This is Part 6, the final post in the Planning Children’s Birthday Series. Part 1 was a 10 Point Birthday Party Plan Check List. Part 2 focused on family strategy for birthday parties, party themes and birthday party invitations. Part 3 was centred around Guest and Food Lists. Part 4 detailed Party Activities and Accessories. Then last week I wrote about Party Week and Party Day Timetables.

The final items on my birthday party planning check list are as follows:

EMERGENCY PLAN
There are so many options as to where you can host a party for children and what activities you plan for them, depending on the time of year that their birthday is. I have learnt that it is always wise to have a Plan B up your sleeve, if you have dependencies on the weather.

I have mentioned before that for Little Rascal’s soccer party it ended up raining. And it wasn’t a short shower of light rain. It poured for pretty much the whole party. Luckily though kids are no where near as fickle as adults about a little thing like rain, so with Mr Infrastructure out there refereeing, the game went on. Well for at least 40 minutes, when the referee decided that was enough!

Plan A had been to play round robin games of soccer, lunch, then some soccer skills games, cake and home. We had checked out the forecast and could see rain on the horizon so Plan B was hopefully some soccer game time, musical statues (I downloaded top 40 music under directions from the kids, which they said was songs that “everyone at school liked”, even though they weren’t to my taste!), lunch, inside balloon games (teams keeping the balloon of the ground, popping balloon to receive the lolly etc), cake and home.

I was so relieved to have had a Plan B and the resources to implement it on the day of the birthday party, because with about 18 seven year old boys in the house, it could have ended up a bit wild.

THANK YOU NOTES
I have to admit that I have only started sending out thank you notes for children;s birthday parties since I moved to Surrey Hills. It wasn’t the norm amongst my inner city friends to do this, but in the eastern suburbs it appeared to be, so I have added the task to my birthday party planning check list.

As with the invitations I like to make my own, using the design of the invitation as a base and adding a group photo of the children taken at the party. Kids love to see photos of themselves.

We went to a smaller party earlier this year and through out the party the mother made sure that she took a photo of the birthday girl with every guest and then used this photo as the basis for the thank you card. It was even more lovely to have this keepsake as the family has now moved interstate.

Do you send out thank you notes? If so do you make them yourself?

Thank you to everyone who has left comments over the birthday party planning series. I now have some great new ideas on themes, food and activities for the next round of children’s birthdays in my house!

All the posts about birthday party planning have been linked back into the 10 Point Birthday Party Plan Check List, so you an click through the different tasks from the one spot.

Technorati Tags: birthday parties, children, Planning

• Planning Children’s Birthday Parties - Party Week and Party Day Timetables.
• Planning Children’s Birthday Parties - Activities and Accessories.
• Planning Children’s Birthday Parties - Guest and Food Lists.
• 10 Point Children’s Birthday Party Plan