12 year old girls party

[lazersounds]

Hi guys, I'm doing a party for a 12 year old girl tomorrow evening and wanted some suggestions for games and other bits to keep them entertained. The disco is from 6.30 to 9.30 with half hour break for food so quite a long one I thought.

The birthday girl (or rather the mother) wants lots and lots of games (Ive just been told - lots of notice as usual lol) and i'm struggling to fill the time. I was under the impression 12 years olds are "too cool" for games. I'm told 95% of the guests are girls.

I would have thought after just a hour and half of dancing and games would leave them fizzled out and i've still got a hour left to fill lol.

I don't normally do this age group but its for a friends mum.

Any help or advice is welcome :)

[dj foureyes]

I do stuff like Follow the Leader. I get them to get into groups of 4 or five. I then get them to line up behind each other, quite close, and then tell them to raise their right hand above their head. When they have, I then tell them to put their left hand between their legs (cue lots of giggling). I then tell them to grab the left hand of the person in front of them (which is between their legs) with their right hand, which was in the air. This means that everyone is holding the left hand of the person in front with their right hand except the person at the front of the line. He/she is then instructed to grab the left hand of the the last person in the line, who has a spare left hand.
That means that a circle is formed with everyone holding the person in front's left hand. I then play either Nelly The Elephant or Follow the Leader and get them to see how long they can go round in time to the music without breaking off. A lot of fun.

[djmikefunkdoctor]

Hi there. I've got one on Sunday of a similar nature. personally I offer 2 hour parties for £120.00. as you are probably right about the 3 hour thing going on too long. 2 hours is just about right in my long experience.

Anyhoo, You are also probably right about 12 year olds not wanting games but you won't know for sure until you're there. So with that in mind, Spend a tenner on various chocolate prizes (not too cheap looking) and wrap the biggest one in lots of paper layers for the pass the parcel game. cut music at intervals and each pesron with the parcel unwraps a layer. The last layer gets the prize. one game down. On with the show. Next is musical statues. They dance, you cut the music at random intervals ad the last person to stand really still gets pulled off the floor. (get the other adults to help wiyth all these games. you'll need them). 2 games down. On with the show. Next get the adults to put out enough chairs less one for everyone competing in musical chairs. Again, cut the music at random intervals and the person/s without chairs get pulled off. Keep taking chairs away each time and you'll end up with a winner. 3 games down and on with the show. These games last between 10 and 20 minutes each so with this last game you'll have filled the time no sweat. food takes around 20 minutes to half hour so you're laughing. last game if there's time is a good old best dancer competition. I like this one because you can announce it at the start of the gig and it encourages participation throughout if they know the judging is throughout the whole gig.

If it's mainly girls, they won't feel the need to be cool for the boys so they probably will go for it. Any spare chocolate or sweety goodies can be thrown over the crowd at the end to encourage them all to keep on dancing. Be aware that there will always be individuals who try to cheat at each game so all the more oportunity to take the piddle in a nice way of course, but it makes you sound masterful and the mums will love you for it.

Let me know how you get on. Be happy and throw in plenty of cheerful comments or jokes and before you know it, the gig will be done and you'll be a parent's hero.

Cheers,

Mike

[lazersounds]

Thanks guys, I always thought pass the parcel, musical statues and musical chairs was always more for the younger age groups, not so much the 11-13 group? could be wrong though :)

[Corabar Entertainment]

Thanks guys, I always thought pass the parcel, musical statues and musical chairs was always more for the younger age groups, not so much the 11-13 group? could be wrong though :)
I'd agree there.

For this age group, you can normally make limbo run for about half an hour though! Then when you're done with that, get them to drag up some of the parents present to have a go as well.

If there are enough boys there, you can play 'Arches' Girls make a line of arches, boys go under the arches. Music stops, girls drop their arches with the intention of trying to catch a boy to kiss (They usually turn in to giggling wrecks at this point, with the boys squirming like mad, and extremely rarely does it actually end up with a kiss, but they have fun anyhow). After you've spent a while doing it that way round, you swap and have the boys making the arch and the girls running through.

Have a lot of inter-active dances ready (and be prepared to demonstrate / lead the dances if necessary)

You possibly can also do things like corners / run-around (different people call it different things), treasure hunt ("Find me a....."), and maybe even some innovative relays as well.

Oh, and yes, I'd say 3 hours is too long!

[teenypops]

For this age group I only tend to do games as ice breakers as they are usually really into the latest chart music.

Typical game I do are...
Hula hoop, 3 at a time do hula hooping longest running stays on.

Islands, get them into groups of 4/5 and give them a sheet of newspaper to stand on, when the music plays they get off the islands and dance around, then when the music stops you tell them the maximum allowed on each island. If you have a largish number then they have to cling on to each other to stay on. Anyone not on an island s out.

Limbo as already mentioned is a winner.

I have even sometimes run an intros quiz where they get into teams and have to write down the song name/ artist of some intros of songs, this gives them a bit of a break, but does take some prep, good fun though.

[Excalibur]

Thanks guys, I always thought pass the parcel, musical statues and musical chairs was always more for the younger age groups, not so much the 11-13 group? could be wrong though :)

Agreed. Only one I'd expect to work with this age group would be arches. And if 95% of the crowd are female, that sort of shoots it down in flames.

Expect the lads to fight each other, throw things, and ask for loads of detritus consisting of profanities and expletives. The girls will just want wall to wall chart, and then one will break cover ,and ask for The Usual Suspects. At this point you are allowed to sigh with relief, and give them the full barrage of Macarena, Saturday night, Gangnam, Crazy Frog et al. :D

Three hours? Probably too long. I did a two hour last night, and while I think I could have got it to two and a half, three is a long time.
Good luck to the OP, I'm sure you'll have fun.

[DJ Jules]

12yrs is a funny age... The kids can either be old for their years, or still quite innocent. Either way you'll find that despite wanting all the latest chart to appear cool, what they'll respond to will be the usual classics. I've done leavers do's (11yrs) where the biggest hit of the night has been the hokey cokey, and others were earthquake has had the biggest reaction.

All of the suggestions above are good, but you'll have to play it by ear and see what kind of stuff works when you get going.

3hrs is a very long time though you are going to have your work cut out. You might find (dare I say it) Karaoke would make the time go quicker as this age group are usually right into it.

Julian

[lazersounds]

Thank you for the responses, I am branching to looking at maybe half hour of karaoke to fill the gap, Will have a chat to the birthday girl when I arrive and see what she would like to do :)

[Solitaire Events Ltd]

Limbo and arches will work, but the other suggestions are too baby-ish.

My son is 12 and would die if he had a party and I started playing pass the parcel.

Party dances will be OK - Gangnam style, macarena, cha cha slide etc

[lazersounds]

Limbo and arches will work, but the other suggestions are too baby-ish.

My son is 12 and would die if he had a party and I started playing pass the parcel.

Party dances will be OK - Gangnam style, macarena, cha cha slide etc

I think i'd die too if i was 12 and made to do pass the parcel lol

Some good suggestions, thanks to all, 3 hours to go :)