Birthday Party Planner

The secret to a successful child’s party is planning ahead, having lots of games, activities and ideas on hand and being flexible! Here are some great ideas to help you plan the best party for your kids!

THEMES
Think about your child’s favourite games, TV shows, movies and hobbies – these will be great sources of inspiration for throwing a fun party. You can take the theme as far as you like – it can be as simple or elaborate as you like – it really depends on you, your kids, the number of guests and how you want the day to turn out.

• Animals – you can coordinate this with a petting zoo, a visit to a farm, making animal masks and any number of animal décor ideas.

• Adventure – you could match this up with a scavenger hunt, around the house or even around the neighbourhood for older kids

• Camp-out – this could be a sleepover party where they sleep in a tent in the back yard or it could be a daytime cook-out with a tent for the kids to play in.

• Masquerade – kids could come wearing masks or you could make your own, there are lots of fun disguise games too – for instance, a murder mystery would work well.

• Monsters – there are lots of fun crafts you could make, playing pin the tail on the monster is an easy idea, also see the “monster madness” game below.

• Tea party – a great theme for little girls, everyone can wear white gloves and fancy hats. Lunch can be little sandwiches and fancy finger foods. Girls aged 7-10 will get a kick out of dressing up and having a very sophisticated afternoon!

• Water World – slip and slide, sprinkler, water balloon fights etc… weather dependent but great for kids of all ages (with appropriate supervision) and parties of any size.

These are great on-location party ideas. Just make sure parents know about the plan in advance and that kids dress appropriately.

• Horseback riding
• Bowling
• Laser tag
• Museum visit
• Tobogganing
• Skating
• Swimming

GAMES

• Scavenger Hunt – depending on the age of the children you could plant clues around the house or around the neighbourhood. Kids can work all together or in pairs/small groups to find the prize. (great for adventure theme).

• Pin the tail on the donkey – or some theme-appropriate variation.

• Musical Chairs – great with bigger groups or for co-ed parties. Also an excellent back-up plan for a rainy day.

• Soccer Baseball – you need a field and enough kids to make two teams but this is fun for kids over 6 and for co-ed parties. There is very little equipment needed, just a ball and four things to use as bases.

• Cookie decorating – great indoors or out, will work really well with the tea party theme.

• Relay races – great for big parties and coed groups. Older kids will get a kick out of the competition and fun prizes will make this even better. You can modify this to do it indoors or out.

• Water balloon toss – works really well outside and will definitely end up being a water balloon fight so be prepared! This is a great idea for the water world theme.

• Egg Run– relay race where kids run with a hard-boiled egg on a spoon and pass it off to their teammate
  1. Play in teams of at least three – can have two or more teams
  2. Each team is trying to get to the finish line first
• Murder Mystery – can be played inside or out, you can buy a kit to make it easier. This is great for both boys and girls but probably needs to be with older kids (8-13) to work well. (great for masquerade theme).

• Monster Madness – Tell a monster story about a monster that used to live in the house and died – then blind fold the kids to feel the “remains” of the monster.
  1. Peeled grapes are his eyeballs
  2. Boiled spaghetti for brains (or you could use a peeled tomato)
  3. Jell-o can be the monster guts
  4. A piece of rough tree bark could be the monster’s skin
  5. Dried apricot or other fruit could be the monster’s ear

The variation in textures and being blindfolded will be lots of fun for the kids, they will be shocked by some of the gross, ooey-gooey textures that you take them through. You can get as creative as you want with this – might be better for older kids (6-9) who know it’s fake and won’t get scared but will still find it fun.

FOOD
Here are some great, easy food ideas for your kid’s party.

• Make your own pizza
  1. Have individual crusts and lots of toppings
  2. Have the kids dress their pies and then pop them in the oven – have some games planned, quick activities for the kids to play while they’re waiting for the food.

   

• Mud Pie – there are lots of recipes for this muddy looking pie topped with Oreo crumbs to look like dirt! Throw gummy worms on top to have even more fun.

• Ice cream Sundae bar – having make-your-own sundaes instead of cake can be really fun, creative and is a game in itself. Throw a candle in the birthday-  boy/girl’s sundae so they can still make a wish.

• Individual portions – kids like to have their own of anything.
  1. Little mini containers of veggies and dip for each child will encourage them to eat more than if they were just on a big platter
  2. Cupcakes or personalized cookies
  3. Open-face peanut butter sandwiches with each kid’s initial written in raisins is a fun idea

   

• Fun-shaped sandwiches – use cookie cutters to make differently shaped snacks (could work really well with the animal theme!)

• Interactive foods – try a fondue (chocolate or cheese) and get kids involved.

• Pancake party – breakfast foods in the middle of the day is always fun for kids – serve pancakes with different toppings (jam, whipped cream, berries, chocolate chips, bananas, syrup etc) for lunch and they will love it!

CHECKLIST

• Invitations with directions and a short description of activities
• Loot bags
• Prizes
• Cake
• Candles
• Camera
• Food, drinks
• Paper plates, cups, napkins, table cloth, utensils
• Other parent, older child helper
• Music
• Balloons, decorations
• Weather contingency plan
• Have a good supply of band-aids and basic first aid stuff on hand

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