My wee man is 6 today!! So we had a mystery party. Being that all the invited guests were 6 or younger I didn’t think we were quite ready for murder mystery (and neither am I!)

But we did do a great old mystery party – one sweet guest said to me, ‘Mrs F********* (they call me this because I do parent help at school) this is the best party I’ve ever been too.’ Bless him – it was a lovely bunch of friends he invited.

I had rather a tight schedule for the party we missed a couple of games entirely but we had FUN!

When the guest arrived they did a Mystery Person sheet – a self-portrait with some extra info afterwards. The intention was to use these to guest who was who at the end of party but we ran out of time.

All the guests received a pack with a magnifying glass, a clues notebook, a clues pencil, a name sticker, a little envelope with colour swatches in it and they added their prizes to it as they went

We played -

The Mystery box – feel it, shake it and write-up your guess in box 1 then I gave them 3 clues – I am metal, I am found in the kitchen and you use me to eat with. Then they wrote their second guess.

Guess the Guest – each guest rsvp’d by email with month of birth, no. of siblings, favourite – food, colour and animal. They put their name stickers on (so people could write their names without having to guess spelling etc) and I read out the information about each person and they wrote the names next to the spaces.

What’s My Colour – time was ticking along so I did this instead of getting the kids up and giving them a go. Each child had 7 colour swatches and I gave them a clue and they had to be the first to hold up the colour e.g- I am the colour of grass.

What is My Number – 9 different number sentences and the children wrote which number they thought was the mystery number for each sentence. E.g – I am less than 10, I am even and I rhyme with 4

Then we had a mystery treasure hunt each clue was written on white paper with white crayon so they had to paint dye over each clue after they found it to expose its message

Food – we had mystery food bags. I showed them some very cute ‘food pictures’ then gave them a mystery bag filled with foodie bits which they had to make into a picture on a white serviette and then tell everyone what they made.

I also provided some extra bits, including plain bread which a few of them used and then ate!

Cake – a big question mark made from cupcakes – easy!!!

Mystery Box Punch – I saw this idea on pinterest a while ago and it was a neat way to give the kids a small prize to take home.I forgot to take a final before pic!!!

They picked a number out of a hat which determined their order. (Flip and I had already discussed he would go last) and then they punched through the tissue to get their prize.

The party was great fun the 1.5hours disappeared and we didn’t get to the Mystery Bag – put your hand in a bag and guess the item before pulling it out, Reverse Hide and Seek, or finish the Mystery Person Pages. I probably could have done 2 hours but I always like to keep things short and sweet before there are tears and tantrums!!

A great day, a simple easy themed party, all good! What is your best birthday party tip??

The other thing that worked well was a list of jobs that needed to be done today so that everyone could help with the jobs to get the party ready and I didn’t have to give jobs out constantly.

And I’m joining in with Simone’s great link because I love seeing what others are up to!