Navigating New Year’s Eve celebrations with children
Want to know how to involve little children in NYE celebrations? Check out our activity ideas!
If you have children nearing school age, they might be starting to wonder what ‘New Year’ means. As we know, New Years is the beginning of a fresh calendar year and the end of the current one. If they’re curious, it might be time to start exploring the passing of time with your child and what the start of a New Year means.
Exploring the calendar with your child and pointing out significant dates is fascinating for our little learners. Children love to see where their birthday falls and other important dates like family birthdays, anniversaries, Easter, Christmas and New Year.
This New Year, why not celebrate a little earlier than midnight with your children and involve your little learner in the celebrations. You could incorporate some games and make it fun with sparklers and yummy food.
Check out some of our NYE with children ideas below!
NYE Photo Scavenger Hunt
This one will require you to print out some happy photos from the year to look back on – a lovely thing to do on any New Year’s Eve! Write the rough date and the location of each on the back of each photo and then hide them all around your party location. Ask the children to find all the photos then place them in chronological order and chat about the happy memories of each one together. See if your child can remember where the photo was taken, and ask them to choose their favourite memory from the year.
Who Made the Resolution?
Who made the resolution is a fun game to play with family, friends and your child. This game shows little learners that the new year offers fresh hope and opportunities. The new year gives us the energy to focus on what we want to achieve and how we wish to improve. You can explain this to your child by asking them what they hope and wish for the coming year. They may desire to learn to ride a bike or write their name. They might expect to learn their colours or the ABC. So to kick off this game, you give your family and friends a couple of pieces of paper and ask them to write or draw their resolution on the paper. You can help your little one with writing their resolutions in private. Then place the paper into a jar and shake it up. You can pull out one at a time and read it out, and then your family and friends need to guess whose resolution it is. The one who guesses the most gets a small prize.
New Year's Eve Bingo
Create New Year’s Eve bingo cards with things that children might hear or experience on NYE. These could be hearing words like next year, resolution, midnight, countdown or January, or it could experience things like fireworks, music or sparklers. Get your children to mark off these things throughout the night and maybe receive a special prize if they finish their card first!
Balloon Pop Count Down
Everyone has balloons lying around from a recent celebration. All you need for this activity are balloons, a paper strip and a marker. On each balloon, write the time, 1pm, 2pm, 3pm etc., for the time you will be celebrating. Write an activity for your guests to complete on strips of paper. It might be, 'tell us your best memory from 2022', 'sing your favourite song', or 'turn on the music and show your favourite dance move.' The opportunities are endless! Put one activity into each balloon and blow it up. You pop a balloon each hour, and all your guests must complete the activity inside together. What fun your guests will have laughing, dancing and singing!
This year, involve your little one in the celebrations. Have your countdown at 8pm or earlier and incorporate some fun party games. Your child will love exploring the calendar and learning about new beginnings and what that might bring. Happy New Year, one and all!
