As a parent, however, the prospect of hosting a slumber party can be kind of intimidating! How the heck are you supposed to keep a rowdy bunch of kids, tweens or teens occupied all night long? There are only so many movies they can watch! Well, luckily for you, we have put together a fun list of 40 things to do at a sleepover! Whether the pajama party is in celebration of your child’s birthday or is just a random weekend where you felt brave enough to supervise a group of kids who don’t all belong to you, the entertainment on this list will help tire them out so they fall asleep in their sleeping bags. These sleepover ideas and activities are family-friendly and suitable for both boys and girls and can easily be modified to fit the appropriate age group of your little guests. Just don’t forget to try to get some sleep yourself! Here at Parade.com, we’re all about sharing products we love with our audience. When you make a purchase on an item seen on this page, we may earn a commission, however, all picks are independently chosen unless otherwise mentioned.
40 Best Things To Do at a Sleepover
1. Do mani/pedis
Rather than just painting each other’s fingers and toes, give the mani/pedi session a twist by playing “spin the bottle.” Select several bottles of nail polish; the odder the colors, the better! Everyone sits in a circle, with the bottle of polish in the middle. Give it a good spin, and once it stops spinning, whoever the bottle rests in front of has to paint their nails that color! For even more fun, just paint one nail in that color for a hilarious manicure by the end of the game.
2. Play Truth or Dare
The classic party game has been a sleepover staple for generations! Refer to our huge list of 250 Truth or Dare questions for inspiration!
3. Play Freeze Dance
You know how this game goes: Everyone dances along with the music, but must freeze immediately once the music stops. Keep as still as can be during that moment of silence until the music starts playing again—but for the partygoers who can’t hold their position, make them do something silly like dance on their knees since they are “out” of the game.
4. Play “Would You Rather”
A rousing game of Would You Rather is a favorite activity during a long car ride, but it’s a fun way to pass the time at a sleepover, too. These “would you rather” questions are kid-approved for hours of fun!
5. Have a blacklight dance party
Swap out the lightbulbs in the room with some blacklight bulbs before the party starts. Let your guests paint themselves (or each other) with glow-in-the-dark neon body paint, arm them with glow sticks and turn the lights off for an epic dance party!
6. Have a TikTok dance challenge
If you have an energetic bunch in your basement, let them channel some of that energy into learning a TikTok dance. Here are a few easy TikTok dances—with clean lyrics!— that are age-appropriate and easy enough for the younger crew to master. A piece of advice: if you plan to actually post the completed dances, make sure that you get permission to do so from the other parents first! Or you could just send the video out to the parents instead!
7. Do “not my arms” makeup makeovers
The end results of this activity will surely send your overnighters into a fit of giggles! For the “not my arms” challenge, one person puts their hands behind their back while a second person is seated behind them. That person then slips their arms around the person in the front and performs a certain task. When doing this challenge with makeup, the kids will love how hilarious they look at the end!
8. Enjoy pampering spa treatments like facials and mud masks
Skip the commercial facial treatments that have harsh chemicals and opt for something more organic that is safe for kids’ delicate skin. Even better? Have the kids DIY their own cream mask by adding some honey to a scoop of plain or vanilla yogurt. Don’t forget the cucumber slices to cover their eyes!
9. Ask each other silly questions
Having the kids ask one another funny questions is one way for them to really get to know one another even better than they think they do!
10. Play movie bingo
Before the sleepover date, have everyone send the host parent a list of their favorite movies. Then, based on those movies, make up different bingo boards for each guest using phrases like dad jokes, sad songs, first kiss and more. This free Bingo card generator will make it easy for you!
11. Have a water balloon fight
This outdoor activity definitely works better during the warmer months, but there are different ways to put a twist on a water-balloon fight to make it more fun! Blindfold everyone so they can’t see where they are throwing the balloons, dump a bunch on the ground and have the kids stomp them all out, or play hot potato with a water balloon! If you aren’t afraid of the kids making a mess, fill the balloons with shaving cream instead of water!
12. Make toilet paper dresses
Borrow this favorite bridal shower game and let the little ladies in your living room have their own Project Runway competition by “dressing” each other up in custom-designed toilet paper gowns!
13. Have a photo sesh for IG
Document all of the night’s activities for Instagram so the guests have a virtual photo album of the sleepover. You can also purchase fun props online that are designed for sleepovers, or themed sets like donuts and Stranger Things, to set up a photo booth area.
14. Play board games or card games
Playing a competitive round of Candy Land, Pie Face, What Do You Meme? or other favorite board games is one way for the kids to spend a few hours.
15. Play Two Truths and a Lie
The rules are simple for this party game: Each participant must share two facts about themselves and one lie. Then the other guests must correctly guess which statement is a trick and which two are the truths! To make it more interesting for the partygoers, keep a tally of how many each person gets correct and let that child select the group’s next activity.
16. Watch teen movies from the 1990s and make fun of the fashions
Halter tops, pleather pants, cropped tanks and lots of flannel! Break out some iconic 1990s teen movies like Clueless, 10 Things I Hate About You, She’s All That or Can’t Hardly Wait for a movie marathon full of fashion mistakes that will seem nostalgic to Mom but cringe to the kids!
17. Play charades
There are tons of printable charade lists online that you can use for this party game (just be sure to use age-appropriate lists). Or you can have the sleepover guests be part of the creation process by letting them come up with the titles, places and people themselves. For some extra fun, turn off all the lights to play charades in the dark, but use a flashlight to keep a spotlight on whoever is taking their turn acting out the word!
18. Have a pillow fight
Is there any other activity more iconic to a sleepover than a good, old-fashioned pillow fight? We think not! Just be sure to set clear boundaries for the group before the hitting begins—no jumping on furniture, no hitting in the face, no knocking each other over, etc. And make sure to get out of the way yourself before you yell “Go!”
19. Play “Face the Cookie”
This minute-to-win-it game is a favorite amongst my kids, because they get a sweet treat at the end. Place a stack of cookies (Oreos are a favorite) on a table, and have one or two kids sit on a chair. Have them lean their heads back and place a cookie on their foreheads. Next, you start a timer, and the kids have 60 seconds to get the cookie from their forehead into their mouths—without using their hands!
20. Have an indoor snowball fight
This is an activity you can do any time of the year, since there’s no messy melting snow and you can stay toasty warm inside while you’re playing! If you don’t want to spend the money to buy a bucket of indoor snowballs from a retailer, make your own “snowballs” by rolling up some socks!
21. Go on a flashlight scavenger hunt
This is a sleepover activity that can be played inside the house or out in the yard. First, make sure there are enough flashlights for every participant. You can make things as simple as you want—everyone finds an item corresponding to the letters of the alphabet—or make it more challenging by planting clues for objects they need to find in each room and sending them off on the hunt with a map.
22. Make individual pizzas
Set up all kinds of different toppings in different bowls, and everyone gets enough dough to make a personalized pizza. You can even make dessert pizza using hazelnut spread and toppings like strawberries, bananas or marshmallows!
23. Decorate cupcakes or ice cream sundaes
Set up a dessert bar using plain cupcakes or different ice cream flavors for a late-night snack. Include different flavors of frosting for the cupcakes, or syrups for the ice cream, and as many toppings as you can think of to top them off: nuts, sprinkles, candy pieces, crumbled cookies, cherries, brownie bits… the possibilities are endless!
24. Give each other temporary tattoos
Forget about those temporary tattoos that you use a sponge and water to transfer! Let imaginations run wild by setting up the crew with cool body markers, like this set that even comes with stencils!
25. Bake cookies—with edible cookie dough
Use one of these edible cookie dough recipes to bake a batch of ooey, gooey cookies before the gang sits down to watch a movie. And since these doughs are egg-free, there’s no danger in the kiddos licking the spoon—or eating the mixture straight out of a bowl!
26. Tell ghost stories
Sharing ghost stories is another time-honored tradition when it comes to sleepover parties. One way to scare the crew is by telling a spooky urban legend—with the lights off, of course. Or you can get the entire group involved in the storytelling by having the kids create one of their own. Holding a flashlight, one person begins the tale before passing the torch to the person next to them. That child then adds to the creepy narrative, and so on.
27. Play Mad Libs
Everyone’s favorite fill-in-the-blank game has a sleepover party edition! The fun in this game is how utterly ridiculous the completed story will be!
28. Make homemade Starbucks drink dupes
Save yourself a trip to Starbucks—and lots of moolah—by making the crew these copycat drinks. Yep, even a Pink Drink dupe recipe is there!
29. Camp out in the living room
Bust out the extra blankets and let the kids build a fort in the living room to spend the night sleeping in!
30. Have a trampoline sleepover
Do you have a trampoline in your yard? Bouncing around is a great cardio activity for the kiddos, but you can also use it as a fun campout! Hang some sheets or blankets from the top bars of the netting, making sure that the sides and top of the trampoline are covered. Drape some fairy lights on the inside, and line the trampoline floor with soft blankets and quilts for a cloud-soft bed. The kids will love the hideout!
31. Play glowstick ring toss
All you need for this fun nighttime activity are some glow-in-the-dark bracelets and two large glow sticks. After digging two small holes in the ground, place one large glowstick into each hole. Make sure they are placed far enough apart that two teams can compete in this game! Connect the bracelets to make the rings, separate them into different colors per person and let the kids have at it!
32. Make old-school friendship pins with safety pins and beads
Hands up if you remember this 1980s fad! For this project, you need safety pins and different colored beads, letter beads, and safety pins. The kids can create designs with the different colored beads, or spell out their names and other words, by sliding the beads onto the straight edge of the pin. Once done, the kids can pin them to their shoes, backpacks or sweatshirts!
33. Have a Jenga tournament
With a little creativity, you can make a game of Jenga about more than just trying to keep the tumbling blocks from falling. With a marker, write a truth or a dare on different blocks, or an activity, like “do 10 jumping jacks,” and whoever pulls that block must follow the written command. Sneak in some math practice for the group by writing multiplication problems on each block for the puller to solve. Or write a song title on each block, prompting each person to sing the tune for an instant karaoke party.
34. Blindfold one another and play “Guess the Snack”
Gather up different varieties of savory and sweet snacks: pretzels, chips, M&Ms, Reese’s Pieces, etc. Each partygoer takes a turn being blindfolded, and they are given a snack to taste-test. You can even offer a prize to the child who guesses the most correctly!
35. Play blindfold beauty salon
This activity can be done with hair or makeup. Gather together some basic makeup items (lipstick, blush, foundation), or a hairbrush and accessories like hairclips, hair ties, or scrunchies. Put them all in the center of the table, and have each child take a seat and don blindfolds. While blindfolded, the first girl reaches out for a product and uses that on the child sitting to her right. Each child takes turns doing the “hair” or “makeup” of their neighbor until everyone’s “makeover” is complete. That’s when they all take off their eye coverings at the same time to take stock of their handiwork! FYI: Since the kids will be blindfolded during this activity, it might be a good idea to stay away from using things like mascara or curling irons, which can easily cause harm.
36. Go through your mom’s yearbook
Find the guys you think were the cutest, and then ask your mom if you were right and she and her friends thought the same guys were cute back in the day!
37. Play glow-in-the-dark bowling
For another fun activity that the kids can play in the dark, place two or three glow sticks each into 10 bottles of water. I’d recommend using empty bottles for this activity, so you can then fill each bottle up with as much water as you’d like before replacing the cap. (Don’t forget to remove any labels so you can really see the activated glow sticks light up.) Set the water bottles up in a triangle formation, and let the kids try to knock them over by rolling a soccer ball from behind a line.
38. Play the Post-It game
You’re going to need plenty of sticky notes for this one, but the kids will love it! Pair the partygoers into groups of two. One teammate has to cover the other completely in sticky notes, which the coveree must then shake, shake, shake it off like T. Swift—no hands allowed! Whichever team gets all of the notes off first, wins!
39. Make Kool-Aid lip gloss
All you need to make DIY lipgloss is a tub of petroleum jelly, packets of Kool-Aid powder, and small individual containers (like the ones you’d put salad dressing in to tote along in a lunchbox), and the kids can each make their own flavored lip balm. This tutorial breaks down the simple steps for this fun beauty project.
40. Play Spy Kids
If your kids are obsessed with spy movies, they’ll love this training mission. Using caution tape or crepe paper streamers from the party store taped to the walls, create an obstacle course of “lasers” that the kids will have to successfully cross to get to the other side. Up next, check out this ultimate how-to guide for planning the perfect birthday party!
