23 Exciting Kids Slumber Party Ideas!
Welcome to this Slumber Parties 101 page where we share with you some awesome ideas for your kid’s birthday party!
Fun sleepovers are a perfect way to celebrate a birthday milestone and we have great ideas for:
- Sleepover games
- Sleepover activities
- Magical sleepover set-ups
Without further ago, let’s get into it.
Ideas for kids slumber party games:
1. Warewolf
Warewolf is a brilliant group game full of mystery, trickery and secret alliances! It relief almost fully on role play and can be as detailed and cunning as the players allow it to get. One person narrates a story, and all other players take on the role of either a warewolf, a villager, or a villager with magical powers. Through different game rounds, the villagers have to try and figure out who the werewolves are before they are all killed in the night!
This game is so much fun for slightly older children, but can keep a group entertained for hours!
2. Sardines
This is a super fun game for earlier in the night hen kids have some energy to expend. It will definitely result in a lot of cheeky giggles! The game starts off similar to hide and seek, but one person hides and the rest of the group count to 40.
They then go looking for that one person. Once they’ve found them, they have to squeeze into the hiding spot like a sardine and join them! Eventually here are loads of kids squeezed next to each other and it becomes harder and harder to hide for the rest of the group! A super fun game for sure!
3. The chocolate game
The group sit around a table, and take it in turns to roll a dice. The first child to get a 6 has to put on gloves, a hat, and a scarf and use a knife and fork to chop us a bar of chocolate!
They are allowed to eat any chunk they manage to with the knife and fork but as soon as the next kid rolls a 6 they have to pass the plate and the hat and gloves and scarf onwards!
Those who want chocolate therefore have to gobble fast! Its such a silly game but it’s a classic, and really good fun!
4. Charades
Charades is the ultimate family fun game, and also perfect for a sleepover as it’s light-hearted, super funny, and works across age/language/character groups seamlessly, meaning everyone at the sleepover party will be fully included!
Players take it in turns to act out a film, movie or book to the rest of the group. They can either act out each word of the title (indicating which words they are acting but holding up the corresponding amount of fingers) or act out the story!
The first person to guess goes to the front to act out the next title for the group.
5. Truth or dare
Truth or dare is a right of passage game for silly sleepover fun! Kid’s can draw cards and whoever pulls the highest has to choose either the truth or the dare category! Dares can be little challenges they have to perform, and truths are questions that they have to answer completely honestly!
Here are some ideas. For more, there are loads of pre made lists on google of truth and dare ideas for kids that you can quickly sensor and them print for them!
Truth
- Do you believe in Ghosts?
- What would you do if you won the lottery?
- Have you ever sneaked sweets past your parents?
- Would you rather be a dog or a cat?
Dare
- Go into the garden and sing ‘let it go’ from frozen out loud!
- Talk in a squeaky voice for the next round of the game!
- Eat a whole slice of lemon!
6. Pictionary
Pictionary is a great, classic groups game. The players form two teams and have to describe items or expressions for their team mates to guess purely through the medium of drawing, no words or actions allowed!
Each turn is time limited to one minute, and the drawer has to get as many correct guesses as possible before the baton is handed to the other team. There is no way to play this game without hilarious fun as the time pressure get people drawing the funniest shapes and ideas! IT was one ofmy childhood favourites.
This game can be played with official pictionary cards, or you can play just with a pen and paper, coming up with expressions before play starts to put into a hat.
7. The object game
This is a brilliant skit from the gameshow Whose Line Is It Anyway?. Children get into teams and each is given a very random household object, the stranger the funnier. The groups take it in turns to have to mime a use for the item (and they can be as funny as possible).
The turn keeps passing and teams are out when they can’t think of any more ideas. They sit down, and the winning team are the last ones standing! Then you can choose a new object and play a new round.
For example, you could use a frisbee, the crickly cord of a vacuum cleaner, a roll of wrapping paper…the stranger the better. As an example, for the frisbee, kids could get super creative in what they use it for:
- A funny hat, the door of a washing machine, a serving tray, the steering wheel of a car, a plate or anything else even funnier…..kids will come up with way more creative ideas!
8. Would you rather
Would you rather is a game full of giggles and silliness, perfect for a sleepover party evening. Kids take it in turns asking each other silly hypothetical would you rather questions, such as:
Would you rather be able to fly or be able to freeze time?
Would you rather glow or be invisible?
Would you rather have 20 fingers, or 6 ears?
You can have some prompts in a bucket for them to choose from, and then let them come up with their own super fun, creative ideas!
9. Tap the Saucepan
This is another great chocolate game! Kids take it in turns to be blindfolded and are spun around a few times to disorientate them. Somewhere in the room, the rest of the group hide a metal saucepan with a chocolate hidden underneath.
The blindfolded kid gets a wooden spoon and has to tap it on to different objects around them until they recognise the thwack sound of the spoon on the metal saucepan. As they go, the rest of the group shouts warmer as they get closer and colder as they begin moving further away to help them!
If they can find the pot, they win the chocolate and then the next kid get a chance to play.
10. Who Am I?
Kids sit in a circle and write a famous person or fictional character’s name on a sticky paper which they stick on the person to their right’s forehead. Once everyone has a name of their forehead, they have to ask only yes and no questions to guess the person they are!
The turn goes around the circle and kids ask as many yes/no questions until they get a no, at which point the next person in the circle gets to begin asking.
11. The floor is lava!
In this game, party guests pretend the floor is lava, and they can not touch it! They have to move around the room, hoping onto furniture, pillows or anything besides the floor. Anyone who touches the floor is out. You can make teams that try and throw lava pillows to knock players off their perch. Or you can make a rule that no player can stay put for more than 5 seconds to create some suspense.
This is a great sleepover game to burn some energy ahead of the night and a fun way to get everyone active and involved!
Ideas for kids slumber party activities:
1. A movie night
This is a slumber party classic, but there are loads of themed movie nights that you could use to make it a little more unique for example:
– A scary movie night
– A movie from the year your child was born themed sleepover
- A movie marathon: find their favourite movie series or franchise and watch these back to back (maybe while snacking or wearing a facemask if it gets a little long!)
– A Jenifer Lawrence theme movie night (where kids can pick which movie they fancy!…pick any of their favourite actors who have a series of movies)
2. Karaoke Night
-Let the kids belt their hearts out with a karaoke night and dance party (a perfect outlet to the sugar and excitement energy before trying to get them to bed!). Karaoke nights are always fun, and the laughs and high-vibe energy it creates is likely to be exactly the vibe you want to help set up for your little on on their birthday.
Whether you have a karaoke machine, or simply set them up with YouTube versions of karaoke songs and a pretend microphone, you can make it atmospheric with a spotlight in an otherwise dark room, a disco light, or any disco-style live decoration like a mirror ball!
3. Group fun food creation!
A great activity for a party is to make the food part of the action. Making, decorating, creating and then getting to eat food they have made is great fun so if you’re going to be eating anyway, it’s fun to consider making this a part of the entertainment. You could arrange a:
– Decorate your own pizza evening
– Make your own sushi evening
– Make your own ice cream sundae (let the kids decorate ice cream with fruit, chocolate, sprinkles, sauces and whipped cream!)
4. A talent show! (America’s got talent or something similar!)
This might work best for younger children, but will be great fun as an evening game activity for the group. Kids can split into twos or threes or work by themselves to create a ‘talent’ performance to perform to parent judges!
(Or if there’s a big enough group, some of the kids can take the famous roles of the judges on the famous talent show!)
They can sing, dance, demonstrate acrobatics, make up a rap, perform comedy, play fashion models …. Anything they like!
Make the setting dramatic by playing the theme tune off a phone before the competition starts and have an ‘audience cheer’ audio ready to play afterwards! Perhaps you can even award some sort of trophy at the end, or get pretend microphones to speak into while interviewing the kids before and after their performance.
If any of the kids are too shy to perform, being the host and interviewer could be a perfect role for them!
The announcement of the winner doesn’t matter so much but if you want to make sure each child gets the chance of winning, you can award prizes for different categories to make sure each child or group is only in one category and wins the prize (For instance: best song; best dance; best solo dancer; best pop song singer; best English song singer etc)
5. Campfire s’mores making
If suitable, have a little campfire in a fire pit in the garden. Let the kids sit around, listen to music and toast smores. Campfires always lead to relaxed atmospheres and great chats! If the kids are having a great time you can even suggest they play some campfire games (we have some great ones in our post).
Another fun thing to do around the fire is toasting marshmallows on sticks, that way the kids are part of the process and perhaps it needs a little less organising! Either way, this will be a huge hit for any sleepover parties.
6. A board game tournament
If your child has a favourite game, card game or board game, you could suggest setting up a tournament. For instance, if they love Uno, you could have 2-minute rounds and the person with the least points in hand can progress (as with any sports tournament) into the next round. This takes the game playing to the next level!
- Rainbow nail roulette
For kids who might find this fun, it’s a great game for little girls! It’s like a dare but with finger nail polish.
Someone spins a nail polish bottle in the middle of a circle, and whoever it points at has to have one of their finger or toenails painted a bright/garish colour decided by the bottle spinner! After their turn, they spin the bottle for the next round! The kids will end up with fun, colourful hands and have a good time picking crazy colours for each other.
(You can provide nail polish remover in the morning before the kids go home! But the dare is that they have to wear it all night!)
Top kids slumber party sleep setups:
1. Hire sleepover tents
If you want minimal effort, but a super impressive outcome, there are companies you can hire that might set up a simple, individual tipi for each child, or that might bring kinds of boho decorations, throws and pillows to hire for the evening. This could be a great option if you haven’t got his type of kit at home, and prefer to rent rather than store ‘stuff’.
Some of the slumber party tents and hireable tipi setups are truly incredible, entirely transforming a space, and if budget allows, the surprise will be unmatched for your kids!
2. Make a giant tent rig out of sheets and fairy lights
Making an indoor, slumber area tent-like canopy structure will totally transform the atmosphere of a space, making it extra special and exciting for this event! One good way to do this is finding a central hanging point in the centre of a room and stringing blankets or sheets across to the outside of a room (in a bit of a tipi tent-like shape) that was even in the whole ceiling is not covered the whole space feels part of the design!
Something like a mosquito canopy holder could work perfectly for this, or any sort of string that can be fairly attached at either end enough to have blankets strung off it in the middle. For instance, if the door and curtain rail are at opposite sides of the room, string a tight washing line between them and you can hang blankets off the line from the middle.
This will truly make the space magical, as any successful sleepover should be!
3. Set up a slumber party tent in the garden
Tent sleeping always one-ups a regular slumber party, and with heaps of giant decorative pillows, on the air mattresses, and fairy lights strung all around the outside of the tent, it will look spectacular! Creating a magical space for it is a great way to differentiate the special event and bring the celebration to life!
If they are in the garden, asking the group to bring their own sleeping bags could be a great way to ensure that everyone is toasty and warm
A tip to achieve a brilliant mix of colour and magic is to also fill the space with pattern prints. If you can, get a couple of patterned throws and these will tie the boho-chic, mystical aesthetic together.
4. Create a magical colourful floorscape full of colourfull throws, blankets and giant cushions!
This will create a wonderful atmosphere, and that atmosphere is really what makes this party slumber evening different to any other! We want to make the evening feel super special for our little ones, and something simple like this looks so impressive, they really will be delighted by the effects!
5. Set up mini activity tables around the room:
This is an idea I heard from a fired of mine and I think it’s such a clever way to get kids engaged in activities without being too hands-on
– for instance a movie table with some suggestions for the best movies for the kids to select, and maybe a popcorn station.
– a spa table, with a facemask and fluffy socks for each kid! Spa parties are fun ways to make the kids feel glamorous, so a touch of this would be a perfect addition to any girlie slumber evening
– a wish table for kids to write their magical wishes and put them in a jar below some sort of magical symbol such as a hanging dream catcher, or a little candle altar.
– A ghost stories table, with printouts or QR codes for some seriously spooky tales they can read together!
6. Create a super cute sleepover party pack
As little early party favours, give the kids a little pack, with an eye mask, a face mask, perhaps a flannel and some hotel-style slippers! This is like their own bespoke little party package with everything they need to feel a little grown up and glamorous. Setting up individual little packages on each of the kids own pillows will also make the room look so special and it is a cute, easy way to make the birthday sleepover feel more like a luxury spa experience!
Good Luck
We hope you’ve been inspired by some of these ideas and are that you can join your child in the excitement for their next slumber party birthday!
Best of luck with the prep, and here’s to some magical memories, a respectable amount of sleep, and energy the next morning!
