14 Hilarious Birthday Party Games for 5, 6 and 7 Year olds

Birthday party games are all about having fun, and these birthday party games for 5, 6 and 7 year olds are perfect for your next party.

By the time children start school, they’re beginning to realise that party games have prizes, but they’re still not thrilled if one person wins everything and they miss out.

As with birthday party games for pre-schoolers, it’s a good idea to keep the party games for this age group simple, and try not to put too much emphasis on winners and losers.

If you want to give away prizes, try to have something small for everyone, rather than one person taking the lot.

Kids at this age have developed the skills needed to take turns, or wait for a game to finish, but they still prefer to do it all at once if they have the choice.

Try to have games where everyone is involved, especially if you have younger friends or siblings at the party.

7 Great Birthday Party Games for 5, 6 and 7 Year olds

1. Animal Antics Birthday Party Game

This is a great game to play if you have an animal themed party, but its lots of fun no matter what theme you have. It works particularly well if you have lots of children to entertain.

Simply whisper the name of an animal into each child’s ear, making sure you give each animal name to at least 2 children. On the count of three, your guests start behaving like their animal (using noises and actions), and try to find a person in the room behaving the same way.

You could have a prize for the first pair to find each other, but for this age group it’s probably better to have something small for everyone once they have found their partner.

If you have a small group you can make it harder by blindfolding all the participants, and relying on just the animal sounds. In an extra large group, you could give 3 or 4 children the same animal, so that they have to form a team, rather than just a pair.

2. Get Out Of My Chair Party Game

There are no winners or losers in this game, and there is no end either. Keep an eye on the game, and call it quits once everybody has had a couple of turns in the middle, and before everybody gets bored.

Start by making a circle of chairs, bean bags or pillows, with enough seats for everyone except the birthday child.

The birthday child stands in the middle and says “What I would like for my birthday is…..”, and finishes with something that other children in the room have. It may be blue eyes, a green T-shirt, blonde hair, freckles, glasses … you get the picture.

Any children who have what the birthday child requests, must jump out of their chair and swap with someone else who also has the same thing.

While all this is happening, the birthday child sits in an empty chair and someone misses out on their seat. That person then becomes the child in the middle, and the game starts again.

3. Memory Game

By this age children are starting to develop a reasonable concentration span, and most will enjoy the chance to solve a puzzle.

Put approximately 6 – 12 everyday items onto a breakfast tray, (depending on the ages of your guests), and make sure the children all know what they are. If you have a theme for your party, you could make sure all the items fit in with your theme.

Show the breakfast tray to the party guests, and ask them to try to remember everything in their head.

Once they have had a few minutes to take a mental picture, take the tray out of the room and remove one or two items. When you bring the tray back into the room, the children can take turns trying to guess what is missing.

The child who guesses correctly gets to put the items back on the tray, and remove something different for everyone to figure out.

4. Fishing for Prizes Birthday Game

The whole point of this game is the prize, so that will make it an instant favourite.

Gather together small, light prizes such as stickers, small notepads, and pencils. Slide a giant paper clip over each prize, and lay them in your ‘fish pond’. A fish pond could be a paddling pool, a big box, or simply a rug on the floor.

Give each child a fishing rod with a magnet at the end of the line, and let them go fishing for their prize.

To make it harder you could blindfold your guests, or get them to fish from over a stair landing or balcony so they can’t see what they are fishing for.

5. Charades as a Party Game

Charades for this age group is about acting out an action or a thing, rather than trying to depict an entire movie title word for word. Depending on your guests, this game will be an instant hit or a complete failure, so the key is to keep it simple and get involved yourself.

If you have a theme, then choosing what the guests act out is easy, but if there is no theme to follow think of things that everybody will know and relate to. Instead of having the ‘guessing child’ automatically win by taking the next turn, make sure everybody gets a turn at the front.

Write out the ‘acts’ onto slips of paper, and have children draw one out of the hat. Some great ‘acts’ for this age group are:

• Licking an ice cream
• Brushing my hair
• Kicking a ball
• Shooting a goal
• Brushing my teeth
• Driving a car
• Riding a skateboard
• Reading a book
• Having a drink

If you really want to have prizes for this game, you could make up certificates for different categories such as funniest performance, most reluctant star, and of course – drama queen, or king, as the case may be.

6. The Chocolate Game – AKA Best Party Game on Earth!

This is a true classic. But like all classics, it never gets old, and actually gets better each time you play it! Children just go crazy trying to get to that bar of chocolate in the middle, even if they’ve been scoffing treats the whole day already. It goes like this:

All the kids sit around in a circle. In the centre of the circle is a bar of chocolate, a knife and fork, a pair of rubber gloves, a really silly hat and a kitchen apron.

Each child takes a turn to roll the dice on the floor in front of them, if they don’t roll a double they pass on around the circle to their left.

If a child does roll a double, they leap into the centre of the circle, put on the gloves, hat and apron, and start to unwrap and eat the bar of chocolate – of course, they can only use the knife and fork.

These game is heaps of fun, and often gets a little crazy. If you find the doubles get rolled too often, and no one is actually eating any chocolate, try making it just double 1s, double 3s and double 6s that get the child in the middle.

7. Who am I? – Find Your Partner Party Game

This game is a seasonal favourite icebreaker in many workplaces. But it works wonderfully as a party game. For little ones, you need to think of very common characters (usually cartoons!) and you’ll need to stay on hand to give them some help.

It’s also a quite useful ‘inbetween’ party game. The set up is very simple, but it will often take 10 minutes or so for all the partners to finish. So it’s a good one to play while the cake is being set up, or if cooked food needs serving from the oven.

Write the names of well-known partner pairs onto plain, blank name stickers ahead of time. Think of partners that this age group will identify with, so Micky Mouse and Minnie Mouse, Batman and Robbin, Spongebob and Patrick, you get the idea!

Now go round and randomly stick a name onto the back of each child, so they can’t see their own name sticker. Now tell them they have to guess who they are by going around the room and asking the other kids questions. Help get them started by suggesting key questions, like ‘Am I a boy/girl?’ ‘Am I a cartoon character?’ ‘Am I an animal?’ ‘What colour am I?’. You can give lots of hints and clues away to any kids who are struggling, to keep it fun.

8. Piñata

What great party doesn’t include a Piñata? Kids at the age of 5, 6 and 7 usually struggle a little to break open the Piñata too. So that means the parents get to jump in and ‘help out’!

You can basically buy almost any creature you can imagine in a Piñata these days, and usually for just a few bucks. So you often can match the Piñata to the party theme, which works well.

Also, don’t get trapped into thinking Piñata only have lollies stored in them. Some of our most successful kids birthday parties yet are when we paired the Piñata prizes to them party theme. You can buy all sorts of little party games and prizes and cheap toys like bubble blowers, party balloons, mini water guns, etc. from the cheap dollar stores.

Load up your Piñata with little cheap toys, and do away with the traditional party bags altogether! Just make sure you put some lollies and treats inside or there may be protests.

9. Musical Chairs or Cushions with Prizes

This party game is a mix of musical chairs and the traditional pass-the-parcel game. Prepare the parcel by wrapping a prize in wrapping paper. Then include an extra small gift for each child, wrapped in individual layers of wrapping paper.

Set up chairs or cushions (cushions are safer and more fun for little ones) on the lounge floor in a large circle. Have 1 chair less than the number of children. And have a really fun song on the stereo ready to go as the music. Then have all the kids stand behind the chairs or cushions.

Now you play the music while the kids have to walk or dance around and around the outside of the chairs or cushions. Stop the music randomly. And when it stops all the children need to quickly jump onto one of the chairs or cushions to stay ‘in’.

The child who was the slowest and didn’t get to a cushion on time is ‘out’. However, they also get to unwrap the first layer of wrapping on the parcel, and also the small gift that’s inside. Then, as each child gets out, they also get a small gift from unwrapping the parcel. And the last player standing unwraps the final layer to get the prize inside.

Musical chairs with no fighting!

10. Follow the Leader, Follow the Leader

This game is loads of fun with this age group, and can take up as little or as much time as you want.

Place all the kids in a line, with the birthday child in front. The kids then have to move around the room or rooms, or even inside and outside, behind the leader. All the time while singing ‘[child’s name]’s the leader, follow the leader.’

You can make a really fun course with obstacles for them to go through, or over or under. And you can include funny move stations, by using coloured cushions or similar, where the leader does things like blow a raspberry or wiggle their body, which everyone else must do.

At the ‘funny move’ stations, or just randomly, change who is in charge by swapping the last child in line to the front. That child then becomes the leader, and they head off again ‘Charlies’ the leader, follow the leader’ or ‘Suzy’s the leader, follow the leader.’

This game has no prizes, it’s just for fun and is great to play at the start of parties for a fun icebreaker. You can up the fun ante too with music and lights, and you can blow bubbles as the kids march past, or have lolly stations where the kids grab an M&M on the way past.

11. The Water Bucket Game

This game is just hilarious to watch, and will really lift the energy levels of the party, and bring out the competitive nature of the party goers!

You’ll need 4 buckets of similar sizes, or 6 or even 8 buckets for larger groups. And you’ll need an assortment of spoons, measuring spoons, sponges, or cups with holes in the bottom. Line half the buckets at one end of your lawn, and half down the other. Fill the buckets down one end with water, and drop in the cups and sponges.

Split the kids into two teams (or 3 or 4 for bigger groups) and have them stand behind one of the water buckets.

Team members must then grab one of the spoons, sponges, or cups to move water from their bucket at one end, down to the bucket at the other. They can only go one at a time, and the next team member can’t go until their team player has run back and lined up.

You might want to mark the buckets at the other end. Or you could use a smaller container for the far end too. It’s likely only about half, or even less, of the water will make it down there. You may even need water on hand to top the buckets up!

Everyone gets wet in this game, so it’s great for summer parties. But you can do an indoor or winter version too. Instead of filling the buckets with water, use foam peanuts or polystyrene balls, something that is fairly easy to sweep up.

12. Simon Says, Red Light-Green Light and Duck, Duck, Goose

These are all classic kids games, that don’t need much introduction, so we’ve included them here in brief. You can play any of these games with or without prizes. And they don’t require any set up at all. So you can add them into a birthday party whenever you need some entertainment.

In Simon Says, everyone stands in front of you and follows along to the actions you decide. Things like touch your nose, hop on one leg, quack like a duck. But they only copy along if you start the phrase with ‘Simon Says…’ (eg Simon Says hop on one leg). If you say an action without saying Simon Says, any child who copys along is out.

In Red Light-Green Light you stand at one end of a room and all the kids line up at the other. You turn around, or close your eyes. Then you call out ‘Green light’ and all the kids have to sneak forwards toward you. But as soon as you spin round and call out ‘Red light’ everyone must freeze! Any kid that moves is out.

In Duck, Duck, Goose all the kids sit in a circle on the floor. One child stands up and walks around the group tapping each child on the head while saying ‘duck, duck, duck, duck…’ At random they tap a kid and say ‘Goose’, that kid must jump up and tag the child, before they have run right around the circle and sat back where the child was sitting. If you get tagged you’re out. If you make it around the circle and sit down without getting tagged, the other child is out.

13. Sleeping Lions

Where ‘Follow the leader’ above is a great game for kicking a party off, ‘Sleeping Lions’ is awesome to play at the end of a party. It’s a great way to help kids to wind down, and come off those sugar highs!

Set up the Savannah in the lounge and make sure each child has a comfy pillow, or lay out comfy blankets. Just make it as chill and cosy an environment as you can. Get the kids to lie down. Tell them a wee story of how they are a pride of fierce lions, top of the food chain. They’ve just eaten an entire wildebeast together, and laid down for a long, deep sleep.

Then, you slowly walk around the Savannah of sleeping lions trying to wake them. You can tell jokes, make funny sounds, give them a fright, anything you like. If any child moves, scratches, wiggles, or laughs then they’re out. They get a lolly or similar and can then watch the other kids to make sure no-one moves.

Watch as your party guests, who only minutes ago were a herd of rampaging elephants, turn into cute, completely still little sleepers!

14. Party Games for Winding Down – Hide the Treat Bag

The last half hour of a birthday party can be quite chaotic. Any game that is planned will be interrupted by parents coming to pick up their children.

As you try and say hello to the parent and give their child a treat bag, other kids are running around looking for one more game. ‘Hide the Treat Bag’ is a great way to calm the children down and give them something to do while they wait for their ride home.

Have everyone sit on the floor. One child is selected to leave the room while another child hides a treat bag — in plain sight for younger children or completely hidden for older children.

The child who has left the room is called back and starts to look for the bag (make sure it’s hidden in the same room as the children are in or it will take all day!).

All of the children participate by saying WARM, WARMER, HOT when the child is near the bag or COLD, COLDER, FREEZING when the child is moving away from the bag.

This keeps everyone interested in participating…even those on sugar highs!

Make sure each child gets a turn at finding a treat bag and hiding a treat bag. When a parent arrives to collect their child, call their child next to leave the room and return to search for their lolly bag.

It only takes a few minutes for each child and it’s a great way to wind down towards the end of the party.

More birthday party ideas for 5 to 7 year olds

There are lots of other great games for this age group.

You’ll find that some of the games we have in Birthday party games for 8 to 12 year olds can be adapted to suit this age group quite easily. You should also check out our Traditional Birthday Party Games article.

And for loads more expert party planning advice, check out our School age: Birthdays section.