Planning a birthday party for your 11 year old and looking for fun party games for tweens? From indoor games to outdoor activities, these great ideas will ensure kids have lots of party fun!

If you're planning an 11-year-old's birthday party , you'll want some fun party games to keep them entertained. This list of party games for 11-year-olds will appeal to children at this age, tweens on the cusp of their teen years.

At 11, kids have often outgrown traditional party games like pass the parcel and Simon says, but luckily they still enjoy taking part in team games and fun activities. The tween party games below are all tried and tested party pleasers and your child will have plenty of their own ideas about what's 'cool' enough for their friends, too.

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Just make sure you have plenty of small gifts such as sweets and stickers to hand – older kids still expect prizes and they'll be happy to demand them!

1. Truth or dare

Truth or dare is a fun game for sleepovers and small groups. Make sure you set the questions and dares though, rather than letting the kids do it themselves, to prevent things getting too out of hand!

Write out a number of questions such as:

• Have you ever broken something and blamed someone else?
• What's the biggest lie you've ever told?
• Have you ever eaten a bogey?

Then write out a number of dares such as:

• Try to lick your elbow
• Dance like crazy
• Do a moonwalk

Get kids to sit in a circle and choose someone as the question master. Each child in turn then has to pick to either answer a truth or do a dare.

2. Balloon stomp

This can get pretty hectic!

Tie a balloon to each child's right ankle with a piece of string or ribbon. When you shout go, kids must go around the room stomping on their friends' balloons to pop them, whilst simultaneously trying to prevent other people stomping on theirs.

Once someone's balloon is popped they're out. The last child with an un-popped balloon is the winner.

This is a great one to play in a garden or park, where there's plenty of room for the kids to stomp about to their hearts' delight.

3. Cookie face

Give each kid a cookie to place on their forehead. They then have to to work it down to their mouth by using only facial expressions. If they use their hands or drop the cookie, they're out.

The winner is the person who manages to get the cookie to their mouth the quickest.

This game works brilliantly with After Eight mints too, or for a healthier version, you could try small, thin rice cakes or dried apple slices.

Be sure to have a camera at the ready to capture the hilariously convoluted facial expressions!

4. Scavenger hunt

Scavenger hunts are adaptable for all ages and you can make them really fun for older children.

Split children into pairs or small groups. Give them each a list of things they need to find and challenges they need to do and set them off – this could be something easy like finding a stone, bringing back a 20p coin (they'll probably have to ask some of the adults at the party for this), someone's shoe … whatever you want.

You can play in two ways. Either the first team back wins, or award points for each item gathered in a set time. If you have a polaroid camera or some tablets or mobile phones you don't mind handing out, ask kids to take selfies in certain places or film videos as one of the challenges.

5. Blindfolded makeup

This game can have some pretty hilarious results!

Split children into pairs and lay out a lipstick, blusher and eyeshadow for each pair – make sure it's cheap stuff, you don't want to waste expensive makeup.

Blindfold one of each pair. They then need to apply makeup to their partner's face while blindfolded with their partner giving instructions to guide them.

Set a time limit of around three minutes, then shout stop. The pair who have managed to do the best job and get all aspects of the makeup applied are the winners.

An alternative is to turn it into a drawing contest – the blindfolded person has to draw a simple picture like a house or a dog, with guidance from their teammate.

6. Blind Man's Buff

Basically tag with a blindfold, this game has been around for thousands of years and yet it's still fun to play!

One person is picked to be 'it', and they have to try to find the other players while wearing a blindfold. The runners have to avoid being caught, and can add to the fun by calling out to 'it', teasing them and making things more tricky.

You can play it like tag, where if someone is caught they become the new 'it', or if you want to have a game that you know will actually end at some point, every time someone is caught they have to sit out the rest of the round until all the players have been caught. If everyone's still having fun, you can start a new round with a new 'it'.

Best played outdoors, or in a large room that doesn't contain too many sharp corners or things to trip on.

7. Doughnuts on string

This is a good one for most indoor or outdoor parties but works particularly well at sleepovers and camping parties.

Tie doughnuts onto pieces of string – one for each child – and suspend them from a line of string or pole at a height kids can reach with their mouth.

With their hands behind their backs, kids have to eat the doughnuts. The fastest to eat their doughnut is the winner. If you only have a small space or a larger group you can play as a relay with the fastest team to finish their doughnuts the winners.

8. Name that tune

This game is perfect for music-loving tweens. Compile a playlist of some of your child's favourite songs. As well as pop songs you can use TV theme tunes, music from video games and maybe even a couple of easy ones like Happy Birthday.

Divide the kids into small groups and play snippets of each song. The teams then have to guess what each one is. You can play as a quiz with kids writing their answers down or give a prize to the first team to guess each time.

To make it even trickier – and funnier – instead of playing the songs, have one member of the team hum the tune, or sing it using nonsense words, while their teammates try to guess.

9. Would you rather?

A great game for small groups or a party at home.

Give kids a hat full of 'Would you rather?' questions. Examples could be:

• Would you rather have fingers for toes or toes for fingers?
• Would you rather not be allowed sweets for a year or not be allowed to watch TV for a year?
• Would you rather be able to fly or be invisible?

They then pick them out one by one and give their answers, either one question each or, for small groups, everyone can answer each one. It's a great game at the beginning of a party to get everyone chatting.

10. Cereal box game

A great one for kids who love gymnastics!

Place an empty cereal box on the floor and get the kids to stand around it in a circle. The aim of the game is to pick up the cereal box using only your mouth. Hands behind backs, and no kneeling allowed – this game will really challenge the kids' flexibility!

Each round, rip around an inch off the box so it gets lower and harder to pick up. The person who can pick up the box at its lowest is the winner.

11. Cupcake wars

On a large table, get together different coloured icing, sprinkles, edible glitter, sweets and other fun things to decorate cakes with.

Give each child an un-iced cupcake – you can make them or buy them – and a set time to decorate their cakes. Pick the most creative as the winner or maybe give additional prizes for the funniest cupcake, or the one that has the most toppings.

You can theme the decoration towards the party, so have green icing and jelly snakes for a jungle party or rainbow sparkles for a unicorn party, for example.

For a savoury alternative, try a pizza decorating contest. Or in summer, a make-your-own-ice-cream-sundae bar is always a hit.

12. Mummy race

This is a good one for birthdays and halloween parties, too.

Split kids into teams and give each team a toilet roll. They then have to pick one child in their team and wrap them up as a mummy (or assign each team an adult to wrap). Give them a set time to do this in – the faster the funnier! The one to create the best mummy is the winner.

Alternatively, you can play that the fastest team to use up all the loo roll is the winner.

Top tip: you don't need to go for luxury loo roll but don't buy super-cheap paper as it breaks easily.

13. Limbo

All you need for limbo is a pole – a broomstick will do. Get two people to hold the pole. The kids then have to bend backwards to go underneath.

Each round the pole is lowered. If anyone touches the pole when limboing they're out. The person who manages to get the lowest without touching the pole or falling over is the winner.

You could even coat the pole in glitter (biodegradable is best for the environment), making it super easy to see who's accidentally brushed against it. Even the grown-ups might want to join in on this one!

You can buy ready-made limbo sets. See more details here at Amazon.

14. Pin the accessory on the pop star

Your tweens may have outgrown pin the tail on the donkey but throw a pop star in the mix and they'll love this game.

Get a big poster of your child's favourite singer or celebrity, such as Ariana Grande, Billie Eilish or Harry Styles and stick it to the wall. Now cut out a picture of an accessory, it could be a hair bow, moustache, glasses, whatever you want.

Blindfold each child in turn and spin them round three times. They then have to pin the accessory where they think it should go. Write each child's name where they stuck the accessory, the person who gets closest to the right spot is the winner – if they're a fan of the pop star, too, maybe the poster could be the prize.

15. Bingo

Bingo is a great game to play at a party. You can buy bingo cards or there are loads of free online versions to print out at home, some have different pictures like Harry Potter and Disney characters instead of numbers if you want to fit the game around your party theme.

You could even get your child to make their own bingo set, featuring all their favourite things! Just get them to write down 20 or so of their favourite things on small slips of paper, then create bingo cards with about five of the items on each card, making sure each card is unique.

Make things even more fun by buying bingo daubers – big pens designed for marking off numbers on bingo cards. You can buy them in loads of bright colours and with glittery ink. See more details here at Amazon.

Are you planning a child's birthday party? Have you got any great kids' party games to recommend? From musical chairs to duck, duck, goose, share your faves on the forum thread below.

Last updated: 2 April 2023

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