My son is having his birthday party this Saturday. We will have 12 9 year old boys invading our apartment. Now I need help with suggestions on nice activities/games to calm them down. Anyone?

singstar, musical chairs, pass the parcel, twister, hunt the something that youve hidden in the apartment, wrapping each other in loo roll to make the best mummy, pin the tail on the donkey, heck the list is endless.

Order take out pizza letting them each choose(or make your own and let them do their toppings if you can stand that) then have a DVD fest .. with ice cream and pop corn in the interval.

That is the only way I can actually think of calming them down

the sportenlagen off sonnenbergstrasse (just after you pass under the motorway toward gattikon) has a nice ice skating rink. this is how we entertained 12 8 year old girls at a recent bday party for our daughter.

Paper Crafts, Orogami

Mind Competitions,

Story telling (each of them tells a 5 min story) and they evaluate each other,

Try to avoid things that needs physical effort as they might make big noise, especially there will be a lot of boys there...

oops missed that the point was to calm them down. is that a party? could just give them a dose of nightnurse and when they wake up tell them how great it was.

My mom did this for us at a couple of slumber-parties we had when I was around that age, it was a big hit! You can get pre-made pizza dough in the refrigerated section of both Coop and Migros (and "home-made" dough at Manor if I remember right). Pretty fun to have a variety of toppings available with some basic dough and sauces, you can get "big" bags of "pizza cheese" at Coop and Migros as well.

It's supposed to be quite cold this weekend, an idea to work off some energy may be to have something like a "scavenger hunt" outside. I know you said you're looking for indoor activities but being out in the cold will expand a bit more energy than inside - just make sure all the parents know the kiddos need to be bundled up well.

Hubby's birthday is in December, so has gone through the "winter birthday activities" thing, he said that one time that his friends seemed to enjoy particularly well, he and his mother planned out a mini-fair. They played carnival / fair type games, with prizes for the winner.

Another idea, if ya'll happen to have console games (with multi-player capabilities) like Wii, you could pick some short(ish) games to have competitions, also with small prizes for the winner.


I think no matter what you plan, 12 boys that age (well, any age really!) will be quite tough to keep quiet. Maybe bring around some small cakes to your neighbors sometime over the next couple of days, letting them know ahead of time that you've got something special coming up.

yup, give 'em lots of sugar

Hey
we used to play this at my birthdays when i was young, it can get a little messy though.

you need a bag of white flour and a large bean or haselnut(type thing).

The goal is not to be the person that makes the bean fall off the top of the flour.

you pour out the flour onto a table (make sure to use a table cloth if you want to clean up easier).
pour it in a large conical pile as high as possible. then place the large bean on the very top.
then the kids take turns at removing parts of the "flour mountain" with a blunt knife (a bigger knife is better as you can chop more away; easier at the early stages)
early on they will be removing large chunks but by the end its really tricky and you end up shaving tiny parts from the pile of flour off the flour pile which should now resemble an eggtimer, with a bean on top.

the person who makes the bean fall from the top has to push their face into the pile of flour.

So now you have a child a flour face; which they have to clean. as i said not a tidy game but loads of fun, cheap and easy.

If they are boys they will feel especially "cool" if using a larger knife (supervised of course) and at the end the suspense is really high and even the risk factor of breathing on the flour tower becomes a factor. also seeing one of their friends with a flour face running to the bathroom is funny. make sure you have a camera.

hope this helps

Ice cream is not as high in sugar as you would think .. I know this because we have an insulin dependent diabetic here .. he can eat ice cream (certain brands and flavours), can't eat yoghurts etc.

And popcorn .. that's with a small shaking of salt. Where is the sugar?

Edit: There may be sugar in shop bought pizza or tomato sauce .. I make my own exactly to avoid the sugar. For our insulin dependent diabetic, this is a good "treat" meal (as long as we are careful about the amount of pizza base consumed)

Wow, thank you so much! Now I feel well prepared for the party. Actually calming them down might have been the wrong expression but at least keep them busy enough not to go berserk.

About the "do it yourself" pizzas also, I've gotten pita bread for hubby and I to make individual pizzas before also - this way you don't have to worry about making sure the dough is cooked through, only have to bake them long enough for the cheese to melt.

Fyi, the party was a success. Although I was shocked by how loud such a small crowd can be. And what's up with the wrestling? Is that 9 year old boys normal way of hanging out?

Huge respect to you for having so many 9 year olds in one place and surviving! When I first saw your post I didn't want to say anything too negative but I did think (1) I wouldn't do it and (2) tie down/remove all items of anything vaguely useful that might break because ... yes .. wrestling is normal 9 year old behaviour!