This age will like paper crackers, with funny hats inside, and little paper cups, decorated by your child, filled with candies -hard ones, gumdrops and such. The host should help decide what there'll be to eat, but here's a suggestion:

menu

eight- and nine-year-olds
It's often preferable, from the point of view of both adult and child, to have just boys or just girls at these ages. It's the stage when they have very little use for the opposite sex and there is nothing to be gained by forcing them to have mixed parties.

By eight or nine most children dearly love to use the telephone and though they may not be too adept at it, practice helps, and I suggest that invitations for their parties be made by them over the telephone. As with younger children, I feel very strongly that the "refreshments" at these parties should be a meal-either luncheon or supper. Other­wise, their appetites for real meals are spoiled, and upset stomachs are likely to result. By this age, children are beginning to be competitive. They play the games better, and they understand about prizes and want them. Here are some game suggestions:

quiz
Each child turns in a question and an adult acts as quizmaster. The children enjoy hearing their own questions asked. When the child chosen by the quizmaster fails to answer a question correctly, another guest is chosen to answer. A prize may be given for the guest who an­swers the most questions correctly.

charades
Divide the party into two sides. Have at hand a box of old clothes and materials for use in acting out the charades. Be sure that sufficiently simple words and sentences are chosen for acting.

spider web
You must have as many balls of string as there will be guests, prefer­ably each in a different color. The party child should not participate in the tangling up process so that he may participate later during the un­tangling of the web. And if you're wise you'll have help with making the web! At one end of each ball of string is tied a prize appropriate to the person for whom it is intended. This is put in a spot where it will stay put and the rest of the ball of string then trailed as far as it will go around the house or apartment-under mattresses, over doors, in and out of narrow openings, and generally intertwined with the other balls of string-until all balls finally end up in one place, from which the unwinding of the web will begin. The child who gets to his prize first wins a Grand Prize if you like. This game is riotous and is also success­ful for older children.