If you’re throwing a birthday party, it’s good to have a few kid-approved party game ideas in your back pocket to get the party started! Whether you’ll be outdoors or indoors, we have a list of the top 5 kids birthday party games.
1. Treasure Hunt
This treasure hunt game is fun for all ages and can be played indoors or outdoors. For younger kids, hide small treats, like candies or mini chocolates, or tokens, like buttons or carnival tickets, around the house or backyard and start everyone off with a “ready, set, go!” Crown the kid who gets the most tokens or treats the winner!
For older kids, create a treasure map with clues to guide them towards the prizes. This one is great for building teamwork as the kids will have to all work together to solve the clues. You can use rhymes or riddles to make it extra challenging and fun! This birthday party game is a must for pirate themed parties.
2. Egg & Spoon Race
The egg and spoon race is a classic outdoor game to play at a birthday party. It can be played in “easy mode” or made a bit more challenging. To start, have all kids line up on one side of the yard while balancing a hardboiled egg on a spoon. Once the race starts, the kid to cross the finish line first without dropping the egg wins! If someone drops the egg, they have to go back to the starting line and begin again.
To add an extra challenge, have kids work in pairs. They’ll need to successfully transfer the egg to the other person’s spoon without dropping it when they get to the other side and then one of them will dash to the finish line!
3. Charades
Charades is a fun game for birthday parties! To play charades, divide up into teams of any size. One player will think of a book title, famous person’s name, famous saying, movie title or song title to act out while the other players try to guess it. You can also use the charades boardgame to draw a card with a charade to act out. Teams will earn a point for each correct guess. The team with the most points wins!
For younger kids, have a set of easy categories ready to go like kids’ tv show characters, animals, people and actions that they can choose from. Use a timer to keep the game moving and to give everyone a turn.
4. Musical Chairs
For this classic birthday party game for kids, set up 1 less chair than the number of children that are playing. Line the chairs up in a row but alternate the direction that each seat faces. When the music starts, kids walk around the chairs until they hear the music stop. Then they rush to find a chair and the last person standing after multiple rounds is out. To make the game easier, have the chairs closer together. To make it harder, increase the space between chairs so there is a little bit of scrambling to get to a seat.
A chair-free alternative is musical statues. Everyone dances when the music is on and freezes when the music stops suddenly. Anyone still moving when the music stops are out of the game. Have the kids sing along to create some distraction. They might be so focused on singing that they forget to freeze!
5. Water Balloon Toss
This outdoor birthday party game is perfect for summer days! Pair kids up and have them toss a water balloon back and forth starting 3 feet apart. After each successful toss they must take one step back. If the balloon pops, they are out of the game. The winner is the pair that is still standing at the end with an intact balloon!
For a much more challenging variation, have one of the players wear a blindfold. The non-blindfold wearing player gives directions to the blindfolded player who is in charge of throwing the balloon. Watch out so you don’t get wet!
Whether you are indoors or outdoors, planning a party for younger kids or older kids, there is a game for every party. If you’re looking to celebrate your birthday at Great Wolf Lodge, our birthday celebrations are sure to pack in some water park entertainment fun for everyone!
