more enjoyable. Kids party entertainment can be a great way to ensure the children are being attended to, so you can spend more time focussing on what matters: your child having a fun day.
Here are some great kids party entertainment ideas we have compiled to help you:
Pizza Parties
Pizza parties are a fun way to entertain children, while making dinner! Children can add their own toppings to their pizza, giving them a completely personalised choice before it goes in the oven. Pizza parties can also be done at home, using your own dining table and an oven. Some fun ideas could be having prizes for the craziest pizza, best looking pizza, or creating dessert pizzas using nutella spread and marshmallows!
Cupcake Decorating
Cooking as a form of entertainment doesn’t stop at pizza. You can also have baking parties, where the children can bake or decorate cupcakes, or other bakery items. Decorating the cupcakes is simple, you just need to supply icing, decorations, and a few candles or sparklers if you are using them as birthday cakes. Children have lots of fun at kids parties when they help create something they can eat! Some unique ideas could include letting the children have ‘free range’ over how they decorate the cakes, or finding a picture off Pinterest and seeing who has the best skills to recreate it.
Dance Parties
You can never go wrong with some good ol’ fashioned dancing! Older children may want to stray away from the traditional birthday party and choose to dance the night away with their friends. Dance parties are a great way to keep your children entertained if they want to do more ‘grown up’ activities. Guests can boogie the night away on the dance floor, which can be at an external location, or better yet, your own living room! You can also hire a DJ to play some beats, or start up a party playlist of your own.
Karaoke Party
Another idea, similar to the dance party, is a karaoke party. Karaoke parties are simple, you can play some songs from your living room, or rent out a Karaoke machine if you are competitive. Karaoke parties partner well with disco-themed parties, where you can decorate your space with lighting and disco balls to unleash your inner party animal!
Outdoor Cinema
Thanks to modern technology, your child’s party can have a mini movie theatre at home! An outdoor cinema can be as simple as hiring or purchasing a home projector, using a white wall (or throwing up a sheet) and projecting a movie on it! The children can snuggle up with some blankets and watch a movie in a special and unique way. Food is also simple, buttered microwave popcorn, and other simple snacks, are a great way to imitate the cinema experience.
Bouncy Castles
You can never go wrong with a classic bouncy castle. Bouncy castles are a great way to keep children entertained during those beautiful warmer days. Jumping castles allow parents to take a step back, relax, and let the children bounce all of their party energy away. Having a bouncy castle, or a jump house is classic party entertainment that your children are sure to remember.
Keeping with the classic idea, there are some other kids party entertainment ideas that fit in with this category. This includes face painters, balloon twisting, or even having the fairies (or other loveable characters) come visit!
Bouncy castles have a range of fun themes for your child to choose from. If you are looking for a jumping castle hire in Darwin or Perth, Monsterball has several amazing options to choose from, including a classic bounce house, a double lane slide, and a Batman themed one! There are many themes and sizes to choose from, meaning your child will have an amazing time, no matter which item you end up choosing. Monsterball also offers water slide hire in Darwin and Perth that you can pair with your bouncy castles for extra fun!
Just remember: the best party bags are the memories your child and their friends take home with them!