How to do party games a lot better!
Children love nothing more than playing party games when it comes to birthday parties. Conventional wisdom would say to choose the games the children are familiar with and enjoy.
What if I told you that there’s an improved way to play these games, but with far more fun for the children? As a professional children’s entertainer, it’s my job to maximise enjoyment for all so here’s my party game secrets.
Most games involve elimination with the last child remaining the winner. This is a bad idea. First of all it leads to the possibility of those eliminated to run around chaotically causing havoc. Secondly the children get bored and upset when eliminated. Instead of eliminating children decide who was the best at the end of the game.
For example, with musical bumps you explain that you are looking for the fastest boy and the fastest girl. After a few minutes pick the winners, no one is left waiting at the sides and all remain participating. This also works well to pick children who haven’t yet won anything.
From experience children love musical statues. Here’s how I make it even better. Instead of freezing, they have to assume the pose of a popular character. Peppa Pig uses a fist for her snout, a finger for her tail, bends her knees and oinks like a pig (naturally). Even the boys enjoy this.
I choose the best boy pig and best girl pig. Other characters I get them to impersonate are Spider-Man, Batman, a plate of wobbly jelly and I get them to pull their funniest face.
By far my most popular game is guess the theme tune. It’s quite easy to set up. Most modern phones have a dictaphone app. Record the theme tune from YouTube with this app, hook your phone up to a dock system and you have the makings of a fun game.
If you have an iPhone this is very simple and if you don’t own a docking system more than likely a friend will. I’m not sure how this works with android devices though I imagine it wouldn’t be tricky with their popularity. Some stereos have an audio in socket so you just need to buy a cheap lead from Maplins and your good to go.
Happy party gaming!