Slumber Party Activities

Last week I hosted the 7th Annual Roskelley Girls Slumber Party! All of my sisters, sister-in-laws, and nieces are invited. It is one of the things I look forward to most all year!

I love that it brings together all the women in my family and gives the girls time to build friendships and memories with their cousins. 

What I’ve learned about hosting a slumber party

I’ve learned a few things in my years of planning slumber parties that I want to pass on to you:

1. Keep it simple. The years that I over plan, I am running around getting the next activity ready and am not able to enjoy it myself. The girls are happy playing night games or watching a movie and don’t need a ton of planned out activities. I even keep the food simple. I ordered pizza and made a huge salad. Then I provide tons of soda (and even dirty diet cokes for the big girls). Each family brings a treat to share. 
2. That said, do have a general slumber party plan. I try to have an outline and things prepared ahead of time so when they come and say, “what’s next” I’ve got an answer.
3. Set the rules. We only have 3 – no crying, no Mom’s allowed (they can eat as much candy as they want) and when its time for bed, it is time for bed (something that didn’t work this year).

Here are the Slumber Party Activities we did this year!

NAIL PAINTING

My niece, Amanda, has a box of about 25 nail polish colors and these amazing Nail Polish Pens that you can use to make fun designs. They have a really fine tip for making polka dots, stripes, flowers and more. The girls LOVED getting a little mani-pedi. 

MAKE OVERS

What’s a slumber party without makeovers? I put all the girls names into a bag and the name they draw out is the person who will do their make-up. I let them use a case of make up I’ve had for years (similar to this Makeup Case you can purchase). 

To keep it “pretty” I had them pick their favorite Disney Princess and have their make-up done in those colors. It is so fun to see one of the little girls get super excited when they get to do the make-up of one of the older girls. We also french braid their hair. 

RELAY RACES

Each year during the sleepover we’ve done different relay races. This one is a favorite of mine.

• The girls are split into two teams and handed a brown paper bag with a food item inside it.
• They sit across from the girl with the corresponding number and we have a relay race.
• The #1’s have to open their bag, eat their item and then move onto #2, and on down the line until we have a winning team.
• The bags with the same number are filled with the same treats.
• I did licorice in #1, a Dum Dum sucker in #2, a small Laffy Taffy in #3 and a large marshmallow in #4. 

DANCE CHOREOGRAPHY

This is my favorite activity of the entire slumber party.

• We split the girls into groups of about 3-4 girls.
• Each group has to draw 5 or 6 dance moves out of a bag.
• Then, they take a song and have to choreograph a dance using those moves.
• I have an adult help each group and they take about 20 – 30 minutes to choreograph.
• Then we have a performance.
• It is so funny and so much fun! Then at the very end we all join in and dance together.
• Here is the list of dance moves I use to put in the bag: Dance Moves

TRUTH OR DARE

What is a sleepover without Truth or Dare?! I let them all pile onto my trampoline and they play until everyone has had a turn (this is also my chance to go inside and pop the popcorn for the movie). I give them a bag filled with cut up pieces of paper with DARES they can use if they can’t come up with one on their own. Here are the list of dares: Truth or Dare

MOVIE

At 9:00 pm we set up the beds and start a movie. We pop lots of popcorn and send bowls of treats around during the movie. This year we watched RV with Robin Williams – hilarious!! Then it is lights out as soon as the movie is over.

PRANKS

It’s lights out – normally – but this year we had a group of girls that stayed up drawing sharpie mustaches on sleepers until 2 am!! I was totally asleep upstairs the whole time and didn’t even know until the next morning when I woke to find lots of silly faces!

We serve pancakes and bacon (and more soda) in the morning and then the girls are off! I cleaned up my house and as I sat down, my daughter told me how much fun she had and asked if we could have another sleepover that night. 🙂 It is one of the funnest nights of the whole year, but I need a day or two to recover – and a nap! 🙂

Until next year, my beautiful nieces – I LOVE YOU!!

Want more slumber party fun? Check out what we did the last two years: Here & Here