Budget grad party ideas?

[stacy347]

Oldest DD is graduating this year and I have no idea what I am doing for her grad party.

I do know we'll be doing it at home. We have a decent sized yard, and a picnic table and fire pit. I am going to try to get a couple of canopies and some extra seating through a local party rental place.

My big issue is what to have planned ~ do I need something other than music and food to entertain all these kids? It seems like it is fast approaching now, and I'm starting to panic!

She said most of the grad parties she went to last year had pools, and the kids were all swimming. We don't have a pool, and I don't want a bunch of bored teens on my hands.

I've already had to put out quite a bit for the graduation pack and pictures (not that she's not worth it ), so I'd really like to keep the party as budget as possible.

Any tips would be immensely appreciated!!

 

[java]

My son went to a sweet 16 that was a "highlighter" party. They all wore white tee shirts and everyone wrote all over each other. Thinking it might be cute for graduates with everyone signing each other. Now there were a couple "inappropriate" ones on my son's shirt but he thinks it's hillarious and kept the kids entertained all night.

 

[PBJ's Mom]

We had a combined 8th grade and High School grad party last year. We had 3 sets of bean bag games and they ran tournements. It was 3.00 to enter and all teams were picked randomly. It was fun b/c we it was a great ice breaker!!!

 

[scrapquitler]

If it's going to be mostly teens and not relatives, you could just let the kids have a huge water balloon or water gun fight

Or you could set up a series of Minute To Win It type games http://www.nbc.com/minute-to-win-it/how-to/ and maybe have a few small prizes for the people who win the most games.

 

[ekmom]

I have done grad parties at home for both my kids. In our area, both the friends of the graduate and all of the extended family are invited. So we had aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents as well as friends of my son or daughter. The season for graduation parties is only about 4 weekends so there tend to be multiple parties each day and the kids go from one to the other. None of them stay long. I think we had about 30 friends come each time but most of then were in and out in an hour or two. We didn't have any particular entertainment and I don't know anyone that did.

 

[clh2]

Can you get a volleyball net from somewhere? That seems to be a "must" at most grad parties my DD has gone to. DD hasn't been to any where she has brought a bathing suit.

My DD is only a Junior - so I'll be worrying about this next year. I've given this some thought already...What I would like to do is have some sort of open house - say from 3 until whenever...have snacks and whatnot for the whole time...HOWEVER...dinner will be served from 5-7. I don't want to have to worry about keeping hot foods hot, cold foods cold etc for 8 hours.

 

[HS3kids]

I agree with the volleyball net, also if you will have younger children there (cousins etc) a bounce house? We will also be planning a graduation party, luckily we have a pool, so that will help with "things to do" Congrats to your grad!

 

[sharonmickey]

As a PP said, there are usually multiple parties on any one day, many at the same time. When both DD's graduated, friends came and stayed briefly before moving on to another party. Family stayed longer than most other people. (Which is fine since most of my family traveled to attend. It was great seeing them!)

A volleyball net would be a good idea. Most of the parties in this area are just food, no entertainment.

 

[Princess_Meghan <3]

I graduated from high school last year, and the biggest hit was making s'mores. some of my friends said they hadn't had them since they were in elementary school. My party was more of a 'blast from the past' type thing, having things that we used to do at parties as kids. I had a pinata, and that was also a big hit, though we got a pull string one and cut the strings off and had people hit it--it didn't last very long with my guy friends hitting it. I should have gotten a stronger one. Mostly, though, we hung out by the bonfire, listened to music, and talked. oh, ya, and we ambushed the guys with water balloons

I also had my party later in June, when most people had already had theres. Most of my friends were able to make it, and so were most of my family members as well(we chose the date because we wanted my cousins from tennessee to be able to come). Everyone stayed almost the entire time--it was from 6-10, I believe.

I would ask your DD if she has anything she wanted to do. My mom asked me, and I basically planned the whole thing, and she gave me a small budget that mostly paid for food and cake. It was all very inexpensive, but everyone had a great time.

 

[stacy347]

Thank you all for the suggestions!

We have family coming in from out of town to be there, so there will be a lot of people from ages 1-60ish. I do need to replace our volleyball net, as that got ruined last year. I also love the idea of the water balloons (so cheap and easy!). I wasn't really thinking along the lines of "hired entertainment", so this is perfect.

Princess_Meghan <3 ~ thank you for the description of your party...it sounds like a lot of fun! I did tell DD to go ahead and try to think of some ideas and start a list for me.

We live in sort of a small town and the kids compare dates for the parties, but yes, inevitably there will be a few overlapping, so the open house idea is most likely what we'll go with.

I also saw a thread here about setting up a "candy bar" and some of the pics were amazing. I think I'll see if she'd like to do something like that, as well.

Thanks again!!

 

[jenlynn0808]

I also saw a thread here about setting up a "candy bar" and some of the pics were amazing. I think I'll see if she'd like to do something like that, as well.

I was going to suggest the candy table. It looks like a really cute idea and can be budget friendly. depending on what you are looking for (color/type) you can start hitting up the after Val Day and Easter sales. You can always freeze some of it (I have a freezer full of chocolate and other treats my kids eat all summer...frozen pb cups are a fun beach treat for us).