Easy Party Games For Toddlers

When it comes to party games for toddlers you need to understand that toddlers enjoy different kinds of games than older children. While older kids love competitive games they can leave a group of toddlers upset and throwing tantrums because they lost.

If you’ve got a birthday coming up and you’re thinking about games you should choose fun games and activities that don’t involve much competition. You don’t want to have to have some kids be “winners” and some kids be “losers”. It’s also a good idea to avoid games where kids might be left waiting for a long time. Do you know a toddler that has any degree of patience? So what are the games that toddlers really like?

We’ve put together a list of some great party games for toddlers including:

• Arts and Crafts
• Dressing up in costumes
• Silly songs
• Games with a lot of action
• Playing pretend

Musical Bash

If there are two things toddlers love it’s singing and dancing. Think about putting together a sing along that involves some actions including:

• The Wheels on the Bus
• Itsy Bitsy Spider
• If You’re Happy and You Know it
• Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes
• Ring Around the Rosie

You can make the games more fun by including musical instruments like tambourines and drums. You can purchase the instruments for yourself or make everything even more fun by having the toddlers create their own instruments. With a little help from the adults of course!

Parachute Fun

It doesn’t get much more fun than a parachute game. Get all the kids to grab hold of the parachute and wave it up and down. There are plenty of different games you can play using a parachute. If all you had was a parachute the toddlers would probably never get bored of it. It’s one of the ultimate party games for toddlers.

We found a video on YouTube that we’ve include of kids playing a parachute game called “Cat and Mouse”. The kids wave the parachute and then the adult calls out two names. One person becomes the cat and the other becomes the mouse. The mouse hides under the parachute and the cat goes on top of it.

The aim of the game is for the cat to crawl on top of the parachute and tag the mouse. If the mouse gets tagged twice then you call out two more names and the game continues.

Chalk Art

Another thing that toddlers just adore is sidewalk chalk, so you should make a celebration out of the stuff. Chalk art gives kids a chance to really express themselves and it’s not expensive at all. You can just take a trip to Wal-Mart and find a large tub for under $5. This is a great idea if you’ve got a sidewalk or a drive that you can empty and let the kids draw and play on.

Chalk Art Ideas:

• Just let them go crazy and draw and color to their hearts content
• Have the children lie down and spread out on the sidewalk while another child draws around them. Then let the children color themselves in and decorate themselves.
• Put together an obstacle course drawn in chalk. You could draw circles and have the children hop from one to the other, or draw a line and have them walk across it; or make chalk triangles that they have to weave between.
• Get the kids to draw roads on the sidewalk and drive their toy cars down them

Really the only thing stopping you is your imagination! That’s the beauty of chalk art party games for toddlers.

Finger Painting

Finger painting can get messy but it sure is fun. We’ve got some tips on making these party games for toddlers a little less messy. You should use trash bag with holes cut out for the arms and heads. It’s a great way to give your children a protective apron to keep clothes clean. Just throw them away as soon as you’re done with them. Buy a large roll of white art paper and put it down where all the kids can get to it.

Let them paint in groups if they want or give them space to make their own individual piece of art.

You could also buy a plain wooden box from a dollar store and let the children decorate their own boxes to keep as a party favor.

Bubble Bash

Bubble Bash is one of the most fun party games for toddlers because it involves one of their favorite things in the world; bubbles! Just blow a lot of bubbles and have the children see how many they can pop before the reach the ground. Then let the children see who can blow the biggest bubble, the smallest bubble, who can blow the most at once, who can make the bubble that lasts the longest, and who can make the bubble that goes the furthest.

Children can use pipe cleaners to make their own bubble wands, or you could open up a wire coat hanger and use it to create a large hoop for blowing massive bubbles. You just need to pour the bubble mixture onto a large cookie sheet and then dip your coat hanger into it. Then wave it around and watch the looks on the toddler’s face as they see these huge bubbles come out of nowhere.

You can send kids home with their bubbles as a fun party favor.

Traditional Birthday Party Games for Toddlers

Duck Duck Goose

Start out by having all the children sit in a circle. One of the children goes around the circle, tapping everyone on the head and saying “duck” as they do until they decide someone is the “goose”. This is when they tap someone on the head and say “goose” instead of duck. The “goose” has to get up and try to tag the child before they are able to run around the circle and steal the goose’s spot in the circle.

If a player does get tagged then they have to sit in the middle of the circle until the next goose is tagged. The “goose” has to now walk around the circle and pick a new goose.

Freeze Dance

Start out by putting on some music and letting the kids dance to it. When you turn the music off all the children have to stop and not move until you turn the music back on. There’s also a variation of this game where a player that moves has to sit out the rest of the game, but toddlers might react badly to this so you might want to avoid it.

If you’d like to still give children an incentive to freeze then you could give a sticker to the child who freezes the best each round. If you do offer a prize like this it’s a good idea to make sure each child has a sticker before the game finishes.

Hide and Go Seek

Hide and go seek is one of the classic party games for toddlers and there’s a good reason for that. It’s just so fun! Most people already know about hide and go seek but, just in case you don’t know, here’s a quick look at it. Choose one person to be “it”. Every other player has a set amount of time (typically to the count of 30) to hide somewhere. The person who was chosen to be it then has to explore and find all the hidden children.

There are also some variations to this classic game including one where hiders have to run and tag when they are discovered.

Treasure Hunt

To play Treasure Hunt you need to hide things around the playing area. It helps to create a theme for the hunt and choose objects that fit that theme. Get the children to work together and try and find everything and place all the items in a basket. That way the kids aren’t competing and they can’t hurt one another’s feelings.

One fun thing you could do is hide large puzzle pieces. Get the children to find all the pieces and then put it together. Finish up by giving the children a prize for doing so well and working together.