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Cheap Birthday Party Ideas for Kids
by Lisa Parris
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Overview
It is easy for parents to go overboard on a birthday. It starts with a bakery cake, professionally decorated to coordinate with a specific theme. The price may be a bit high, but the cake looks great. So you add the matching invitations, decorations, prizes, and party favors. Before you know it, you're out of money and you haven't even purchased the gifts yet. With a bit of planning you can host a party that won't break the bank.
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Baker's Dozen
Round up your junior chefs and help them bake and decorate their own sugar cookies and cupcakes. Alternatively, buy all the goodies for a banana split or ice cream sundae party and stand back as they do-it-themselves. Keep sweets and treats in mind as you choose activities. For example, you could devise a treasure hunt using hidden kitchen items or candies, have a cupcake walk, or challenge the guests to a hands-free jell-o eating contest. You could also modify old party favorites to fit your theme and play games like, pin the candy on the cupcake or "Chef, may I?" As your guests depart you can hand them cookie cutters, aprons, pot holders or bags of candy to take home with them.
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Pajama Party
For older kids, send invitations instructing participants to bring a sleeping bag and change of clothes. Decorate the living room with cardboard stars covered in tin foil, a paper moon, and strings of twinkle lights. Have a number of extra blankets and pillows scattered in front of the television. As each guest arrives, hand them a small flashlight. Order a couple of pizzas while the party guests play hide and go seek in the dark or flashlight tag. After dinner, pop a few bags of popcorn and let the movies play. Between films, offer the guests ice cream cones and sodas, or offer to make floats to drink. For younger children, set the party time in the afternoon. Have the invitations instruct all guests to arrive in their pajamas. Decorate as you would for the older children, only arrange as many air mattresses, blankets, pillows and stuffed animals as you can find around the living room. Pop the popcorn and watch the movie, just like the older children, but then follow the movie with a slice of birthday cake "in bed" and a few party games, sending the guests home just as dinner time approaches.
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The Great Outdoors
If you happen to have a summer time birthday, you can celebrate with a backyard campout. Pitch tents in the backyard and invite all of your child's friends to join in. Beg, steal or borrow any number of folding camp chairs and arrange them around the 'camp ground'. Fire up the grill to serve the camping standards: hot dogs and hamburgers. When the main meal is over, let the kids roast marshmallows over the coals and make s'mores for dessert. To wash away all the marshmallow goo, have a water balloon war or squirt gun fight. Keep a big cooler filled with ice, squeezy fruit drinks, bottles of water, and juice boxes set off to the side along with plastic bowls filled with goldfish crackers, trail mix, chips, and gummy bugs or frogs, encouraging guests to help themselves. After feasting on the goodies, divide the happy campers into teams and send them on a scavenger hunt.
