Zoom Birthday Party
Covid-19 has changed the course of life for many of us, we are all affected yet are adjusting to the situation, technology has kept us connected. The kids, on the other hand, are neither that technologically adept, nor are they so well versed with communications. Most of the kids are getting lonely. Even with online school, they are not assured of their friend’s presence.
Compound it with an upcoming birthday, the loneliness of a child hits hard. Even though they may understand the situation, or not, depending on their age, they still miss the birthday parties that they had. I faced a similar dilemma with my kids. My younger one had his birthday and I didn’t know what to do.
I baked a cake, I somehow arranged balloons, I planned his favourite food menu, but then it was still very blank, empty. He wanted a party. A birthday party. I could have ignored it as a tantrum, I could have explained it to him, but I chose a different path. I chose an online birthday party!!
An online birthday party basically means a zoom birthday. Zoom is an app whereby you can make multi-user video calls/meetings. So I decided to use that and got to task.
The first thing I did was to invite his close friends. I made a video invite, called up their mothers and got the app downloaded.
Next came was creating a meeting room for the zoom birthday party. So I created a meeting room and named it an online birthday party.
Then I sent the meeting room id to all his friends on their whatsapp, selected time and got to task.
My son in the interim starts complaining about my screen time. He tells me, “Mumma you keep telling me no, see how many hours you are glued to your phone.” I apologise to him and tell him as an adult I am allowed. (ah well I am sure once he realises that it is all happening for his online birthday party, he might forgive me!)
Now came the toughest part for the birthday! Deciding on what to do when I got them on to the plan of the zoom birthday party. I searched online, but couldn’t find any resource that could help me (thus my post, tbh, I thought it might just help another hapless mom!) I then started brainstorming as to what games didn’t need personal contact! My eureka moment came late night and I spent the entire night planning the games. The games I decided were-
- Bingo/Housie/Tambola- I made tambola tickets with things from school in a 5*3 grid. I put things like a lunchbox, teacher, friends, pencil, recess, sharpener, subjects etc etc and sent the tickets to the mothers, who agreed to copy the ticket on a piece of paper for their child.
- Then I chose Memory game- I made a box of 20 things. I showed the things to all of them one by one, gave them time to see it and memorise it and then asked them to write all the things they remembered on a piece of paper. Whoever got the highest correct won. (Well my son won, cheater that he is)
- Then I decided to do musical faces- the kids had to make funny faces when the song was being played. When I stopped the music, they had to freeze their expressions (like statue game only re). The one who moved was out. It was too much fun, the kids literally rolled in laughter here, it was probably the highlight of the online birthday party.
- Then came who am I- basically this was a riddle quiz which made zoom birthday party a quiz show. I would ask a riddle to every kid, whoever got the maximum correct won. This got a tad too long, so we decided whoever got it fastest won.
- Then came my favourite- Charades- dumb charades just needs no contact or nothing right? Such an easy online kid game it was. So I gave the kid a clue of the movie’s name (sent it to the mothers whatsapp to prevent others knowing), the kids enacted them and others guessed. This again brought the house down. They were having a ball.
- Last came to the “name place animal thing”- I knew the kids wouldn’t write so much, so I made it a turn by turn thing, first kids tell all the names, then the place, then animals and lastly things. The one who couldn’t guess was out. This was a bit boring as the other online birthday party games had already tired them out.
I ended the session with the cake cutting in front of his friends. As gifts for the games, the mothers had agreed to give 15 mins of screen time to their kids.
My son is over the moon with his zoom birthday party and can’t stop bragging to his friends that his momma is the best momma to think of online games for a birthday party and create a party online for him.
I am a happy mom who just realised every problem has a solution, you just need to think deep. Go ahead and plan your child’s online birthday! The zoom birthday is the best thing that can happen to them.
This post is written for blogchatterA2Z campaign