How to Throw the Best Kid-Friendly Sleepover
Woo-hoo! It’s time for a pillow fight and party time! With school almost out, it means that sleepover season is coming back! With summer sleepovers just around the corner, we’re going to be sharing our tips to throw the best kid-friendly sleepover party ever that are guaranteed to make you are the most popular slumber party house on the block!
Tip #1: Pick a Theme
Just like planning a birthday party, when you’re throwing a sleepover, it’s easier to build the sleepover night details around a theme. After all, everyone loves a good theme and a good theme can keep your kiddos busy with activities all night long!
A few themes we love are:
Sports Themed: Pick your kid’s favorite sports or pick all sports! This theme is a crowd-pleaser and super easy to pull together!
Adventure Themed: Pretend your house is home to a scavenger hunt, and your kiddos are all on a grand adventure!
Parisian Themed: Ooh La La! How sophisticated is this sleepover idea? Macaroons, croissants for breakfast, and having notes of Eiffel Towers & the color pink will quickly bring this slumber party idea to life.
Summer Camp Themed: Have an indoor campout with indoor smores, sleeping bags, and classic camp games like a water balloons launch, corn hole, and outdoor tug of war.
Classic Pajama Party: Throw a good ole fashioned slumber party – encourage kids to wear their pajamas and slippers, pop some popcorn, and have a movie marathon night.
Ice Cream Party: Kids can never resist a sweet treat – especially ice cream! Put together an ice-cream sundae bar and be the talk of the block for your sweet sleepover party!
Tip #2: Prepare Fun Late Night Snacks
Depending on what time your slumber party begins, you may or may not provide dinner, but you should definitely provide snacks since it’ll help ward off hangry kids throughout the night!
Based on the theme you choose, here are some fun snack ideas to prepare:
Sports Themed: If it’s baseball-themed, grab some cracker jacks and make pigs-in-a-blanket to serve as mini hot dogs. For all sports, serve classic sports snacks like bottles of Gatorade, granola bars, Goldfish crackers, and Cheese-Itz.
Adventure Themed: Set your little wilderness explorers up with important supplies by making “Adventure Juice” and trail mix. “Adventure Juice” sounds complicated, but in reality, you can just put homemade Adventure Juice labels on juice boxes or juice bottles. To add an additional touch to trail mix, put your favorite trail mix into individual treat bags and label them with “Adventure Supplies”. Another healthy snack we love for our tiny adventurers is our Baked Veggie Spring Rolls!
Parisian Themed: Sophistication has never been easier. Serve macaroons (you can find these in the frozen dessert section of certain grocery stores), black and white mini Madeleine cookies, hot chocolate, and croissants for breakfast! Try our Hot Cocoa Bombs recipe for a fun twist on classic hot chocolate that your kids are sure to love!
Summer Camp Themed: For this theme, smores are an obvious classic. Make a mini smores station with graham crackers, different types of chocolate, and marshmallows. If you don’t have access to an outdoor fire, make indoor smores by helping your kids microwave the marshmallows and place them onto the chocolate and graham crackers.
Classic Pajama Party: Pop some popcorn, head to your local dollar store and buy movie candy boxes, and pick up tiny soda cans! We even have a great mini pizza recipe that’ll be a hit at a classic pajama party. These are all the perfect treats for an at-home feature film and night time snack.
Ice Cream Party: Everyone is a big fan of an ice cream social, and this is a super easy snack to host at home. Grab different pints of ice cream and a plethora of toppings like sprinkles, hot fudge or caramel sauce, whipped cream, and fun candies. Set up an ice cream bar by making a buffet line of bowls and spoons, the different flavors of ice cream, and lastly, the toppings. Get creative with this one!
If you’re looking for some great recipes to share with your kids that they can help you make, try these.
Tip #3: Plan Sleepover Activities
Make sure to have both indoor and outdoor activities for your kids planned! Based on the ages of your kids, you may have to simplify the activities, but here are potential indoor and outdoor sleepover activities to plan!
Indoor Sleepover Activities
Craft Ideas:
Finger painting - This is great for younger kids. All you need is non-toxic and waterproof paint and large sheets of paper.
Watercoloring - For older children, they may prefer watercolors. Watercolor sets and watercolor paper are easy to find and are not as messy as other paints.
Giant coloring pages - This is a great interactive activity for kids of all ages! Grab a giant coloring book, Crayola markers, and allow your kid’s imagination to go wild.
At-home Playdoh - This craft is a cult classic, and it’s a cult classic for a reason! To make-at-home playdoh, all you need is cornstarch, baking soda, and water!
Make Friendship Bracelets: This is an easy craft idea that’ll be a sure slumber party success among little best friends! To make friendship bracelets, all you need are inexpensive plastic beads, bracelet cords and stretchy bracelet string!
Design Your Own T Shirts: As an ode to the 90s and early 2000s, host a classic sleepover DIY and have everyone make their own slumber party shirts! If you order over-sized shirts, these could even double up as future pajamas. All you need are fabric markers and fabric paint and allow your child and their guests creative minds to go wild. Use our clothing labels to label your own kid’s t-shirts too!
Board Games: We love to stock up on board games because they’re a great bonding opportunity and a ton of fun between our family or our kids and their friends. Game nights are great because you can get different games to accommodate big kids, little kids or both! Here are a few games that we love:
If you have older children, they may love a pamper-filled spa night at their slumber party!
Face Masks: Make your own DIY at-home face mask or purchase a set of sheet masks! We recommend sheet masks, they’re much easier to prep and clean, and kids love how silly they look on them!Dress Up & Fashion Show: If you feel comfortable, let your kids and their friends rummage through your closet to style crazy fun outfits! Or you could also thrift crazy clothes for your kids to play dress-up with. Once your kids have their outfits styled, clear some space in your living room for a mock runway and let your kids strut their stuff!
Paint fingernails: Pick up a ton of inexpensive and fun nail colors from your local drugstore, or get a kid-friendly nail kit and lets kids decide what colors and designs!
Tip #4: Build a fort
Kids love forts, and fort-making is super easy, fun, and interactive! If you plan to build a fort, make sure to encourage your kids’ friends to bring sleeping bags and pillows so everyone can have a comfortable sleeping set-up.
For fort making, all you need are pillows, blankets, chairs, and miscellaneous furniture. Help your kids maneuver furniture and chairs to set a framework for the fort, and then drape blankets overtop the furniture to create the fort’s roofing and walls. For added comfort, stick pillows and sleeping bags inside the fort.
Encourage your children to name the fort, personalize it how they would like, and have fun!
For little ones, bring their stuffed animals and toys into the fort and for older kids, think about letting them watch movies or a tv show on a laptop or tablet. If the weather is nice, you could even set up a fort in the backyard and drag out an old bed or air mattress and watch movies outside in the backyard.
Tip #5: Logistics
Our last tip to making your sleepover a success is to handle all the logistics. Parents, make sure to establish ground rules for your kids, their friends and their friend’s parents before you host your big event.
If other parents’ child has food allergies or food sensitivities, make sure to take note and double check the ingredients on any food! Encourage your guests and their parents to label snacks for kids with allergies too if they prefer to bring their own food.
We recommend our name labels on Tupperware containers. If you’re also sending one of your kids to a sleepover party, you can use our medical labels too to make sure their medical information isn’t forgotten.
If your child wants to watch a certain movie or tv show, run the film or show past your guests’ parents just for smoother sailing. In the morning, schedule pick up times for the guests and although your little guests most likely won’t, encourage your kids to get sleep!
Lastly, make sure everything is labeled. A sleepover is a prime opportunity for items to get lost and with our waterproof name labels and clothing labels, you won’t have to worry about your items leaving your house or your kid’s items won’t disappear when they sleep over at other family’s homes.
Congratulations! You’ve Done It!
And just like that, you’ve thrown a successful sleepover! You’ll definitely be the best sleepover-hosting house on the block and the envy of all other neighborhood parents for your amazing sleepover planning skills!
For more tips on hosting kid-friendly activities, check out our latest blog all about hosting a family-friendly picnic! If you tried any of these tips, make sure to share your recreations with us on social media and tag us at @namebubbles!
Happy Sleepover Season!
