Games & Activities

Planning a teenager’s birthday party can be a bit of a difficult task for any adult. The ages between thirteen and nineteen can be a challenging period—especially when it comes to the age-old teenager moodiness! Never fear, this kind of challenge can totally be won and your teenager will love you all the more for it. It can be a fun experience figuring out the balance it requires to create a memorable birthday party for your teenager without coming across as the “overbearing” adult. Let’s first look at some basic activities that will work for teenagers of all ages and genders.

Icebreaker Games

If you’re having a simple, low-key birthday party for your teenager at home, icebreaker games are a great way to not only get the party started, but to keep the party going smoothly and quite effortlessly until it’s over. Some really fun ideas for icebreaker games include the Beach Ball Game, Have You Ever Musical Chairs, or Song Lyrics Match-Up. The Beach Ball icebreaker game consists of a large beach ball with short questions written in permanent marker all over it. Party guests get into a circle and throw the beach ball from one person to another. When someone catches the beach ball, they must answer the question that their right thumb is touching. For the Have you Ever Musical Chairs icebreaker game, place chairs in a circle with enough chairs for everyone minus one. One person must stand in the middle of the chair circle and as a “Have you ever…?” question. If anyone answers yes to the question, they must get up and quickly scramble to another person’s chair. Obviously one person will be left without a chair, and that person becomes the next questioner. Finally, for the Song Lyrics Match-Up icebreaker game, find song lyrics to popular songs that your teenagers will definitely know and write down several lyrics from these songs. Cut the lines in half and place them in a bowl for the guests to randomly pick, and they must go find their match-up song lyric! Great icebreaker games for a happy-go-lucky and “entertains itself” successful birthday party.

Games for Boys or Girls

If you have a specific theme or gender that you’re focusing on for your teen birthday party, go with the season. For summertime parties, outdoor games like cornhole and scavenger hunts work wonderfully for boys, while activities like Make Your Own Music Video and Twister make fun ideas for girls. In the colder months, staying indoors is more appealing, so great activities for girls Canvas Painting and Fingernail Designing Kits. Boys would enjoy video game tournaments and two-minute activity stations with games like Battleship for the ultimate challenge. Themes also work wonders for both genders while indoors, like a pajama slumber party for girls complete with their favorite chick clicks and a likewise a stay over party for boys, complete with their own brand of action movies and video games.

If you want to get out of the house with your teenager for their birthday party, then the best spot would be a place like Dave and Busters, in which the guests get to eat and play arcade games in a social environment. This takes clean up and cooking off of you and provides hours of activities for all ages and both genders of teens. Other out-and-about ideas for your teenager’s birthday party include a casual restaurant, bowling alley, skating rink, the mall, or the local aquatic center. All of these options offer an affordable solution in an extremely sociable environment, allowing for a wide array of activities at your fingertips that your teens are sure to enjoy. At any of these outside venues, there is still possibility to incorporate your icebreaker games and whatever theme you might choose for your teenager’s birthday party—whether it be pirates, cars, boy bands, or a Sweet Sixteen extravaganza!

Regardless of what activities or setting you choose, you can give yourself a giant pat on the back for giving your teen an awesome birthday party that they will remember forever.

• Teen Party Food Ideas
• Teen Party Favor Ideas
• Etiquette

Kid’s birthday party game & activity ideas  :

• Carnival Games
• Instant download games
• Art & Crafts
• Activity Placemats

A kid’s birthday party can be nothing short of an amazing fun-filled event! There are so many options when it comes to themes, activities, and games, that it can seem a bit overwhelming when planning a child’s birthday party. However, with the right frame of mind and an embrace on creativity, this can be a party planning experience that you’ll fall in love with.

The biggest hurdle that tends to come along with planning a child’s birthday is the activities! No matter what age, kids need to be involved, interacting, and as far away from the possibility of boredom. First, we’ll start with the basic games that can work indoors or outdoors and in any setting or theme for a party. No matter what activities you decide on doing, remember this rule of thumb: for children of all ages, you should keep the party under three hours. With this in mind, you will have about an hour or so of time for activities and games. To keep boredom at bay, plan for two to three activities for the kids that last around fifteen minutes each.

A great activity that works both inside or out and is a great way to start off the party is an icebreaker type game. One of the most popular forms of this activity that can be played by all ages is the “Find Your Match” game. All you need is paper and safety pins! (Alternatively you can use Sticky Tape). On the slips of paper, write down famous pairings that kids will instantly know (i.e. Charlie Brown and Snoopy or Mickey Mouse and Pluto). Pin these pieces of paper to the back of each child’s shirt and have them walk around to the other children asking questions to help them figure out whose name they have. Not only does this have the kids interacting immediately with everyone, but also serves as a fun competition to find a new friend that is a match! Other games that work for all ages and indoor or outdoor spaces are charades, finger painting, treasure hunts, and balloon decorating with scented, toxic-free markers.

Free Printable “Find Your Match” Game

Free Printable “Find Your Match” Game

If the weather is nice and you have a great outdoor space, then there are tons of options for birthday party activities here (and less stress of a mess!). A piñata game full of candy and laughs is a popular event and gets every child involved. You can find all sorts of Pinata at Amazon.com. Field games such as sack races, horseshoe toss, and the timeless egg toss are also great ideas for activities that are interactive and time-friendly. For warmer days outside, water-themed games are a great way to not only keep the kids entertained, but also to keep them cool. Water balloons, a dunking station, or water guns are perfect for these kind of activities. Tug of war or even a DIY obstacle course are high energy ways to keep the kids occupied and having a blast.

How to play timeless egg toss

This can be a bit messy so it would be ideal to have this game played outside. Kid’s divide into pairs and stand a few feet apart. An egg is given to each pair which they toss back and forth to their partner.
After everyone is done, players move a step back and repeat the tossing. If an egg falls or breaks, the pair is out of the game. The tossing and moving a step back is repeated until there is only one pair  standing with an egg intact. You could reward them with a little trophy.

Water balloon game ideas

Some of my favorite water balloon games are throwing Contest, where kids are given water balloons to see how far they can throw. You can mark the spot with a little flag or a cone. Another one is  the water balloon toss game. Instead of the classic Egg toss game, kid’s could use the water balloons. It is certainly a less messier way to play this entertaining game.

If your party is indoors, there is still plenty of room for awesome activities. Create a coloring wall with just a big sheet of paper and painters tape! This activity is unique in itself as coloring on the walls is definitely not something the kids get to do every day! Pin the tail on the donkey or any similar type game is also an easy up-on-the-wall activity that makes for a lot of giggles. DIY kits for the kids are perhaps the best birthday activity you can do inside the home. These kits include DIY creations such as jewelry, pottery, origami, moldings, or paint-by-numbers. The really wonderful thing about DIY kit activities is that they keep the kids constantly using their imaginations, so not only do you avoid boredom, but you keep the brain working!

What’s amazing about all these activities and game ideas mentioned is that they work for kids of all ages and both genders. If you’re throwing an all-girl or all-boy birthday party, every single one of the suggested activities only need a slight tweak to be made gender specific. The ice breaker game can be made up of matches consisting of Disney princesses for girls, while the outdoor piñata game can be made for boys with a piñata in the shape of a ninja turtle. DIY kits for girls can be bracelet making, cookie decorating, or paper doll creations, while pin the tail on the donkey can become pin the mask on Batman and Robin for the boys.

Decorations set the tone for a child’s birthday party, but it is the activities that will create lasting memories for the kids and the adults alike for years to come.

• Kid’s Party Food Ideas
• Kid’s Party Favor Ideas
• Party Etiquette