11 New Year’s Eve Ideas for kids!

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1… Happy New Year!  These 10 New Year’s Eve ideas for kids will have you ringing in the new year with a smile on your faces!

Whether you keep your kids up until midnight or they go to bed at 7:00, these activities will keep them having a blast all night!  Have fun & have a happy New Year!

1- Count down the hours with balloons.  Have a new activity ready to go, in each balloon, for every hour.  A few examples: 6:00- bake cookies, 7:00- paint with shaving cream, 8:00- making a card for someone.
(If you don’t let your kids stay up until midnight, do these every 20 minutes and end at your normal bedtime)

2. Bring in the new year with a toast!  You can make these Candy Cane shot glasses and fill them with this ‘Mock-tail’.  Or you can buy your own sparkling water (flavored or not).
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3. Yummy (festive) snacks.  Your kids are going to love these little fun party foods on New Year’s Eve.  Make them saltine toffee (it is so easy!)

4.-  Make a Resolution together! 
It is time to talk about changing our lives for the better.   Did you know that 1 out of every 3 Americans makes a resolutions?  Did you know that only 8% keep them?!  Wow!  Last year we made New Years Resolutions and tomorrow night we will make them again, for 2017.

5. Have a photo booth.  It can be really fun to have a photo booth!  We just did this at our son’s Christmas party and the kids loved it.  Have some fun photo booth props (just Google them), print them off & cut them out.  Attach them to a popsicle stick or straw.   (In our son’s class, we made a backdrop using a white sheet with a strand of Christmas lights hung up behind it.) 

6. Make a family time capsule. Just grab a mason jar or small container and begin to fill it.  Add a recent family picture, any movie ticket stubs, one special thing from each child (for our kids this would be a rock, a drawing or something similar), a current postage stamp, a current toy (maybe a happy meal toy), your business card and your husband’s business card, a hospital band, a mini-school picture and a few other things.  They keep it in the house so they can see it anytime!

7.  Have a dance party. Kids love singing and dancing!   Find some fun songs on YouTube and have a fun dance party!

8. Make a video.  Grab your phone or camera and ask your child a few things from this year, in an interview-like style:
A few ideas:  What is their favorite friend, toy, food, TV show or song.  Be sure that you let them pick out their favorite outfit to wear for the video, too!

8.  Have a ‘ball drop race’… Watch the ball drop on TV and then head off to have your own ball-drop game with balloons.  Two people, each holding a balloon, stands up on a chair or couch or something similar and let your balloon drop to see who’s balloon drops faster.  ps- Put things into the balloons before you drop them to turn this into a science lesson (what drops faster- the balloon with a penny in it, or the balloon with a piece of rice in it?)

9.  Set up a S’mores bar – the kids are going to love this and its a fun snack before they head off to bed.  We loved this s’mores bar. 

10.  Bang some pots & pans outside!   Talk about the past year.  You can print these sheets (shown below):