Kids Get Together

The stations idea is great! Some things that have worked for me in the past with a wider age group:

Indoor kiddie pool filled with tissue paper (the kids have such a blast with that!)
"Fishing" game with fishing pole, sheets, and small toys
Bubbles
Big piles of pillows (just remind the older ones not to trample on the younger ones!)
Making pizza (kids add the toppings), decorating cookies, or playing with dough of any kind
Play-doh, coloring, stickers, etc.
Playing with puppets (maybe the older ones can make up a puppet show for the younger ones)

Above all, have fun!

don't expect the 2y.o.s & the older children to be able to spend the whole time together. There'll be some interaction, some play....but those older kids will want to do their own thing for the most part.

That said, the familyfun.com idea already posted has been a mainstay & reliable source for me for the past 20+ years! Working with a group of mixed ages, I have found that setting up stations works best. This allows for the kids to move & play at their own pace. You could set up a carnival theme.....or just keep it simple & basic: a volleyball net (for ball or badminton), a laundry basket of kickballs, some frisbees, & bubble station, etc.

If you're really brave, my family uses "summer snowballs" for a lot of our parties....adult & kiddie parties. You take a short section of pantyhose (or those little footies) & fill it with baking flour. Tie it off & you've got a snowball. It's the messiest game I've ever played....& it's a BLAST for young & old. !!!Just don't let the kids go in the house!!! HOpe you have fun.....

Use the website familyfun.com. They'll give you all sorts of ideas for all the ages you mentioned. Also, fun4kids.com for printables. Good Luck.

For some reason, it's been a hit with kids of all ages for us to do that bowling game. You use empty two liter soda bottles and a playground ball. Viola. Bowling. For a bit more of a challenge, put a little sand in the bottles to weight them down.

Also, we have had major luck with tracing each kids outline on the driveway and then decorating them. We had the kids lay down in a line like they were holding hands. We traced them with sidewalk chalk and then had them add their hair, eyes, clothing etc. Major hit and a good time consumer. The older kids can help the younger kids by drawing their shirts and having the young ones color them in.

We had a big get together like that for Thanksgiving once. I organized a scavenger hunt for the kids. Each clue was a puzzle (anagram, search a word that the leftover letters left the location of the next clue, crossword where certain letters spelled the next clue location) and had them in little baggies with their names at each location in the yard. You can find websites that can generate those puzzles, you just enter your clues. For the older ones, I made it harder. For the little ones, I just made picture clues (like three trees together...near the mailbox) and they went around with their parents to find the clues. Everyone had great fun. The last clue led them back to me and I had little prizes. My little 3 year old cousin thought it was so exciting to find the pictures AND be able to do the same game the big kids were doing. The older ones had a bit of a time with their puzzles, but that kept them busy longer. It turned out really well.

Good luck!

i agree with pumpkins, or making masks with paper plate halfs! i have a bowling game you are welcome to borrow if you want. its techinally "bulling" because is a cow ball that moos when you roll it and your knock down plastic milk bottles. lol. but its fun. puzzles are also good, or playing red light/green light?

Hi! My daughter's birthday is Oct 6, so we've done lots of parties/get togethers with a Halloween theme. One year, we bought small pumpkins for each child and let them decorate with markers, stickers, paint, etc. Another year when the weather was nice, we let the kids mark on pumpkins where they would like to have them carved, then the adults carved them. We had the kids clean out the pumpkins. One year, we had small paper bags and had the kids decorate them with halloween stickers and markers, crayons, paint. Another fun idea was a jello eating contest (we used orange and put the jello in small, unbreakable containers, had the kids keep their hands behind their backs and eat the jello without hands!) All were lots of fun for kids of all ages. Good luck and have fun!

You can also look at Oriental Trading Company and order some super cute and easy craft ideas. They usually have packages of stuff or you can buy materials to do your own. They have a bunch of fall/Halloween themed ones right now.

also decorating sugar cookies is always a happy activity with kids of all ages! or any other kitchen type activity