If your child has a friend that has moved away or a close family member in another city, you will know the challenges of a long-distance friendship. From our experience of being in lockdown, we learned to be imaginative in keeping our relationships strong, even when we couldn’t see our loved ones in person. A virtual sleepover is a wonderful way to make kids feel all the excitement of getting together, even if they are miles apart. I’m going to share how easy it is to plan your best virtual sleepover in 7 steps.
Plan your best over virtual sleepover
1. Set the date and time
Once you decide who’s coming, check on availability and then set a date and time. We started our evening with three 10-year-olds at 4 pm because they had a few activities to do and were comfortable with video chat.
In contrast, we planned a sleepover with our 4- and 7-year old cousins at the later time of 6:30 pm because younger kids have a shorter attention span for video chat.
2. Pick a theme
Setting a theme is optional, but it does make planning a little easier and the sleepover more memorable. For our cousin sleepover, we picked a Lego theme. And for our older children, we loosely worked around Harry Potter. Ideas are limitless. Here are some virtual sleepover theme ideas that work well:
- Beauty salon: paint nails, try out eyeshadow and lipstick and have a fashion show with music.
- Minecraft: if everyone has a copy of the Minecraft game, the kids can all play online together. Minecraft is cross-platform, so it doesn’t matter if you have Switch, Playstation, Xbox or Smartphone, they can play together. Our kids like to set contests for builds (make a base or a fairy cottage in 45 minutes) or work as a team against other online players in Minecraft: Bed Wars.
- Favourite movie night: have a watch party on Netflix. Everyone will need a subscription, or you can get a free trial for 30 days. Make sure everyone has popcorn and their favourite sweets. Leave the chat room open so they can laugh and comment together. Google ‘movie night bingo’ for free printable games too!
- Youtube watch party: Use Airtime to set up a party room. It works well if the kids have a favourite YouTuber or can take turns picking what to watch next. Then let them turn the camera on themselves! Make and share short Tik Tok dance videos or whatever their interests are. Sometimes just playing with the funny faces and effects on the messenger app can entertain kids for hours. (For safety reasons, make sure to monitor this and remind them to keep their videos private)
- Arty Party: Got crafty kids? Before the sleepover, ensure that everyone has materials. And then imagination is their only limit. If you send a pillowcase to each friend, they could decorate it with fabric paints or Sharpie pens and have a cool keepsake from the sleepover too.
3. The warm-up act
There are lots of reasons why you might feel the sleepover needs a bit of structure, especially at the beginning of the evening:
- The kids haven’t seen each other in a while
- They are younger or their attention span is shorter
- They aren’t used to video chat
In this case, begin the evening with a warm-up activity. For example, on our older kids’ sleepover, we did a virtual scavenger hunt. (If you’d like a free copy of our virtual scavenger hunt, you can find it in our subscriber area.) In effect, this is a slide show that you share over Zoom. You’ll need an adult or older sibling to flick through the slides, but it’s an easy (and free!) way to entertain the children.
If you are not able to screen share, you could instead call out the clues. Either way, the kids will soon be running all over their homes for a random mix of items!
For younger kids, perhaps you could do a game of musical statues, Simon Says, or even a musical singalong. Pick an activity that’s simple and breaks the ice.
4. Printable and virtual games
Now that the kids are warmed up, move on to the proper activities. You could do something you like from the themes in section 2 above or anything else your child wants to try.
Need more ideas? Check Etsy for party games. Some games you need to print out and set up around your room, while others are slide shows you screen share on Zoom. An escape room is a series of puzzles that, once solved, spell out a code to unlock the door and ‘escape.’
We found a printable Lego-themed game on Etsy that had puzzles and colouring activities for the kids to do at the same time as each other. A good tip is to check the recommended age of any game before buying it. This Lego game was made for age 4+, which was great for our party. I emailed a copy of it over to my sister-in-law, so she could also print the game pages on their side of the sleepover.
With a printable game, the kids do their games at the same time as each other. It was fun to hear them comparing notes in the chat after each task. If your kids get distracted quickly, then a game like this is ideal for keeping them interested and engaged, much like a real party.
Another time, we did a virtual Harry Potter escape room with a trio of 10-year-olds. Like the scavenger hunt, this is a series of slides that you screen share on Zoom or Microsoft Teams etc. This game was made for older kids; it had cryptic puzzles and logic riddles, which kept the kids guessing for a couple of hours. If you try a game like this, I’d recommend that you first have a quick read of everything, so you’re familiar with how it works ahead of time.
5. Food
When the kids have finished a few games or activities, break up the evening with something to eat. Arrange for everyone to have a packed lunch box or a plate of dinner or some pizza that they can munch on together over the video chat. If you’re organised, you could send your friends a few treats ahead of time. If everyone has the right ingredients, you might even decorate cookies or cupcakes as a dessert activity.
6. General silliness
After they’ve had their dinner, the kids tend to be much more relaxed and happy to just play around with their tablets etc. Let them be to make funny faces, laugh at each other and generally mess around. Or mix it up. Have a kitchen disco, take a tour of their bedrooms, play truth or dare. What they do is less important than the kids just being together and having a good time.
7. Bedtime
For younger kids, this may be all the excitement they need. Have a pre-agreed finish time to lessen the chance of an argument. A good tip is to start the sleepover with the kids already in their pyjamas. It is fun for the kids, and it’s easier for you when the party is over so you can coax them into bed!
For older children, the event might go on much later. Agree a time to switch off their devices, with a promise that they can switch them back on to see their friends at an agreed time the next morning. Similar to a real sleepover, let the kids see each other with tussled hair and sleepy eyes while they stagger around looking for breakfast. You may want to keep it short and sweet the next morning depending on how much sleep was had!
And that’s it for 7 steps to the best virtual sleepover. I hope these tips help you feel confident hosting your own party. Comment below if you have any questions, I’d love to help you.
If you enjoyed this idea you might also like this Las Vegas casino party.
