Children's Birthday Party Themes

Your child’s birthday is in a few months and you want to do something special. How about a themed birthday party? Talk to your child and see if he/she has any ideas—I’m sure they will! There are many ideas for children’s party themes and they can be designed to fit your child’s personality, number of guests, location and most of all…your budget.

Barnyard or Wild West Party

This is a good party for your small animal lover. You can have it at a nearby park, your home, or on a farm. For invitations, design your own in barn shapes with little farm animals on them. For decorations, balloons in farm animal shapes or that have a cowboy hat or animal on them are cute; barn red streamers or confetti are always fun; why not a personalized banner? Have the children make their own party hats when they arrive. Pin the tail on the cow, relay races, “feed the animals” bean bag toss or balloon stomp are just a few of the games you can choose. Also, pony rides or a petting zoo would be fun activities. It’s always fun when you grab some red paint and some cardboard boxes and have the kids create their own red barn; or just simply paint a red barn on paper. Give the kids some modeling clay (for older kids) or soft colored play dough and let them make farm animals. Children love to pretend so give th em a pre-made mask (plain paper plate with elastic through each side) and let them pick an animal they’d like to be and then draw the animal’s face on the mask. For food, kids like Sloppy Joes, cheese cubes, beanie weanies, pretzels and apple slices. For dessert, either cupcakes or a cake with cowboys/cowgirls or small toy farm animals and make root beer floats. Send each child home with a barnyard or wild west favor box and include barn animal stickers, cowboy/cowgirl plastic or straw hats, stuffed or plastic barn animals, punching balloons or bandanas.

Brave Knight or Princess Party

You can set this as in medieval times or according to the life of who your child’s favorite fairy-tale Knight or Princess is such as Sir Lancelot or Cinderella. Create invitations in the shape of a castle, unicorn or dragon and if they’re being delivered in person, then roll them up like a scroll and tie them with a fancy red or gold ribbon. Decorate with blue, gold and purple balloons and streamers; hang up drawings or pictures of dragons or unicorns. There are many games to be thought up, so use your imagination! Pin the tail on the dragon (or horn on the unicorn); show a movie such as “Sword and the Stone” or “Cinderella”; let them play dress-up by providing swords, shields, capes or fancy dresses, tiaras and dressy shoes; they can “slay” the dragon piñata or children would love a scavenger hunt. For the girls, they can use pipe cleaners to make and decorate tiaras or f or the boys, modeling clay to make dragons; put a personal coat of arms on a cardboard shield; make a fairy godmother wand; or decorate an already assembled castle made of cardboard boxes. For some fun foods, you could have chicken nuggets, fruit kabobs, baby carrots with dip or cheese and crackers is always a favorite. The cake can be a castle with colorful sugared stars and sparkling apple cider to drink. Some ideas for a favor bag would be spinning tops, magic stones or crystals, stickers, gold foil chocolate candy coins, hair accessories or blowing bubbles.

Circus Party

You could go to a real circus….but wouldn’t it be more fun to create one in your own back yard? A big top invitation would be neat—guests can read it by opening the two flaps in front, just like a real circus tent! Decorate your yard (& house) with brightly colored balloons and clown faces, play fun music, a colorful personalized banner would work great too. You’ll stump the kids with the “guess how many jelly beans are in the jar” game, play ring toss, pin the trunk on the elephant, relay races, have face painting or teach juggling. If you have enough money, hire a clown. Buy some paint and let the children paint a circus mural or let them make their own clown face masks. Hot dogs, cotton candy floats containing sherbet and a lemon-lime soda, popcorn and peanuts are just a few food suggestions. Let the kids decorate cupcakes with colorful sprinkles and an animal cracker. Send kids home with colorful bag s filled with whistles, funny glasses, a yo-yo, blowing bubbles, paddle balls, or animal crackers.

Dinosaur Party

This is a fun party for those who can’t get enough of dinosaurs. Set up the party at home or a natural history museum. Small children will love the Land Before Time dinosaurs while older children would like to learn about the lives of real dinosaurs. For invitation ideas, create a dinosaur footprint or dinosaur and, if hand-delivering, place it in a plastic egg with a tiny dinosaur. Decoration ideas could include plastic ferns, stuffed animal dinosaurs, rocks, dinosaur footprint cut-outs or photos of dinosaurs. Kids can do prehistoric drawings with chalk or make clay dinosaurs and would love making a volcano out of vinegar and baking soda! Put on winter jackets, hats and mittens and have an ice age race, do a dinosaur matching game putting picture to names or a prehistoric trivia game. Many dinosaurs were vegetarians so serving veggies and dip would be appropriate. Hamburgers and hot dogs, chicken fingers and fruit salad are some other ideas. For the birthday cake, decorate a cake with jelly bean dinosaur eggs, toy dinosaurs and cookie crumb rocks. A favor bag or box could contain dinosaur gliders, stickers, fruit leathers, toy dinosaurs and chalk.

Jungle Safari Party

Plan to have this party in a park, at home, or go to a zoo to see the real thing. You can either buy personalized jungle animal invitation cards or make your own with a favorite photo of a jungle animal. The décor could be stuffed jungle animals; green streamers; a personalized safari banner; green, orange and yellow balloons; vines, ivy and other greenery scattered around. Let the kids have fun by giving them modeling clay or pipe cleaners to make jungle animals. Make animal masks, paint a colorful jungle mural, play pin the tail on the zebra or barrel of monkeys. Using cords and wooden beads make tribal necklaces; have a jungle safari where the kids have to search for jungle animal photos; if you want to show a movie, “Tarzan” or Disney’s “Jungle Book” would be a hit. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are always a kid’s favorite! Fruit kabobs are fun or fruit salad; trail mix containing nuts, M&Ms, and raisins is good too or critter crunch. The cake could be a tiger or other jungle animal. Some goody bag ideas are finger puppets, stickers, disposable camera, small stuffed or plastic animals and toy binoculars.

Luau Party

You can have a luau anywhere—local pool, beach, your backyard are just a few examples. If you’re creating your invitations a map of Hawaii, a surfer or volcano are some good ideas. Decorate your party location with palm fronds, coconuts and pineapples, surf boards (Styrofoam or real ones), a personalized luau banner and play some Hawaiian music. Children would like painting bright designs on t-shirts, learning to hula dance, painting a tropical island mural or build volcanos and set them off. Peanut butter and banana sandwiches, tropical smoothies and goldfish crackers make a delicious kid’s meal. There are lots of options for the cake: a surfer, volcano, hula dancer, beach scene or make a pineapple upside-down cake. Hawaiian leis, a jump rope, sunglasses, sand toys, blowing bubbles or a beach ball are a few suggestions for a goody bag.

Magic Party

A lot of children love magic and even want to do some tricks; if this is your child, this is the party for them! Invitations can be made into a white rabbit or top hat. Your décor could be silver or gold confetti, bright streamers and balloons and magic props such as deck of cards, hats, boxes or scarves. For games and activities some choices are: ring toss, house of cards contest where the highest wins, twister, face painting or hire a magician; glue stickers, ribbons and sparkles to wooden or plastic rods to make a magic wand. Snacks can be popcorn, cheese cubes, seedless grapes or animal crackers. Let the kids decorate cupcakes with sprinkles and have sherbet floats for drinks. To fill the favor bag you could choose: silly putty, magic tricks, rubber balls, a puzzle or deck of cards.

Pirate Party

Just about any child would like to be a pirate so create the invitations in the shape of a treasure chest or maybe design a map with X marking the spot of the location of the party. If hand-delivering invitations, roll them up and put each one in a bottle with some sand and shells. Red and black balloons and streamers could adorn your house along with a treasure chest, a treasure map and a pirate banner with your child’s name on it. Make pirate flags from fabric or paper, read a pirate story to the children which will set them up for a treasure hunt, play a revised game of coin toss by tossing gold coins into a treasure chest, make jewelry from cords and sparkling beads, play walk the plank or tug of war and have a pirate ship piñata are a few suggestions for fun activities. Pizza, fruit kabobs and goldfish crackers are always a good choice for food. Decorate cupcakes with “treasure” they can eat like jewel-colored cand y or chocolate gold coins. Send the kids home with a bag full of goodies like coins (chocolate, plastic or real), costume jewelry, tattoos or stickers.

Space Party

This is a party for any age and can be anything you want it to be—science fiction or about science exploration and astronomy. If you’re creating your own invitations, you could do it in the shape of a rocket ship or have photos of astronauts on it or the solar system or alien drawings. Decoration possibilities are just about endless for this party; foam or paper planets and stars hung from your ceiling, space toys or star charts are some good ideas. Kids would love to design and decorate space ships from cardboard boxes; make aliens out of pipe cleaners, pompoms or modeling clay; play the “How much would you weigh on other planets?” game; complete a spacewalk treasure hunt or obstacle course; create alien masks; space trivia or pin the eye on the alien sound like fun too. Sandwiches or pizza, pop rocks candy, and space ice cream are some ideal food choices. Make a rocket cake and use the lit candles as the rocket flames. You could fill those goody bags with modeling clay, stickers, toy aliens, glow in the dark stars and toy astronauts or space ships.

Tea Party

This is a fun “grown up” party for the younger girls to have. Those invitations could be made using a real tea bag with a large connected tea bag label invitation; or in the shape of a tea cup with a paper doily. Pink and white streamers, paper doilies, fresh flowers, silver foil balloons and dolls and stuffed animals are good decorations. Let the girls help make sugar cookies for their party; making jewelry with cord and some beads or decorating paper hats is always fun; play musical chairs, coin toss into tea cups, or dress-up; let them have free time to play with stuffed animals and dolls. The menu could include: finger sandwiches, fruit flavored decaffeinated tea, cookies, cheese cubes, nuts and let them decorate cupcakes with little paper umbrellas. Buy pink little bags for their goodies that could include: lip balm, stickers, blowing bubbles, hair accessories and sidewalk chalk.

Under the Sea Party

This is another party that’s good for any age and can be held at home, an aquarium, or beach. Making invitations could be fun since you could use drawings or photos of fish, whales, octopus or undersea scenery. Decorate with paper fish or other sea creatures, sea shells, silver or blue balloons and streamers and a personalized sea banner. Create sea animals using modeling clay, play beach ball or water balloon toss, make undersea murals or shell collages, designate an area for giant bubble blowing and sand play or have a treasure hunt are just some fun activities for the kids to do. Food ideas can be: seedless grapes, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, 7-up floats and goldfish crackers. Create and decorate a mermaid or under the sea cake for the birthday girl or boy. Fill their goody bags with a toy boat, small water gun, beach ball, toy sea animals, sand toys and sunglasses. There are many, many more themed party ideas for children’s birthday parties, these just happen to be the popular ones. So pick a theme, use your imagination and, most of all, have fun with it. At Amy Adele, we have lots to choose from for invitations and birthday party banners, so be sure to check out our website!

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