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Children's Birthday Party Themes
Planning a children's birthday party can be a lot of fun! Using a theme and organising all of the activities, food, decorations, costumes if desired etc around that theme can make the planning a little easier and clearer- it gives focus.
Allow yourself to be creative and imaginative and have a lot of fun with your chosen party theme. By using libraries and internet sources it should be easy to come up with plenty of ideas to include in your theme party, including party invitations, party food, party games and entertainment, party decorations and fancy dress costume ideas.
If your kids are old enough, let them help with choosing the theme for their party. For very little ones, use your own judgement as to what will be suitable to the ages of those attending, as well as spheres of interest.
Below is a list of ideas for children's birthday party themes. Feel free to use them *as is* or as a jumping board to venture off on another tangent.
Castles and Dragons
Send out invitations with a picture of a castle drawn on them and an opening "drawbridge" with details. Kids could come dressed as dragons, princes or princesses, knights. Have a castle birthday cake. Make cut out castle pieces from large cardboard boxes as decorations. Have a Dragon pinata. Pin the tail on the dragon. A castle or dragon creating competition out of scrap materials, in teams.
Wizards and Witches
Decorate with bats, spiders, webs, witches brooms, pumpkins, black cats etc. Send out invitations complete with spell, a cut out spider or bat, web, or whatever else you can come up with. Have a prize cauldron. Kids come dressed as wizards, witches, black cats etc. Have gruesome themed food. Have games involving spell casting and puzzle solving. encourage the kids to learn magic tricks to bring along and show... teach them a magic trick! Do apple bobbing in a cauldron. Create and read a story where they get to add all the *gruesome* ingredients.
***See our Magical Theme page for some ideas for activities.
Fairies
Fairy costumes. Fairy cakes. Fairy bread. Make glittery magic wands. A treasure hunt for little hidden fairy treats. Little magical games... magical mucical chairs... pass the magical parcel. Hang up stars and dolls dressed as fairies, with wings. Send out invitations with a little sprinkling of *fairy dust* (glitter.)
Under The Sea
Mermaids, King Neptune. Underwater creatures. Sunken ships... with *treasure*! (Treasure hunt??) Hang up colourful cardboard fish. Make card waves. Play a magnetic fishing game. Make a huge octopus pinata. Have a seafood feast!
Detectives/Super Spies
Send out coded invitations... with a decoder wheel in a separate letter! Base the whole party around solving a mystery, in pairs or teams. Use forensic science tests (fingerprints, handwriting, footprint cast etc). Have codes and puzzles to solve. Kids come dressed in disguise, or as secret agents, spies or famous detectives.
Aliens
Weird alien invitations! Kids come dressed as famous aliens... or their own imaginary ones. Divide into teams and create an alien out of scrap... or an alien space craft. Play a scavenger hunt game about aliens visiting earth for the first time, and needing to collect a list of *specimens*. Make odd coloured and shaped food and drink and give it strange alien names. Maybe the kids could create their own alien food or drink item- watch out for food colouring stains!
Zoo Party
Cute invitations with zoo animals on. Kids come dressed as their favourite animal. Make food in the shape of leaves, berries etc... and have plenty of the real thing! Be the Zoo Keeper and *feed the animals*. Play animal noise games, animal charades.
Ghosts and Ghouls
Ghosts stories, candles, spooky noises, eerie winds. Ghostly or ghoulish costumes... maybe a ghostbuster or two! Play spooky games- hide and seek in the dark, feeling icky substances (or tasting them) wearing a blindfold. Hang up sheets as ghosts, glow in the dark spooky shapes. ***This theme is recommended only for older children as it may scare young ones. Strict adult supervision is advised if using candles or any other potentially dangerous item, and anything played in the dark should be played in a safe, cleared area.
***See our Halloween Party Theme and Halloween Party Games pages for more ideas.
Pirates
Pirate costumes, eye patches, cutlasses (soft!). A treasure hunt for a treasure chest with gold foil chocolate coins and other bounty! Walk the plank (ground level, especially for younger ones!) balancing game. Decorate like a pirate ship. Pirate's parrot pinata. Sing some good ol' pirate ditties. Make up pirate yarns.
Robots
Make fun robot shaped invitations, or send out CD's made up to play the invitation- or a cd rom to play in their computer. Use techno type decorations- silver (foil?) strips hanging, metallic balloons, old computer parts, oversized computer parts etc made from card. Have techno sound effects playing. Have techno food- ie call the chips "micro chips". Have computer games, games using binary code, let the kids build a simple electronic buzzer or light. Get them to design- and even make- a Rube Goldberg device.
Space
Have a night time party and set up a telescope outside, and have binoculars available. Invite a guest amateur astronomer (Astronomical Societies may be able to recommend someone), or learn about it yourself. Hang up stars, moons, planets. Play games about planets, astronomical facts. Have a space ship building challenge. Have food in the shape of planets, stars etc. Have intergalactic punch! Kids could dress as astronauts or even aliens.
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