[Kindergarten/Daycare] Games and Performances for Fun Events
At kindergartens and daycare centers, fun parties and birthday celebrations are held for the children.
Games and performances are essential for these events.
While many teachers are brainstorming ideas to delight the kids who eagerly look forward to them, some may be struggling with a lack of ideas.
In this article, we introduce games and performances that are perfect for such parties.
We’ve gathered a wide variety, from activities led by teachers to ones where children participate and have fun.
They’re all engaging ideas that spark children’s curiosity! Many of these games and performances are actually used in kindergartens and daycare centers, so feel free to use them as a reference.
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[Kindergarten/Daycare] Fun Party Games and Performances (1–10)
shadow puppet play
If you have a room with blackout curtains or one that can be darkened even during the day, how about putting on a shadow play? Precisely because video and 3D technologies have advanced so much, a “shadow play” might actually excite children even more.
If you’re doing it, make it a play featuring lots of fish and animals, and have each child create one character that will appear in the shadow play! They’ll be thrilled—“Hey, that’s the fish I made!!” Be sure to use plenty of colored cellophane to make the shadow play surprisingly colorful.
Silhouette Quiz
Everyone from the grandparents’ generation knows the TV show Kao Wonderful Quiz.
It was a popular program in the early days of television, centered on a quiz where a silhouette was shown and you had to guess who it was.
If you can darken the room, how about a “Silhouette Quiz”? Just dimming the lights gets kids excited, and it will really liven up your party.
If you can’t darken the room, you can substitute with paper puppets featuring animals or vegetables filled in solid black!
Bingo game
Bingo is a classic party game.
When a number drawn from the bingo machine matches a number on your bingo card, you mark it off.
If you complete a line—vertical, horizontal, or diagonal—you get Bingo! Regular bingo uses many numbers, which might be tricky for small children, but a homemade bingo game is easy to set up and highly recommended.
Make a bingo machine out of a milk carton, put ping-pong balls with numbers written on them inside, and mark off the numbers written on the ping-pong balls as they come out.
[Kindergarten/Nursery] Fun Party Games and Performances (11–20)
What’s in the box? game
This game you often see on TV shows is the “What’s in the Box?” game.
The front of the box is visible to everyone, and there are holes on both sides for hands to go in.
Players reach in and guess what’s inside using only their sense of touch.
Children who scare easily might get a bit nervous and hesitate to try it, but it’s an easy game to play because you can use anything around you—like toys or household items—as the subject.
It’s fun to look for objects with unusual textures!
ensemble
How about enjoying the classic event activity of an ensemble? Interacting with music and instruments is very important for nurturing children’s sensitivity.
Playing together fosters teamwork, and if it goes well, they can also experience a sense of accomplishment.
For older kindergarten classes, you could present it in a recital format, and if you want infants and toddlers to participate, it would be best for the teachers to lead the main performance while the children join in with tambourines or hand clapping.
To finish, you might pick a dance track and let everyone dance their hearts out.
It’s a performance that will make your party wonderfully festive.
Magic / sleight of hand
It might be a bit tough for kindergarten and nursery school kids to perform magic themselves, so let’s liven up the party with a hidden-talent-style show by the teachers.
Channel the vibe of magician Shiro Maggy and you’re good to go! There was a time when revealing magic tricks was strictly taboo, but nowadays you can buy simple magic props at 100-yen shops.
Flashy items kids will love—like cloth that suddenly turns into a wand, or a vase that fills with flowers even though it’s empty—are also sold online.
You can even find videos of full-scale illusions on the internet.
If it looks like you can make it out of cardboard, go ahead and build it and give it a try!
Card Flipping Game
Let’s try a card-flipping game you can play indoors or outdoors without worrying much about the number of players! There are many cards laid out on the floor, and each card has a different color on each side—one side is white and the other is black.
Split into two teams: the Black Team and the White Team.
At the start signal, Black Team members flip white cards to make them black, and White Team members flip black cards to make them white.
Within the time limit, flip as many cards as you can.
When time is up, the team with more cards showing their color wins.