New Year’s Eve can be a pretty boring holiday for kids. If you set up games just for them and make it competitive they might stay up longer than some of your adult party guests.
Directions
New Years as a holiday does not offer a lot for kids. Christmas has Santa, Easter has a bunny, Halloween has costumes and trick or treating but New Year’s Eve has a ball dropping well past the bedtime of most children. That does not sounds like much fun to a kid. If there are going to be children at your party, it is a good idea to make a Kidzone away from main party activities. Board games are a great addition to your Kidzone, but instead of just letting them play set up a tournament that will raise the stakes to keep them interested and having fun.
The Set Up: Start off by seeing what board games you have in your home. You want to make sure that each game is complete and has all of its pieces to ensure that it will be wholly playable. If you are short on age appropriate games ask some of your guests that have kids coming to bring board games that they know the kids will enjoy. Set up your Kidzone with the board games in a quiet area where the kids can have their fun without all the distractions from the adult party.
The Rules: Award one point for every player in a game to each kid(win or lose). So if four kids play a game of Candy Land they are guaranteed at least four points for that game. The winner is given additional points that are based on the average time it takes to play the game. Award one point per ten minutes of expected playing time. For example, Chutes and Ladders has a stated play time of 15-45 minutes. Average that to 30 minutes and the winner of a game of Chutes and Ladders gets an additional three points. The expected play times are usually on the board game box but can be found online if you cannot find it on the box.
If you have a lot of kids there could be multiple games going on at the same time and score keeping might become difficult for them to do on their own. If you have some older kids playing they can help with the score keeping, if not have an adult check in with kids from time to time to assist with keeping track of the points. Near the end of the party stop the tournament and the person with the most points is declared the board game champion and gets a prize.
Suggested Games: Candy Land, Sorry, Chutes and Ladders, Connect Four, Clue Jr., Scrabble Jr.
No Thanks. I appreciate the games, but my friends hate having fun!
