How to Have a Tween Slumber Party

It’s happened right before your eyes. Your daughter has become a tween and wants to commemorate the occasion with a slumber party. Invite her friends and pack the evening with activities to make the celebration entertaining, enjoyable and memorable.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

1. Brainstorm with your daughter to design a theme for her slumber party. Concentrate on ideas that the tween girls (typically between 8 and 14 years old) will love, like singing idols Hannah Montana or the Jonas Brothers, Disney Channel shows and celebrities or basic themes like “flower power,” “day at the spa” or “fashion show.”
2. Create a guest list and send invitations. Generally choose the number of guests based on your daughter’s age. For example, if she’s nine, ask nine girls or less. The invitations should have the arrival time and date, the theme and anything the girls need to bring like sleeping bags, pajamas and toiletries.
3. Design a menu based on the theme. If you’ve chosen “flower power,” for instance, cut a variety of sandwiches with a flower cookie cutter and place a round piece of cheese in the middle as the flower center. Arrange a vegetable tray like a giant flower with celery as the stem and rounded heaps of cucumber, carrot and zucchini slices as the petals. Buy flower-shaped cookies (see Resources).
4. Decorate the house to create a festive atmosphere. The tween crowd loves colorful, glitzy glamour, so choose streamers, wall hangings and ceiling spinners in bold colors and cool, funky patterns (see Resources).
5. Come up with several activities for the party. Younger tween girls might like to dress up like favorite celebrities, while older ones might prefer spa-related events like painting toenails and creating new hairstyles. Any age group will enjoy watching DVDs, karaoke to popular songs or going on a treasure hunt. Simply leave small stickers throughout the house that reflect the theme of the party and award prizes to the girls who find the most.
6. Organize crafts, like making pipe cleaner flowers or decorating picture frames to hold a photo from the slumber party. Purchase pre-made, paper-covered frames at the crafts store and provide paints, brushes, markers and self-adhesive gems and foam shapes for the girls to decorate with.
7. Arrange sleeping bags in a large room where the girls can spread out to “sleep.” Use nightlights and leave a light on in the hall so guests can find their way to the bathroom. Give each girl a cute pillow to cuddle with that fits the party theme, like a cool Hannah Montana guitar (see Resources).

Tips & Warnings

• Discuss the dinner menu and snacks with the girls’ moms to ensure no one is allergic to any of the food items.
• Let the moms know that they should be on “standby” throughout the night in case their daughter wants to go home. Girls at the younger end of the tween spectrum may still get a little homesick.