8 Mess-Free Party Games

Keeping kids playfully occupied at a birthday party need not be a sloppy, messy affair! Here are 8 creative ideas to keep the young guests engaged minus the mess. 

- Purva Bhatia

PLANNING KIDDO'S birthday party is no child’s play! Besides arranging the party foods, given the high energy levels of the young guests, they need to be kept constantly entertained; but that does not mean your house needs to resemble a junkyard that has just been hit by a cyclone. Here are some cool ideas to engage munchkins at the party sans any clutter. Bonus: Our ideas ensure that the kids can organise and manage themselves with minimal monitoring from you, leaving you with enough time to attend to other chores. It may need some planning and arranging for materials in advance though. Try them out!

1 Animal Charades

This game is just like dumb charades except the kids will have to guess the animal instead of movie names. To start with: Divide the players into two teams. Team 1 chooses a player to act out. The player is then given the name of an animal, by Team 2, which she needs to act out before her own team. The player has one minute to act out like the animal and let her team guess the charade. To make it more fun you can ask the li'l ones to also include famous cartoon animal characters such as Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Winnie the Pooh and more. As per the standard rules of charades, the player performing is not allowed to talk or use any props. But you can always change the rules depending on the age of children playing the game. If the team isn’t able to guess by actions alone, giving clues or making sounds can be allowed.

2 What’s in the Bag?